Author Archives: itlneil

Do NFL Scouting Additions Really Mean Anything?

01 Thursday May 2025

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These days, there’s a lot of movement in NFL front offices. That’s just the nature of the post-draft period. Once the picks are in, teams tend to reshape their scouting staffs, especially if there’s a new GM in town.

Often, changes in a team’s scouting lineup are met with great fanfare, especially when a struggling team starts turning the page on some of its longer-serving officials. But is this warranted? And is there any link between the scouts a team might add and their success on following draft days? It’s hard to tell, but here are my thoughts on what to look for when you see faces change in NFL front offices.

Awards and accomplishments: There’s no PFF for scouts. It’s very hard to know which ones are good and which ones just happened to be with good organizations. What’s more, we’re seeing, time and again, that some of the scouts who are most respected by their peers get let go anyway. Despite this, we launched the BART List Awards in 2022 to give scouts a chance to recognize the best of their brethren. Though it’s only been four years, if you know a scout won a BART List Award (as I always try to include in my posts, when relevant), you know that other active NFL scouts think he’s good. I think that carries weight, whether or not his team recognizes it or not.

Their previous organizations: The Lions’ turnaround started when they brought in Brad Holmes from the Rams as the new GM. These days, the Lions and the Rams are perennial playoff teams with outstanding leadership. Last year, new Commanders GM Adam Peters arrived from the 49ers and rebuilt the team’s front office with executives from the Lions (Assistant GM Lance Newmark), Ravens (Director of Player Personnel David Blackburn) and Seahawks (Personnel Executive Scott Fitterer, by way of the Panthers). All four of those organizations (San Francisco, Detroit, Baltimore and Seattle) are NFL bluebloods. Though those new additions (who all arrived in May or later) didn’t draft for Washington in 2024, obviously, I”m confident Peters’ staff is going to bear fruit quickly.

Look at who they are: The Raiders announced Wednesday that they’d be bringing in Johnathon Stigall as the team’s new Assistant Director of College Scouting, and the move drew raspberries from some on Twitter. Really? Here’s what you need to know about Johnathon:

  • He actually played the game at the college level as a running back at DePauw in the late 90s. Scouts who are ex-college players is becoming rare.
  • He has almost 30 years in NFL player evaluation (he’s entering his 27th year).
  • He’s worked for the late Tom Heckert (Browns), Howie Roseman (Eagles), Rick Spielman (Dolphins) and the late Mark Hatley (Bears). Those might not all be household names, but they are all highly respected in NFL circles. Trust me.
  • He was part of a Jets staff that drafted the OROY (Ohio State WO Garrett Wilson) AND the DROY (Cincinnati DC Sauce Gardner) in the same year (2022).
  • We’ve presented the BART List Award four years. He’s won three of them. We hand out 20-30 each year, so it’s not like he’s the one award winner, but it’s still impressive.

That’s a resume. If you’re a Raiders fan, you should feel really good about landing Johnathon. I can assure you new Jets GM Darren Mougey wasn’t happy to see him go.

It’s important to recognize that no team bats 1.000 in the draft. Shoot, if you bat .800 on Day 1 and Day 2 and .500 on Day 3, you’re almost guaranteed to be a perennial playoff team. But there are signs that some teams do it better than others, and I feel strongly that these are the best metrics as you follow along with the new additions during “scout hiring season.”

Does Trading Back Always Work? A 2016 Case Study

21 Monday Apr 2025

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“Trade back!”

It’s the constant chant from the fan of the struggling team with needs everywhere. The thinking is that more picks is always better, and that if you have enough at-bats, you’re sure to get a hit somehow. Well, maybe that’s the perception, but it’s not necessarily the truth. We see this in the 2016 NFL Draft, which is the year we chronicle in Value Picks: The Drama, Decisions and Details Behind Eight Selections in the 2016 NFL Draft. Let’s set the scene.

