Monthly Archives: February 2024

New Agent Zoom X: A Few Tips on Pro Days

23 Friday Feb 2024

Posted by in Agents, Getting started, NFL draft

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Thursday night, I hosted our 10th Zoom session for new agents. I try to be topical with each one, and in November and December, we dealt with a number of subjects, from all-star games to choosing a trainer to setting a budget to signing your first client. With March looming, our topic Thursday was pro days. 

Actually, we touched on NFL local pro days; the new Big 12 Pro Day; what to do if you’re attending the NFL Combine; and ITL’s two big events slated for next week in Indianapolis. 

Though I can’t run through everything we covered in our hour-long session, here’s what we covered related to pro days.

  • Just because a school CAN host a player for its workout doesn’t mean it MUST: This is the part that most often confounds young agents. They sign a player, often from a small school, presuming that the school will hold a pro day. That’s not always the case, however. This forces the agent to begin searching for a bigger school in the state that will allow the player to work out. However, though NFL scouts are permitted to evaluate a player in such a situation, the school is not required to let the young man work out.
  • It’s harder than ever to get someone into a pro day: About 15 years ago, long before pro days were the kind of thing that the average draft fan even knew existed, it was commonplace for bigger schools to allow the better small-school prospects to work out with their players. However, as more and more players seek a place in the NFL, they’ve become reluctant. About 10 years ago, most schools started asking for a scout to vouch for the player. Five years ago, it became two scouts. These days, it’s often three scout, if the school will even entertain the thought of an outsider gaining entry.
  • One workaround: I’ve been told that if a player’s head coach calls the head coach of the team holding the workout, it really enhances the player’s chance of getting an invite. It’s probably harder for a head coach to turn down another head coach. Of course, not every head coach is going to do that, but it’s worth a shot.
  • Don’t send a player to a pay workout to enhance his NFL chances: These days, agents get an email nearly every day pitching a pay workout somewhere. I never recommend players go to such workouts. If your client doesn’t have a pro day, I get it — your options are limited, and if the kid doesn’t have a pro day, he really doesn’t exist. What’s more, very often, the better organizations holding these workouts have plenty of “alumni” who have gone on to the NFL. The thing is, most of the time, they got there on the strength of a pro day performance before NFL scouts. 

This session was the rare one that we recorded, and all members of the 2023 agent class got a copy of the video. If you’re new to player representation and wondering how to help promote your client in the last weeks before the draft, consider joining us. Do that here. Limited on funds? At least sign up for our newsletter, which comes out every Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET. You can register for it here.

Meet the Sponsors of Our 2024 Combine Events

16 Friday Feb 2024

Posted by in Agents, NIL, Scouts

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We’re less than two weeks away from the two biggest days of the year for Inside the League. They are Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 28-29, when we’ll hold our annual seminar and symposium, respectively, in Indianapolis. For all the details, click here. 

However, those dates would not even be possible if not for our partners in these events. We’re excited to work with three companies — USI Insurance Services, The Tatnuck Group, and Vestible — as we celebrate and educate the industry in less than two weeks. 

All three companies are doing exciting things in the football community that have distinct appeal to different facets of the business. I wanted to introduce them today.

USI Insurance Services

USI, which serves as our title sponsor Wednesday, is a national insurance brokerage and consulting firm. The company has approximately 200 local offices connected across the U.S., as well as a leading market position in all core businesses. The USI White Plains office has been serving the local community since 1928.

The company features more than 500 professionals with an average tenure of 25 years and specialists across a broad range of industries, as well as dedicated personal risk management and solutions from the collaborative effort of 200-plus personal risk specialists nationwide. Regional offices are located in Mount Laurel, NJ; New York, NY; Toms River, NJ; Uniondale, NY; Florham Park, NJ; and White Plains, NY. The White Plains office, alone, includes more than 50 insurance professionals specializing in healthcare, personal risk management, construction, real estate, surety and distribution and manufacturing.
 
The USI One Network offers dedicated technical experts connected nationally and embedded in local offices, with over 6,000 professionals nationwide to build integrated client-centered account teams.
 

