Just a few weeks ago in the Friday Wrap, we discussed the potential changes in an uncertain recruiting landscape dramatically affected by coronavirus. Just two weeks later, we are already getting answers to the questions we asked in our July 24 edition. Let’s look at the changes, make a few new points and ask a few more questions.

• These opt-outs are a test: No matter how you feel about the merits of their decisions, players who are opting out are an experiment. Will they preserve their draft status despite not playing? When we asked active NFL scouts a few weeks back in this space, the number most came up was about 20 players who can pull this off (here are the players we’d guess can do it). We already know that top players skip the Senior Bowl by the bushel, and in recent seasons, players like Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette have skipped their teams’ bowl games without a draft penalty. Will the next generation skip their last year of eligibility without effect? We’ll know in about 10 months.
• This is another blow to the agent middle class: Based on our conversations with people in the business, the players who’ve opted out already (and the ones we’ve heard are strongly considering it) will receive full stipends through the draft. Normally, you’re looking at anywhere from $5,000-$10,000/month for four months, depending on the player and the agency. That adds $30,000-$40,000 to the pre-draft tab before you figure in training (about $20,000 conservatively, including food, residence and rental car). Agencies used to get that back in fees over the life of the first contract, but in the days of the one-percent deal (or zero) and slotted salaries post-2011 CBA, it’s all on getting to the second deal and charging three percent. There are no guarantees. It’s been a tough landscape for middle-class firms for a while now. This year — coming off a year when fewer UDFAs were signed and there were no tryout players — could be a real death blow to those who make unwise financial decisions.
• Some combine prep facilities, as well as agencies, won’t make it to 2022: Today, the success of a combine prep facility is predicated on four things: geographical location (you pretty much better be in the Sun Belt); ability to find reasonably priced lodging (incredibly hard on short-term leases, especially in splashy settings like Miami, Phoenix and Los Angeles); what you do the other nine months of the year; and your ability to recruit and win over the top prospects, obviously. Many solid combine prep facilities have been forced to close down during the lockdowns, and that takes a huge toll when you have thin margins (and yes, most of these facilities have thin margins, despite beliefs to the contrary). The lion’s share of the players who’ll train from now until the draft will go to the top facilities, so the smaller sites won’t benefit from that. It’s going to be another tough year.

In today’s Friday Wrap, we’ll talk about what’s ahead for the scouting profession, based on hiring practices this summer. Give it a look this evening. If you still need to register, click here.

This week, we wrapped up July with our second ITL Agent Week. Our star-studded lineup included one of the most powerful agents in the business (Lagardere Sports’ Joel Segal), a former NFL cap chief (ex-Browns and Chiefs exec Trip MacCracken), an ex-GM (Mark Dominik, formerly of the Bucs) and a former pro scouting director (Dane Van der Nat, previously with the Raiders).

The week was very well-received. “All were awesome and provided info that you typically have to learn by trial and error,” said one participant. Said another: “The week has been amazing . . . and I’m looking forward to future seminars!!”

At the risk of being immodest, I’d agree, but it has nothing to do with me. It’s exciting that, this month, I’ve been able to bring together friends who are interested in giving back to the industry for a very small fee, and to find ITL clients who were willing to come out of pocket to listen to and interact with experts in the field. Kudos to everyone involved.

Here’s a bit of what you heard if you were on the Zoom sessions this week.

Van der Nat on developing players from other sports: “Coaches can be short on patience. If you’re getting (these players) early in the offseason, you could have an opportunity. We would bring those guys in for a tryout, maybe a CFL guy or a basketball player. . . . Can this big WR play TE? Can the tackle play tight end? Can the basketball player play tight end? Those are great situations to see. Can he learn it? Is he speaking the same language? After two days, a coach will have an opinion on a player to know if he wants to keep him or move on.”

Dominik on player attrition this year: “I think corner depth is hard to get. You can find three to four cornerbacks, but especially this year, there’s gonna be a lot of soft tissue injuries that usually hit corners hard, and if you have corners that can run a little bit, that’s a spot where teams will get hit quick.”