Analytics-minded Paul Depodesta had just come over from the Mets to be Cleveland’s Chief Strategy Officer, and the team’s philosophy, draft-wise, became quantity over quality. Throw enough picks at the wall, the thinking was, and the law of averages says you have to find at least a few players. After a flurry of pre-draft and draft-day trades, the team wound up with 14 picks, with six of them in the top 100. The deals included:

  • Trading the No. 2 pick and a conditional fifth-rounder to the Eagles for Philadelphia’s first-, third- and fourth-rounders (8, 77 and 100) in 2016 and their first- and second-rounder in 2017.
  • Trading the Eagles’ first-rounder (No. 8 in the draft) and a sixth-rounder (176) to the Titans in exchange for Tennessee’s first- and third-round selections (15 and 76, respectively) in addition to a second-rounder in 2017.
  • Trading their third- and fifth-rounders (77 and 141) to the Panthers in exchange for the Panthers’ third-, fourth- and fifth-rounders (93, 129, 168).
  • Trading their fourth (100) to the Raiders in exchange for Oakland’s fourth- and fifth-rounders (114 and 154).
  • Trading their seventh-rounder (223) to the Dolphins in exchange for a seventh (250) and DC Jamar Taylor.

That’s a lot of trading, and every time, the Browns traded back. But did it work out?

First, let’s look at the players Cleveland drafted, with the number of seasons each played in the NFL and his last season with the Browns.

  • Baylor WO Corey Coleman (1/15): Played five seasons, last one 2017.
  • Oklahoma St. DE Emmanuel Ogbah (2/32): Played nine seasons, last one in 2018.
  • Penn St. DE Carl Nassib (3/65): Played seven seasons, last one 2017.
  • Auburn OT Shon Coleman (3/76): Played seven seasons, last one in 2017.
  • UsC QB Cody Kessler (3/93): Played four seasons, last one in 2017.
  • Wisconsin IB Joe Schobert (4/99): Played seven seasons, last one in 2019.
  • Auburn WO Ricardo Louis (4/114): Played four seasons, last one in 2018.
  • TCU FS Derrick Kindred (4/129): Played three seasons, last one in 2018.
  • Princeton TE Seth DeValve (4/138): Played five seasons, last one in 2018.
  • Baylor WO Jordan Payton (5/154): Played two seasons, last one in 2017.
  • Baylor OT Spencer Drango (5/168): Played four seasons, last one in 2017.
  • Colorado St. WO Rashard Higgins (5/172): Played seven seasons, last one in 2021.
  • La..-Monroe DC Trey Caldwell (5/173): Played one season, last one in 2016.
  • Arizona IB Scooby Wright (7/250): Played three seasons, last one in 2016.

Now let’s look at what matters most: the Browns’ records over the next four seasons.

  • 2016: 1-15
  • 2017: 0-16
  • 2018: 7-8-1
  • 2019: 6-10

Ultimately, the team’s records (especially in 2016 and 2017) are the metric for judging how well the strategy worked. However, let’s look further at how the draftees did.

  • By 2019, not one of their Day 1 and Day 2 picks was on the team. None of them played more than two seasons with the team.
  • By 2020, their next winning season after 2016 (they went 11-5), only one of their draftees (fifth-rounder Higgins) was still with the team.
  • None of the picks played more than nine seasons. All but one of the eight players we profile in Value Picks (Ohio State’s Michael Thomas) played at least nine seasons.
  • Only one (Wisconsin IB Joe Schobert) made a Pro Bowl (and he only made one). 
  • The average NFL player sticks around 3.5 seasons in the league, but only eight of Cleveland’s 14 played more than three. Four played three or fewer.

Trading back can work, and maybe this example is a bit extreme. Still, it’s an illustration of what can happen. Bottom line, if you’re going to trade back, you’d better have conviction on the players still available and a plan for getting help when you finally get to make the picks.