USI recommends a holistic approach to personal risk management, including an annual review for changes and adjustment to coverages. USI’s representatives provide a summary of coverage while continuously monitoring risk exposure changes in a client’s profile and lifestyle. They also conduct annual pre-renewal reviews to identify areas for coverage changes and recommend specific terms or condition changes to client policies based on review results. 

Check out USI in more detail here.

The Tatnuck Group

Through pre-draft interviewing and consulting, The Tatnuck Group, the presenting sponsor for Wednesday’s ITL Seminar, helps dozens of NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NASCAR and La Liga Soccer teams select better performers and better people. Since 2019, NFL clubs have partnered with Tatnuck to interview prospects at the Senior Bowl, Combine, and post-combine via zoom. Tatnuck focuses on assessing character, cultural fit, leadership capacity, and the ability to handle the stressors and rigors of being a pro. 

In the 2023 draft, The Tatnuck Group interviewed over 200 prospects for NFL clients, including every player selected in the first round and 60 of the first 63 picks. The team at Tatnuck consists of AJ Scola, the former personnel director of the Atlanta Braves, and Ryan Maid, the former operational psychologist for Naval Special Warfare. For more information, visit The Tatnuck Group’s website.

Versible

Vestible, the title sponsor for Thursday’s ITL Symposium, is an investment platform allowing professional and college athletes to sell equity in their careers directly to their fans in a federally regulated marketplace. In exchange for an upfront sum from their investors, athletes on the platform pay investors a 1% distribution of their on-field income during their professional career.  
 
As the athletes increase their income on the field, the amount distributed to shareholders increases alongside them. This has created a completely new market for select athletes to unlock revenue streams that have never been available to them before. 
 
Founded by former professional and D1 college athletes Parker Graham and Yves Batoba, Vestible empowers athletes to take control of their brands and allows fans to unlock the next level of fandom. For more information, visit vestible.co. 
 
 

Responding to a Dumb Tweet About Draft Decisions

09 Friday Feb 2024

Posted by in NFL draft, Scouts

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This week, I tweeted positively about a Patriots executive, Eliot Wolf, who seems on track to become the GM in New England after years of paying dues in Green Bay and Cleveland. Though there were literally dozens of positive responses from scouts, agents and others, there was also one knucklehead who blamed him for QB Mac Jones’ struggles over the last two seasons.

I know you can’t take people seriously based on one off-the-cuff remark on social media, but this kind of comment really bugs me. I guess it springs from a fundamental misunderstanding of how the draft works by people whose main claim to fame is making the playoffs in their fantasy league.

Anyway, here’s why that’s a dumb tweet.

  • Jones had a great rookie season. It’s not like Jones has never performed. In his first year, he threw for almost 4,000 yards with a 22-13 TD-to-INT ratio and a. 92.5 quarterback rating. He did that without a 1,000-yard receiver (Jakobi Meyers came closest with 866 yards). That’s pretty good for a first-year QB following a legend.
  • How a player is developed after the draft is critical to his success. Josh McDaniels has had his ups and downs professionally, but there’s no arguing that his 2021 season as offensive coordinator in New England wasn’t a good one. Prior to McDaniels’ departure to be head coach of the Raiders, Jones was seen as a rising talent and worthy heir to the Brady throne. Since then, Jones’ offensive coordinators have been a weird combination of two defensive coordinators (Bill Belichick and Matt Patricia) in 2022 and Bill O’Brien this past season. I’d argue that Jones’ confidence was pretty much crushed entering the ’23 season, and from what I’ve read of O’Brien, “nurturing” is not a quality that’s in his makeup. The point is, the player Jones was on draft day is very different from who he is today, and that has everything to do with how the team around him has encouraged his progress and helped him evolve. That’s not just true of Jones, but of every player ever drafted. 
  • There are no picks “made” by one scout or executive. This is the part that really drives me crazy. Yes, there has to be accountability on who picks whom, but how is Wolf responsible for the team’s picks that haven’t worked out? Wolf was no more than a consultant — a murky title, for sure — in the 2021 draft, but even if he was Jones’ champion, it doesn’t happen until all of the team’s braintrust has seen him play multiple games; has interviewed him multiple times; and has put him through various tests and evaluated his pro day. This doesn’t happen, and can’t happen, with just one guy making the pick. The Patriots’ decision to draft Jones (and every decision by every team) was collaborative. That’s an essential part of every draft for every team. 