MacCracken on the value of relationships: “It was my job to take interest, to the best of my ability in whoever I’m working with. There’s no such thing as an agent you can disregard. . .  Every person has a different personality. It’s almost like you have to bend your personality to fit theirs. . .  And as an agent, you will deal with coaches, scouts, GMs, owners, negotiators, and they all come at this from a different skillset and standpoint. And you have to connect with all of them. You have to be able to touch each of them individually and make a connection. I always felt it was incumbent on me to make the best contact with agents. I would encourage agents to do the same with their contacts.”

Segal on getting started: “I went to law school at George Washington with the idea of being a product liability lawyer. Back then, being a sports agent was very different from what it is today. I didn’t know what an agent was. So I went to law school and got a good job at a great law firm, but it was kinda boring. So after a year, I quit and moved into my mom’s house. While I decided what to do, I parked cars for a while, made some money, and then printed up some business cards. One day, I read an article on Bob Woolf, an agent at the time, and it sounded cool, and that was it. I started cold-calling around, and I got hung up on a million times. Finally, I met Brad Baxter, because he was training next to my law school, and we hung out, and when he graduated, he signed with me. He was an 11^th round choice out of Alabama State.

This summer has been a weird one, for sure, but at Inside the League, we’ve tried to turn lemons into lemonade. One way we’ve done that is by holding weekly Zoom sessions with different segments of the football world.

In June, we held the ITL GM Academy and hosted several scouts and executives with four ex-GMs giving presentations. Earlier this month, we held ITL Agent Week, and had four other league authorities serving up gold to dozens of NFLPA contract advisors. Finally, this week, we held ITL College Week.

Three speakers held court on Zoom for 90 minutes each on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and the returns were very positive. “I just wanted to say that was one of the most unique and impactful experiences I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of,” wrote one participant in an unsolicited email. “I wanted to make a point to thank you for the opportunity to take in this knowledge. It means more than you know.”

Here are a few quotes from our speakers this week that I thought were particularly interesting.

Former Bucs GM Mark Dominik on getting lucky: “So anyway, (Tampa Bay) wound up hiring our (fourth) choice as head coach. We thought we were gonna get Bill Parcells, then he turned us down, and then we thought we’d get Steve Spurrier and that didn’t work out, and then Jimmy Johnson, so we got stuck with Tony Dungy. He’s everything you can imagine. He’s exactly who you would want him to be. I probably haven’t been in touch with him for four months, but if I texted him, he would text me right back tonight. That’s what kind of guy he is.”

Former Titans Director of College Scouting Blake Beddingfield on evaluating pass rushers: “Does he have a pass rush plan? Is he doing the same thing over and over? (Former Titans DE) Kyle Vanden Bosch was going 100 mph every play. He was the most intense player I knew, but he always set up his sacks. He was setting up the tackle the whole game to work his favorite (move), a chop on the outside, and he did that for a number of years and to make the critical play in the red zone. He was only 8-9 sacks per year, but they were big sacks.”

Former Rams GM Billy Devaney on passion: “It’s a pet peeve of mine, and especially with ex-players, they’ll say, ‘this coaching stuff is getting old,’ and the ex-player would say, ‘I don’t know what I want to do. I know I don’t want to coach. Maybe I’ll get into scouting.’ I’d think, you screwed yourself. ‘Maybe I’ll just do scouting.’ That would always burn my ass. I’m extremely partial to guys that want to make this a career. In an interview, I’ll ask, ‘what do you see yourself doing 10 years from now? Five years from now?’ And if they say, ‘maybe analytics, maybe coaching,’ I’m not gonna hire that guy. I’m gonna hire the guys that says, ‘I’m gonna be the best scout, then maybe work in the office as the director, then eventually be the GM.’ I want someone who wants to make this a career.”

There’s plenty more to talk about. Join us this evening for our Friday Wrap when we discuss this week, as well as what we have planned for the coming weeks. You can register for it here.