Here’s What I Learned While Writing Value Picks

17 Thursday Apr 2025

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I’ve said this a lot, maybe even in this space, but one of the best things about working in this game is that the learning never stops. That was especially true as I wrote my third (and latest) book, Value Picks, which is available on Amazon right now.

Here are a few things I gathered while putting the book together.

Few teams practice BPA: Every team likes to claim that it took the “best player on the board” at each turn, but that’s just not true. Numerous teams passed on Alabama’s Derrick Henry because they felt set at running back; credit to the Titans for taking him despite planning on making the recently acquired DeMarco Murray their bell cow in 2016. Several teams also overlooked Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott simply because they were set at QB. Not the Cowboys, who had a proven veteran in Tony Romo (though, admittedly, Romo was beset with injuries that eventually ended his career).

Workouts matter: There’s a segment of the scouting community that likes to laugh off the Combine as the “underwear Olympics.” However, as part of former Bears scout Chris Prescott’s chapter late in the book, he dismissed Florida LB Antonio Morrison as a fourth-round possibility because he “was a polarizing player who didn’t work out well.” On the other hand, he says of Texas Tech’s Jakeem Grant (who went 6/186 to the Dolphins) “I remember we didn’t really love him, then he pops whatever 40 time that was, and we kinda got on him late because of how fast he was.” As a receiver with iffy hands who didn’t return punts, if Grant goes out and runs a 4.4, he’s probably a UDFA who’s on a short leash in rookie camp. As it was, because he showed sub-4.2 speed in Lubbock at his pro day, he was given enough runway to develop into a second-team All-Pro in 2020.

Winning involves risk: I devoted a chapter to West Alabama’s Tyreek Hill, who had serious baggage entering the 2016 draft. Most teams wouldn’t touch him due to his character blemishes, but one did, Kansas City. I’d argue that they reaped considerable benefits from rolling the dice. On the other hand, the Saints got feedback from their sources at Ohio State that Michael Thomas could be difficult. Again, they rolled the dice, and for the first few seasons, they were big winners. Ultimately, however, his conduct became a problem. It’s arguable whether his actions outweighed his production, but they definitely got some negative along with the positive. Still, both teams were rewarded, to some degree, by taking a gamble.

Scouts are mostly right: A lot of people aren’t going to want to hear this, but scouts are right more often than not. Draft picks don’t fail in a vacuum. There are reasons some players lose their motivation when they make the money that comes with being an NFL draftee. However, maybe more often, they lose their effectiveness due to injury, multiple scheme changes/poor system fit, or other factors that go unnoticed. Usually, a player’s failing in the league were predicted somewhere in the reports filed by evaluators.

Sixteen Reasons Why ‘Value Picks’ Needs to Be on Your Reading List

10 Thursday Apr 2025

Posted by in ITL, NFL draft, Scouts

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This week, we’re launching my latest book, Value Picks: The Drama, Decisions and Details Behind Eight Selections in the 2016 NFL Draft.” It’s available in paperback, on Kindle, and on Audible here.

It’s a fun read, if I do say so myself. My original idea was to write a book about Ole Miss’ Laremy Tunsil and the Video Seen ‘Round the World, but as I dug into things, there were so many interesting stories that I had to expand my focus. There’s still plenty about Tunsil in there, but so much more, as well.

I thought I’d pick out 16 reasons why it’s worth putting on your bookshelf. Here goes.

