At Inside the League, we take pride in advocating for the NFL agent and scouting communities. Part of that is championing traditional methods of player representation and evaluation; in most cases, we feel like the old way is the best. Still, that doesn’t mean the tried and true methods are always right. Scouts get it wrong, and sometimes, outrageously wrong.

In this excerpt from our coming book on the 2016 NFL Draft, tentatively called The Crazy Eight because it focuses on the draft stories of eight standout players from the ’16 draft class, we discuss three reasons why NFL teams miss on players. This is just a small sample of the reasons why, in the book, we discuss the myriad reasons why scouting is such a tough profession.

Protection of players by the schools: Some programs go to great lengths to paint sunny pictures of their players, hoping to enhance their NFL chances by keeping secrets. More often than not, this just activates a scout’s antennae. Does it ultimately hurt a school’s players? Does it help them? It’s hard to know, but either way, it creates uncertainty and a harder road to familiarity for scouts, who despise unfilled blanks. In ITL’s weekly newsletter, the Friday Wrap, we seek feedback from NFL evaluators on the schools they love and love to hate, and Rutgers (at least in 2024) falls squarely into the latter category. That’s because the order has come down from head coach Greg Schiano that only positive feedback will come out of any Scarlet Knight officials. Will this impact his players negatively in April 2025? Maybe. Maybe not. But it certainly explains why some of them may have very different NFL fortunes than they deserve.

Drafting for need: Free agency takes place in March. The draft takes place at the end of April. This means, teams tend to look to the draft to finish their shopping lists instead of simply taking the best player available. The teams that often do best on draft day often pick head-scratchers if looked at simply on need. The Packers got plenty of criticism for drafting Utah State’s Jordan Love with a healthy and productive Aaron Rodgers still around, but after a few uncomfortable years, who’s laughing now? The Vikings drafted Marshall’s Randy Moss in 1998 despite having Jake Reed and Cris Carter on the roster. The Saints drafted Ole Miss’ Deuce McCallister in 2001 after trading their entire draft (literally) to get Ricky Williams out of Texas just two seasons earlier. I could go on. Sometimes (often?) drafting for need works, but the best-drafting teams tend to stick to their respective boards.

Fear of media reprisals: Ask any GM or executive if the media plays any role in who gets picked and you’ll get an eye roll. Maybe that’s technically true, but in subtle ways, the media (and especially social media) play a role. That’s especially true when a prospect has a spotty background that warrants extra scrutiny. We’ve seen the reaction when Ole Miss’ Laremy Tunsil had an indiscretion on video shortly before the draft, and we’ve seen it with West Alabama’s Tyreek Hill after his incident at Oklahoma State. It’s also important to note that owners read all the websites and spend a lot of time weighing the impact of certain players on the team’s profile in the community and, obviously, they have full veto powers. Some of them exercise it.