As thunder clouds gather on the college football horizon, the fall season seems to be in growing jeopardy. One option seems to be moving play into the spring, when presumably players, coaches and schools would find a safer playing field. If it happens,  it’s almost a certainty a large number of top players will choose not to play and to move straight to the NFL Draft, presuming it remains an April 2021 affair.

All of which begs this question: how many elite prospects, from seniors to redshirt sophomores, could reasonably skip their last seasons of play without damaging their respective draft statuses? 

We asked scouts, agents and all-star game directors that we respect across the game. These are the answers we got.

• “I would expect 10-20 guys. I think there will absolutely be some of the top guys. I think agents are going to get in their ear too. . . I think some will absolutely opt out, but there is still going to be pressure from teammates to play the season and rep the program. It’ll be interesting.”
• “Probably 40 or so. Damn good players, locks to go no later than Round 2 if they’ve already played their last down. They’ve already played their last game.”
• “15-20.”
• “Maybe 20-30. But there will be hundreds who believe that they’ll be impacted and decide to jump.” 
• “Heading into the season, I would think it would be closer to 30 kids who have done enough to solidify their draft position off their body of work, but the vast majority of guys need additional verification or opportunity to rise. The preseason lists are full of hyped seniors who go on to become low free agents after being exposed, as a warning.”

• “Too many unanswerable questions right now. SEC is a mess and not even going to visit on protocol again until (July 28), I hear. Too many “hot spots” around the country to make general rules, and regular kids not even back on campus yet, if they’ll be allowed at all!”

The consensus seems to be 20-30 players, i.e., most of the first round. Of course, trying to guess how many players in total will opt out is almost impossible, and could easily range into the hundreds.

Give us your best guess on Twitter, and later today, find out who we think the 20-30 players are that might be able to go from the 2019 season to the 2021 draft with no ill effects. It will be in today’s Friday Wrap, and you can register for it here.

As you may know, this week was ITL Agent Week, and we had four speakers talk to 30-plus agents on the nuances of how to build a scouting network, how to look at players, how to survive in the business without a bottomless bank account and plenty more. It wasn’t a good week — it was a great week. Here’s a tiny taste of what our participants heard this week.

Priority Sports’ Mike McCartney on why he became an agent: “In 1998, I got hired by the Eagles as the director of pro personnel, and I was basically Tom Modrak’s right-hand man. We went from 3-13 to two games from the Super Bowl while I was there. Anyway, we got beat by the Giants in 2001, and as I drove across New Jersey after that game, I took inventory of my life. I would never recommend taking inventory of your life after a tough loss, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that in 20 years I’d be asking who raised my boys. I prayed long and hard after that, and I had one of 32 jobs director jobs in world, and I was on target to be GM, but wanted to find balance in my life and be there for my children. So I decided to be an agent. I knew every agent, and I knew who the guys were that worked for their players and those who wouldn’t. I pursued Priority Sports. I never wanted to compromise my integrity, and I wanted someone with an excellent reputation, and someone with resources. It takes a lot (of money) to get guys ready for the draft. Anyway, I pursued Priority, and now I’m going into my 20^th year, and my 29^th in the NFL. I wouldn’t trade my experience. I mean, I’ve been able to raise my kids.”

Former Bears GM Jerry Angelo on finding sleepers hiding in plain sight: “There are a lot of prospects at those big schools that fall through the cracks because the scout is spending his time on high-profile players. When at Ohio State, that’s 15-16 players, and scouts are doing juniors and seniors, and it’s impossible to do it A-Z. I used to use this example with my scouts. When Ricky Williams was at Texas, and he won the Heisman, they had another running back who fell into undrafted free agency, Priest Holmes. Texas was a really good team then, but there had to be a time when they rested Ricky, and Priest must have had game tape, but when he was out of the game, the scouts quit looking at running backs. Priest Holmes was an outstanding back, and I told my scouts, at some point, there was film. You’re going to find players at those big schools. That’s’ where our sleepers come from today.”