  • Learn about the battle between North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz and Cal’s Jared Goff, and why the Rams ultimately chose Goff.
  • Find out how many teams truly saw both of them as first-rounders, and why (or why not).
  • Read scouts’ memories of what happened when the Tunsil video was played before the draft started.
  • Review which teams nearly rolled the dice on Tunsil before Miami finally took him at 13.
  • Learn why so many wide receivers were drafted before Ohio State’s Michael Thomas (and how they fared).
  • Discover which former NFL GM helped Cowboys owner Jerry Jones decide that Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott would be the pick at 4.
  • Break down the list of concerns teams had about Alabama’s Derrick Henry, and why Tennessee finally pulled his card despite having just traded for an every-down back.
  • Learn about the player comp that prompted Louisville’s Sheldon Rankins to go ahead of other defensive tackles like UCLA’s Kenny Clark, Mississippi State’s Chris Jones and South Carolina State’s Javon Hargrove.
  • Examine the Chiefs’ painstaking draft process that led them to choosing West Alabama’s Tyreek Hill despite his off-field issues, small-school pedigree and limited development while in college.
  • Find out which Bears scouting executive (and future NFL GM) was especially high on Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott.
  • Sort through the various quarterbacks the Cowboys tried to pick before “dumbing into” Prescott.
  • Follow the account of the devastating hit that might have secured West Virginia’s Karl Joseph as a first-round pick.
  • Laugh as you hear which Vikings pick gave the team fits for refusing to practice in socks.
  • Read what Minnesota scouts really thought about sixth-rounder Moritz Bohringer, the German who was the first-ever player drafted without playing college football.
  • Catch up on the account of Jakeem Grant’s sub-4.2 40 at Texas Tech’s pro day (and why his friends and family weren’t overly concerned when he was violently ill shortly afterwards).
  • Consider the disconnect among Browns staffers as team ownership pushed to make analytics a major part of the team’s decision-making.

This is my first book since Scout Speak came out in 2020, and if you enjoyed that one, you’ll love this one. I only write books that I would want to read myself, and this is one I’d order the first day it came out. Give it a shot. I think you’ll find it informative and entertaining.

Looking for Comps in the 2025 NFL Draft? Look Back 10 Years

04 Friday Apr 2025

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So I’ve been looking pretty hard at the 2016 NFL Draft lately — more on that later — and it’s striking how closely it resembles this year’s draft class, especially on Day 1.

First of all, there were two QBs (Cal’s Jared Goff and North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz) who were far and away the top prospects in the draft. Second, pretty much everyone agreed on RB1, Ohio State’s Zeke Elliott. Third, there were five offensive tackles drafted in the first round, with two of them top-10 picks (Notre Dame’s Ronnie Stanley and Michigan State’s Jack Conklin); most mock drafts have 4-5 tackles going on Day 1 this year. Fourth, there will be 3-4 wide receivers who fit into the back half of the round, as Baylor’s Corey Coleman (1/15), Notre Dame’s Will Fuller (1/21), TCU’s Josh Doctson (1/22) and Ole Miss’ LaQuon Treadwell (1/23) did 10 years ago.

If the “model” holds, Miami’s Cam Ward and Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders will be good but not great passers with a lengthy career; Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty will be dominant for 5-6 years before a steady descent; Missouri’s Armand Membou and LSU’s Will Campbell will be steady professionals for a decade; and Arizona’s Tetairoa McMillan, Texas’ Matthew Golden, Missouri’s Luther Burden and Ohio State’s Emeka Egbuka will disappoint.

A few other things to look for if this turns out to be a replay of 2016:

  • There won’t be many quarterbacks drafted. In 2016, there were 72. That’s the second-lowest total in the last 10 years if you throw out the 2021 draft, which was an anomaly due to Covid anyway.
  • One of the down-the-line QBs will threaten Ward and Sanders to be the best in class, just like Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott did (he went 4/135 to Dallas). Could the ninth QB drafted this year — which projects to be someone like Syracuse’s Kyle McCord, Ohio State’s Will Howard, Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel or Minnesota’s Max Brosmer — turn out to equal, or even surpass, Ward and/or Sanders?
  • There will be a handful of non-combine invitees who have impressive careers. Middle Tennessee FS Kevin Byard (3/64, Titans), Manitoba’s DT David Onyemata (4/120, Saints), WO Tyreek Hill (5/165, Chiefs) are all still plugging away as they enter 10 years in the league despite getting snubbed in Indianapolis.
  • There will be serious value on the defensive line on Day 3. Entering a decade after the 2016 season, there are four fourth-rounders (the Steelers’ Dean Lowry, Commanders’ Sheldon Day, Bears’ Andrew Billings and Onyemata) and two fifth-rounders (the Bills’ Quinton Jefferson and Lions’ David Reader) who are still on NFL rosters. That’s not common.