I don’t know Eliot exceptionally well, but here’s what I can tell you: he is universally respected because he’s thorough and almost without an ego, but more importantly, he’s won everywhere he’s been. Now that he’s brought in one of the best pure talent evaluators in the league in Alonzo Highsmith, I’d be buying stock in New England’s future. 

For more on the draft, free agency, scouting, player representation and everything else that makes this a fun time of year, register for today’s Friday Wrap here.

Three Things I Noticed or Learned in Mobile

02 Friday Feb 2024

Posted by in Agents, NIL, Scouts

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It wasn’t that long ago that if you were a GM and you skipped the Senior Bowl, you had some serious FOMO and you might be accused of malpractice. That is no longer the case.

I personally saw only one in Mobile (SF’s John Lynch). After a quick survey of 7-8 people across the business that were there, the others on hand were (in no order) NYG’s Joe Schoen, Pittsburgh’s Omar Khan, Dallas’ Jerry Jones, Baltimore’s Eric DeCosta, Carolina’s Dan Morgan, New Orleans’ Mickey Loomis, Buffalo’s Brandon Beane, Jacksonville’s Trent Baalke, Indianapolis’ Chris Ballard, Houston’s Nick Caserio, Miami’s Chris Grier, Cleveland’s Andrew Berry, NYJ’s Joe Douglas, Arizona’s Monti Ossenfort, Chicago’s Ryan Poles, Green Bay’s Brian Gutekunst and Washington’s Adam Peters. These are not all confirmed — some were seen by only one person.

There could have been more that briefly popped in, and it’s harder to find them now that NFL personnel are segregated from everyone else at the stadium. Also, early-week weigh-ins used to give everyone a chance to see all the big names in one room, and weigh-ins aren’t held anymore. Still, GMs were a lot less visible, even if Senior Bowl Executive Director Jim Nagy said most were there, and I’m not calling Jim a liar.

There are reasons not to come, for sure, and as more people have found out about the Senior Bowl, I’m sure a lot of GMs just want to avoid the hassle and the job solicitations, especially when so much can be done from home. Still, it’s a big change to not see them anywhere and everywhere at the Senior Bowl, and kinda sad.

Here are a couple more things I learned about the ‘game behind the game’ in Mobile this week.

  • Jim invited 138 players this year, which is eight more than last year. It’s a concession to the injuries that always happen, no doubt, but also probably has to do with the number of players that beg out of the game after practicing all week. In the old days, it was commonplace to see scouts/executives roll in for padded practices, then head home Thursday night, skipping the game. I heard of two teams who were planning to keep their scouts in town through the game this year, however, and there may have been others. This might also be a concession to the number of QBs that are getting Day 1/Day 2 consideration (teams always want to get an in-person look to see how passers relate to their teammates during game conditions), or could be because the Shrine Bowl encroaches into Senior Bowl week so much these days. However, I hope it curbs the number of players who “opt out” of the actual game. By the way, I asked two former scouts, Rodrik David and James Kirkland, how opt-outs affected their evaluations of players, and their answers are in this week’s Scouting the League podcast.
  • You also used to see dozens of wealth managers around at the Senior Bowl, and to some degree, you still do, especially with Morgan Stanley a game sponsor and so many others trying to get an audience with a player. However, fewer players are using the week to vet financial advisors, and one such wealth manager said he thinks it’s because now that players are seeing six-figure incomes well before leaving college, they’re hiring people much earlier. They no longer wait until they’re on the verge of becoming pros. It makes a lot of sense, but it’s also a big change in the way players do business.

We’ll have more from the Senior Bowl, including Rodrik’s top performers this week, in the Friday Wrap. Register for it here.