Former Titans scout Blake Beddingfield on the changing parameters for quarterbacks: “At quarterback, the size traits are going away. You have Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, obviously Drew Brees are around 6-feet tall, so height is not as important as it used to be. Decision-making and accuracy are, and we’re talking about accuracy, not just completion percentage. Anything from plus-1 under, anything in the flats, they take that out and readjust their completion percentages, because they should be able to make those passes. It’s the other passes that are important, so when you’re looking at a player who throws a lot in the horizontal game, you take those stats away and look at plus-2 and better. He has to be smart, and has to be able to process all the info when the ball is snapped. These are important traits. Arm strength is important, but not the sole indicator of a QB. Accuracy and decision-making are the keys.”

HOF Player Representatives’ Greg Linton on what he told players during his early days when he still had a 9-to-5 job: “You have to know the player. I tell them, ‘you’re a grown-ass man. Do you need your hand held 24 hours a day? My job is to help you. I don’t need to hold your hand 24 hours per day. When you get to the team, you’re going to have a lot of free time, and no one is going to hold your hand. I’m gonna teach you to be a grown man.”

If you’re in the agent business, and you have any questions about how to succeed, I hope you’ll join us next year. It was a special week. We’ll discuss it more in today’s Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.

If you read our weekly Friday Wrap, which comes out this evening, you know we had a Zoom professional development session Wednesday with former NFL PR man Fitz Ollison, who’s run the media side for the Saints, Dolphins, Lions and Broncos as well as the Alliance of American Football during its brief run.

Fitz was brilliant, and he spoke to a handful of college directors and scouts about the value of having a good director of communications that you can really rely on as GM. I wish we could have had him on for a full week of hour-long sessions, but that would have been selfish. Instead, here are a few gems from the two hours he spent with us this week:

• “National (media personalities) are really popular. They have 100,000 Twitter followers, they show up on TV and on Instagram, they are high-profile and get paid a lot of money, and owners listen to these guys. At owners meetings, they bring in national guys and owners like to talk to them. Most owners get their info from owners, and vice versa. (Game) broadcasters benefit (scouts and executives) the most. They understand the game and they know who’s good and bad. They will usually get consulted during the head coach and GM searches.”
• “PR has been a throwaway in the past. It’s not anymore. It’s becoming a vitally important aspect because everything you say and do and every interaction is going to be recorded or reported. You’re a celebrity when you become a personnel guy.”
• “You want a grenade-jumper, someone who is loyal to you. You gotta have a guy you can trust who can tell you when you screwed up. . . A lot of owners, I’ve been in rooms where the owner said, ‘I like my (PR) guy. You’ll learn to like him.’ But if he doesn’t have your back, 100 percent, something could get through. . . If there’s a guy who can help you in terms of media and PR, being on your staff, a loyal guy, get him any way you can.”
• “A lot of people don’t understand the mentality of a billionaire. They don’t deal in the everyday nuances that we deal in. They don’t deal in wants and needs. NFL owners deal in ‘give me’s and ‘get me’s. ‘Give me this’ and ‘get me that.’ And they don’t care. In the grand scheme, for 95 percent of them, they made their money not by being a nice guy. These guys are ruthless businessmen.”
• “When you’re on the road, look at the news of the day and how you would answer the questions that pertain to that. I always feel it’s a disservice that, the moment you become GM, they want to throw you in front of the media. You have to practice it. How would you handle it? Always use the opportunity for other people’s news to benefit your own news. Whatever you do, just be reminded that in this day and age, it lasts forever.”

We’ll talk more about Fitz’s work with us in today’s Friday Wrap. Make sure to register for it if you haven’t already.

This summer, we at Inside the League have focused greatly on bringing leading industry voices to online platforms in order to interface with active NFL scouts, agents and executives. We’ve found it to be the best way to connect people in the era of social distancing.

At the same time, there’s nothing like sitting across the table from someone, and we’ve done a little breaking of bread with our friends in the industry, as well. Between Zoom sessions and power lunches, we’ve learned quite a bit about the industry. Here are a few lessons learned this summer, especially as they relate to character evaluation in the draft process.