Incidentally, there were a lot more interesting facts about 2016 that bear greater consideration. The battle for the top of the draft that pitted Goff and Wentz; the missed opportunity that Alabama’s Derrick Henry and Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott represented to so many teams; receivers like Ohio State’s Michael Thomas, Texas Tech’s Jakeem Grant and Hill who were overlooked for a variety of reasons; and, of course, the unforgettable draft-day story of Ole Miss’ Laremy Tunsil. I’ll be going in-depth on the draft backstories of all eight in my next book, Value Picks: The Drama, Decisions & Details Behind Eight Selections in the 2016 NFL Draft.

It’s coming to Amazon in less than two weeks, and it’s gonna be big, I promise. Keep it on your radar.

A Look Back at How The Pundits Viewed the ’23 and ’24 Drafts

28 Friday Mar 2025

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Wow. We’re a month out from the 2025 NFL Draft already. Around here, that means we do our annual sweep of seven top mock draft services to see who’s rising and falling. It’s an interesting snapshot of the draft class, even if it’s far from scientific and doesn’t actually represent what the teams are thinking.

But how accurate are the pundits one month out? It’s a question we started asking ourselves, and there’s only one way to find out: by reviewing their work. So here’s a look at what the seven services we review (Pro Football Network, PFF, CBS’ Chris Trapasso, The Draft Scout, ESPN, The Athletic’s Dane Brugler and Walter Football) said about the last two draft classes.

2023 DRAFT

  • Top five predicted picks: CJ Stroud, QB, Ohio State; Bryce Young, QB, Alabama; Will Anderson, DE, Alabama; Anthony Richardson, QB, Florida; and Tyree Wilson, DE, Texas Tech.
  • Actual top five picks: Young, Stroud, Anderson, Richardson, then Illinois DC Devon Witherspoon to the Seahawks. Witherspoon’s average draft slot (ADS) was 14.4.
  • Biggest misses: All seven services had Kentucky QB Will Levis going in the first round, with an average draft slot of 7.85. Levis wound up going 2/33 to the Titans. Also, all seven services had Penn State DC Joey Porter Jr. going in the first round (ADS 19.0), but he slid to the first pick of the second round.
  • Other surprises: Texas OH Bijan Robinson went 1/8 to the Falcons despite an ADS of 17.1, though, in fairness, we’ve learned the Falcons often go against the grain. Also, Georgia OB Nolan Smith went 1/30 to the Eagles despite an ADS of 17.5.
  • Kudos: Only Trapasso had Mississippi State DC Emmanuel Forbes going in the first round a month before the draft; he had Forbes at 1/24 (he went 1/16 to the Commanders). Also, only two services (PFF and The Draft Scout’s Matt Miller) had Kansas St. DE Felix Anudike-Uzomah in the first round, and both nailed his draft slot (31). Further hats off to PFF for sticking with the prediction and nailing the pick a week before the draft (Miller had abandoned Anudike-Uzomah as a Day 1 selection by then).

2024 DRAFT

  • Top five predicted picks: USC QB Caleb Williams; LSU QB Jayden Daniels; North Carolina QB Drake Maye; Ohio State WO Marvin Harrison Jr.; and Michigan QB J.J. McCarthy.
  • Actual top five picks: Williams, Daniels, Maye, Harrison and Notre Dame OT Joe Alt.
  • Biggest misses: All 22 players predicted to go in Round 1 actually did, so congratulations are in order. On the other hand, not one service, over the course of seven different mocks lasting from June until the week before the draft, ever identified Florida WO Ricky Pearsall (1/31, 49ers) as a first-rounder. Also worth noting: a week before the draft, no one saw South Carolina WO Xavier Legette (1/32, Panthers) as a first-rounder.
  • Other surprises: Things were a little bumpy for Pro Football Network, which was the only service to leave Texas DT Byron Murphy (1/16, Seahawks) off its first-round mock. Similarly, Walter Football was the only site to overlook Duke OT Graham Barton (1/26, Bucs) and CBS’ Trapasso was the only one who snubbed Oklahoma OT Tyler Guyton (1/29, Cowboys).
  • Kudos: ESPN’s Matt Miller (12) and Walter Football (13) were the only two services that saw Oregon QB Bo Nix (1/12, Broncos) as a Day 1 pick. Miller’s website, The Draft Scout, stuck with the prediction on Nix a week before the draft and nailed it, as did Walter Football (Trapasso had him at 15 a week before the draft; no other services saw him as a Day 1 selection). Also, only Pro Football Network (13) and Brugler (21) had Washington QB Michael Penix as a first-rounder; he went 1/8 to the Falcons.

We’ll take a look at how everyone did a week out from the draft in a few weeks. Obviously, judging draft services based on such a limited sample size does nothing to really gauge who’s best. But it’s fun, right?

For a look at which players all seven services a month before this spring’s draft, make sure to register for the Friday Wrap, which comes out this evening. Do that here.

Here’s My Advice to NFL Scouts Seeking College GM Jobs

21 Friday Mar 2025

Posted by in Getting started, NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

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It started during all-star season, when a few scouting friends told me to keep them in mind if I heard of any college GM openings. It’s gotten busier lately as friends at two P4 schools asked for recommendations on filling a few openings. The pro-to-college pipeline is roaring, and it’s definitely got people on both sides of the divide talking.

It got me thinking about what kind of advice I’d give an NFL scout seeking to make the transition to college. Here are a few things to think about.

G5 schools are looking to hire people with high school contacts; P4 schools are seeking candidates with NFL ties: This should be fairly obvious. Though the bigger schools want to tout their NFL bona fides in the race to attract portal talent, mid-majors are still trying to develop high school talent. For that reason, it’s going to be harder to land jobs in the smaller conferences. Plan accordingly.

You better be relational: It’s not that scouts don’t want to talk to agents, or that they think they’re better than them or whatever. At the end of the day, however, being a good scout lends itself to independence and self-motivation. However, you’ve got to step outside your comfort zone, regularly, if you want to work in the college space, especially if most of your experience is in pro football.

Connections with agents are a plus: We filled the room with schools at our symposium on the Friday of the NFL Combine. I felt like we put together a good program, but there’s one reason why so many schools were represented. It’s because we had almost every major NIL agency represented there.

Have a decent understanding of the bigger financial picture: I get it. That’s not your problem. But you better understand that big-money hedge funds and deep-pocketed investors are moving into college football as they hope to get a piece of a school’s athletic department before the school makes a move to a major conference or lands a fat broadcast deal. Everything is changing so quickly that you risk professional suicide if you don’t see where things are going.

Don’t try to break the bank: Scout salaries are rising (slightly), but nowhere near the way they’re rising on the college side. I know the headlines promise lucrative salaries instantly, but if I’m an NFL scout who doesn’t have a clear path to GM in the NFL, I’d be willing to take one step back financially to take two forward, given the trends.

Get representation: The trend among scouts is to not seek an agent until you get to the director level. I think it’s wise to get an earlier start these days. It just gives you one more set of ears, and more often than not, these jobs get filled before they are even widely known as being available.

Don’t run away from a background in coaching: We are seeing fewer scouts who’ve been coaches over the past decade-plus. However, if you’re a scout who’s spent time on the field, I think the transition will be easier to the college game, where scouts do a lot more than just evaluating.

Three Emerging Football Trends I Could See

14 Friday Mar 2025

Posted by in Media, NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

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Between the NFL Combine, my reading of a book called The Price, and conversations with people across college and pro football over the last two weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.

Here are three ideas that are coalescing in my head these days. I think they all could shift the direction of college and pro football over the next decade. Here goes . . . .