• If the pro liaison loves a kid, maybe you shouldn’t: The pro liaison tends to be the guy who tells scouts the party line. Normally, he’s the one who’s going to give you the info a head coach would almost say in a press conference setting. In other words, just the facts, presented with a smile and maybe a positive spin. The players whose attitudes are best are the ones who’ll be bragged on in meetings with pro liaisons. To get the unedited version on a player, a scout typically has to speak to a coach on staff that he knows, or the strength coach. Strength coaches are typically less political.
• A kid without a father in the home has to be judged differently from one who doesn’t: A young man who grew up with a father in the home is more likely to understand that a coach screaming at him still loves him. Maybe his father ripped him for not taking out the garbage or for mowing but not edging — he knows his father is still gonna be there at dinnertime asking him about his day, making sure he’s got what he needs, hugging him at bedtime, etc. A young man without a father in the home is more likely to see a coach berating him as someone seeking a confrontation. He’ll either tune out or, in other cases, answer with his fists.
• Houston, Atlanta and Miami are the party cities: You better know what you have with a kid who is drafted by the Falcons, Dolphins and, yes, Texans. These are perceived as the cities where you can really get yourself in trouble with women, alcohol and drugs, or all three. Give a kid money and a lot of free time, and he’s liable to get over his skis, quickly. Or at least that’s the reputation.
• There’s a lot of nuance to a young man’s background aside from his legal history: The example I was given was of a kid who was raised in Mississippi, a state with a low-performing educational system. If he came out of Oxford, he’s more likely to have a stable upbringing and less trouble with schooling and structure. If he is from Jackson, it depends on whether he was in private school or public school. Public school kids saw things that kids in private schools didn’t. The geographical regions of the state are also very telling. This is true of several states, but Mississippi is one place where the hometown can be very indicative of what kind of kid he is.
• Failing a drug test means different things at different schools: For example, at LSU, after your first failure you are given certain terms, and if you meet those, you are given a clean state. In other words, you are back at zero. After failure No. 2, you are given a chance to go to rehab, and if you take that option (which is voluntary), you are treated differently from someone who doesn’t. Because schools like LSU and Texas have traditionally been very patient with those who have a problem with marijuana, kids who are kicked out for their drug problems are valued very differently from those schools who might have a zero tolerance policy.

If we’ve just whet your appetite, we encourage you to register for our Friday Wrap, in which we discuss all manner of industry-related topics each week. This week, we’ll focus on the Zoom sessions with industry professionals that we’ve already hosted as well as what’s to come later this summer. Here’s a peek at last week’s edition.

Last night, we wrapped up our first-ever ITL GM Academy, and it was a smashing success. For one night each, we had a former NFL GM talk to several young risers in the NFL scouting industry, most of them directors of college scouting, on how to get and excel in the job of NFL general manager.

I can’t say enough about how open and transparent each of our GMs — Tim Ruskell (Seahawks) on Monday, Jerry Angelo (Bears) on Tuesday, Doug Whaley (Bills) Wednesday and Billy Devaney (Rams) on Thursday — was this week. They told stories that I wish I could tell here. “The week exceeded all expectations!,”  said one of the participants.

Here are a few nuggets from this week’s speakers.

On owners (former Rams GM Billy Devaney): “You get the job, you do need to develop a relationship with the owner. He’s gonna want access to you, but it’s gotta be a two-way street. If there’s a key injury or you get a chance to make a big trade, and your guy is on some yacht in southern France, you have to have the ability to have access to him. Set up a time every week to meet with him. I mean, over-communicate early with the guy. You want to keep reassuring him that you’re the right guy.

“There’s two kinds of owners: hands-on and absentee. I’ve seen it both ways. Don’t let hands-on owners be a negative. It’s a pain in the ass sometimes, but believe me, the positives far outweigh the negatives.”

On the value of networking (former Bills GM Doug Whaley): “The only reason I got the chance in Buffalo was, in ‘05-’06, the league had a masters program at Stanford and it was a week-long – I got a master’s from Stanford! — and had meetings all day, then at night they would break us up into five-man groups and have us work together. We had 3-4 questions to work on every night. I wondered, why are all of us doing the same questions? Why not all do one question, then we all talk about it afterward? And (Bills executive) Russ Brandon loved that, so when Buddy (Nix) became the GM, Brandon was really promoting me because of my work with Doug at the Stanford program.” Four years later, in 2010, Whaley was hired as the Assistant GM in Buffalo, and took over for Nix as GM in 2013.