Fundraising, not player evaluation, will be football-playing schools’ highest responsibility: This week, UNLV’s athletic director admitted he hired a head coach without knowing how he’s going to pay him (before walking things back once it set off an Internet firestorm). That’s shocking. We’re seeing lots of GMs being hired lately with backgrounds in NFL scouting, but with donor fatigue at all-time highs, schools better have a plan for raising money.

The NFL will go from a partner of college football to a rival: Will the new enforcement rules begin to limit the money paid out to athletes for name, image and likeness? Will we see more collectives come under the roof of the school, like Colorado and UCF have done? I don’t know, and even if they do, I don’t know if that will curtail spending. Bottom line, college football is becoming more and more professional-looking, and you can’t deny the excellent quality of play. At some point, the dollars have to become limited, don’t they? Ultimately, college football teams don’t really need the NFL. Could college and pro football become contentious with each other? I don’t know. It’s possible.

Scouting will continue to become centralized: This week, the Rams, who were voted winners of the Best Draft Award for their work last April, announced new roles and titles for a dozen scouting staffers. Their new lineup includes six (6!) senior personnel executives — this title wasn’t even being used across the NFL until maybe five years ago — and one (1!) area scout. Does this mean they’re sending out one guy to make school visits in all 50 states? Of course not. However, it’s undeniable that (a) they are doing things differently and (b) they are having great success. We also learned this week that the Jaguars (with a new head coach and GM with Rams roots) will not hold a local pro day at team HQ next month. That’s another departure from most teams, but not the Rams, who never have one. If Jacksonville starts having success, other teams will start copying The Rams Way when it comes to the draft. That’s going to be a significant shift.

There’s a good reason to believe I’m crazy, and maybe none of these ideas will get traction. I really hope I’m wrong — maybe in five years, people will look at this post and laugh — but I fear I’m right. More discussion about the game is in today’s Friday Wrap. Register for it here.

Here’s What I Think I Know About NIL with (Possible) Settlement Approval a Month Away

07 Friday Mar 2025

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As of today, we are exactly a month from the expected (hoped-for?) approval of the House settlement which will determine, once and for all, how schools will proceed with name/image/likeness payments and management for college athletes. The question I’m grappling with is, just how much certainty does it provide?

I spent last Friday in a room with about 300 people who are highly invested in the NIL space — college GMs (P4 and G5), top NIL agents and firms, the wealth managers that represent many of the players, thought leaders and others. My co-host (CJ Cavazos of CJ Recruiting and NIL) and I asked two separate panels of college GMs some tough questions on what’s ahead, and while it was helpful, we only had 90 minutes. We probably could have used at least another 90, but that wasn’t possible. We didn’t record the proceedings, but in case you missed it, here’s a taste of what took place.

As I try to digest everything said and heard last week, there’s still a lot I don’t understand. I’m certainly not an attorney, and frankly, my interests apply only to football. With that said, here’s what I believe to be true regarding what’s going to happen in a month (pending approval April 7 by Judge Claudia Wilken).

  • The limit for revenue-sharing is $20.5 million. This money is independent of collectives and will be spent by the schools themselves.
  • The $20.5 million total represents an estimated 22 percent of what a garden variety football-playing school generates in revenue from its athletics program.
  • The lion’s share of the $20.5 million (77 percent, by most accounts) will go to football players. I’m struggling to find an exact percentage anywhere, but I don’t think anyone would be compelled to hold to that number anyway.
  • Teams have to generate their own $20.5 million; the money is not coming from the House settlement.
  • Even if they don’t have $20.5 million, they must dole out the money in the same ratio that everyone has agreed upon for revenue-sharing, that is, if they are participating in revenue-sharing. They are not obligated to do that. This is just a proposed way of spending the money. Most P4 schools seem willing to hold to that, at least initially, as a hedge against litigation.
  • Football teams will be held to 105-man rosters. These will be the only players allowed to participate in revenue-sharing.
  • Title IX applies to scholarships, but it does not apply to NIL money. Yet. There’s litigation in the pipeline that might change that.
  • Collectives are not governed by any of this. A school’s collective can raise and spend whatever it wants to.
  • There is no governing body that will call balls and strikes. In a perfect world, the NCAA would do this, but it does not appear to have that capability, and no one else does, either. Basically, it’s an honor system, and will rely on peer pressure from other schools to comply.
  • Through a clearinghouse, Deloitte will establish market value for any NIL deal over $600, and if judged to be out of whack, Deloitte will say so. There’s an arbitration process, and a player could lose eligibility if he signs a deal that’s judged to be not fair market value, but this seems ripe for litigation, as well. Furthermore, it seems unclear, at least to me, what compels a player, agent or team to send a completed NIL deal in to the clearinghouse.
  • There is no standard contract for NIL payments to players (akin to the wage scale the NFL has adopted based on accrued seasons, etc.) because there is no collective bargaining agreement. As such, there is no reason a team couldn’t commit all or most of its football allotment to one player, technically (again, the team and player might face punishment from Deloitte/the NCAA, but then again, maybe not). It also means terms of a contract can be ripped up at any time and rewritten if both parties (school and player) agree.
  • Presuming it’s approved by Judge Wilken, this will all become “the law” on July 1, when the 2025-26 academic year begins across the land.

More on these observations and what they all mean are in today’s Friday Wrap, which comes out at 7:30 p.m. EST today. I hope you’ll check it out. Not registered yet? Sign up here.

2025 ITL Symposium: Thoughts from a G5 GM

28 Friday Feb 2025

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This morning, we welcomed 11 Power 4 GMs as panelists for the 2025 Vestible ITL Symposium Presented by Mascot Alliance and Powered by Dropback. Before an audience of about 300 members of the college and pro football community, they provided insights on the industry over a 90-minute period.

However, there was one thing missing — the thoughts of an equivalent member from a school competing in the Group of Five conferences. For that, we enlisted Jose Jefferson, who’s not only the co-founder of the College Gridiron Showcase but also the newly minted GM at Florida International University in Miami.

Here’s what Jose provided earlier this week regarding some of the hot topics in the college football business.

  • What is the role and job description of the college GM?: “I think that varies with every GM role.   Everyone does it differently. I think it is based on your relationship with the head coach.  It involves managing the roster, managing NIL revenue, managing the recruiting process and evaluating the current roster vs incoming players. In short, if your team is good, it is your job to make the team better.  If you are great, it is your job to make the team exceptional. If you are exceptional, it is your job to keep the team exceptional and in front of the curve.”
  • There’s been a trend of NFL scouts moving to executive roles in the college ranks.  Will this continue? “I think as the position evolves, there will be a trend of making college football front offices like NFL front offices. I think there is a learning curve; the evaluation process may differ as most of these players are not developed. There have been several players who are Hall Of Famers who weren’t recruited out of high school or who weren’t three-star prospects. I think if you are organized, flexible, and creative with your process, yes, NFL scouts would be great candidates for GM roles.”
  • Do you see a day when colleges have NFL-style scouting staffs, or will coaches remain as the chief evaluators? “Coaches want to be scouts and scouts want to be coaches (ha ha). In the college game, I feel coaches will still be the main evaluators. Until they create an NFL-style draft, college is all about relationships. Now it is getting less that way as ‘bags’ are being dropped off and things seem more transactional. However, the relationship has to start with who the player will be working with; who he will be mentored by; and who he’s developing with. So yes, I feel coaches are still the front line. It is the GM’s job to take a deeper dive with their selections and make sure a player is a ‘fit’ with the team, the culture, and scheme.” 

For a closer look at today’s event in Indianapolis, make sure to check out the Friday Wrap this week, in which we recap all the award winners from Wednesday and the panelists’ responses this morning. Not registered? Fix that here.