On your most crucial hires (former Bears GM Jerry Angelo): “What do you do to offset your weakness, especially if it’s the cap? . . . The Bears let me hire a cap guy, and I hired (former agent) Cliff Stein. He was in my network. Intelligent and hard-working. I interviewed guys with a better resume, but I had a gut feeling on him.

“I wish my draft picks went as well as that hire. But you have to identify someone who is good with the cap.”

On working with your head coach (former Seahawks GM Tim Ruskell): “I had all the control, and it was an awesome responsibility. I didn’t take advantage of that. I always worked collaboratively with my head coach, and I feel you have to do that.”

If this kind of thing intrigues you, make sure you sign up for our Friday Wrap, which comes out this evening. We’ll have more about our work this week with tomorrow’s GMs in this evening’s edition. We’ll also talk about the next wave of GM candidates as told to us by people across the game. Here’s last week’s edition. I hope you’ll check it out.

This week, I’ve been talking to several of my friends in the industry about the best GM candidates in the game. My goal was (and is) to put together a list that isn’t agent- and/or media-driven. In other words, I don’t want the guys that are photogenic and have good bloodlines, per se, or simply the “next up” guys from winning organizations. I’m looking for guys who are less about politics and more about grinding. At least, that’s my aim.

Here are a few thoughts gathered from talking to people this week.

• It was really, really hard to get a consensus. I started off wanting a list of 10 candidates, but struggled to get 5-6 that were on several lists. I attribute that to the nature of the business. Most scouts tend to work in one or two organizations, so they don’t get to see many people truly work. In addition, the very nature of the business lends itself to secrecy, so it’s easy to get in a silo and stay there.
• As a matter of fact, I had a lot of friends who were very careful about even giving their opinion on GM possibilities. No one wants their bosses to even think in terms of advancement. Next week, we’ll be hosting the ITL GM Academy with four ex-GMs, and similarly, our attendees don’t want anyone to know they are trying to grow and develop themselves, which to me is kinda crazy. The “keep your head down and grind” philosophy is alive and well.
• As I was compiling the list, one thing came through loud and clear: when a scout would give me a name, he’d almost always talk about how much he likes the guy, how he has a great personality. We’ve all heard about how fiery and tough “Battlin” Bill Polian, one of the truly great GMs in the game, was during his career. I think today’s scouts and executives want to work with someone they can relate to, rather than be subservient to.
• I worked hard to get perspectives from guys on the pro side, but most of them recommended guys with strong college backgrounds. It’s interesting. I guess scouts  will always see the draft as the wellspring of team-building.
• On that topic, one scout I trust opened my eyes to something I’d seen, but never really noticed. When you sift through the names of college and pro scouting directors, it’s striking how many more pro directors are black than on the college side. It’s easy to see why — pro directors have to be a bit more persuasive, almost have a recruiting side to them. To me, this is a clear focus of attention as we try to remove obstacles in the path to the GM seat for minority candidates. I’ve seen a lot more movement toward the pro side for scouts with college backgrounds; maybe this will help break down these walls.
• I’m sure tomorrow’s list will be controversial because we’ll have a few outside-the-box names, and won’t have some of the names you typically see on these lists. Please re-read this if you take issue with tomorrow’s newsletter: JUST BECAUSE A NAME ISN’T ON OUR LIST TOMORROW DOESN’T MEAN HE’S NOT A GREAT CANDIDATE. I’m just trying to present the people rank-and-file scouts and executives that I speak to know and trust. It’s one snapshot of many.

Anyway, we’ll have 6-7 guys whose names you’ll probably know if you read this blog regularly in tomorrow’s Friday Wrap, though they may differ greatly from the names you most often see. I hope it will be fun and provocative. Make sure you don’t miss it by registering here.