Author Archives: itlneil

2016 Recruiting Stories

09 Tuesday Feb 2016

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If there’s one thing I love, it’s stories from the recruiting trail. I think you do, too. Here are a few I’ve heard lately.

  • I referred an agent who’s gotten a slow start (due to health reasons) to a player who’s badly in need of representation. This young man’s pro day is early, and he’s been training at school in what seems to be a haphazard way, to put it kindly. I know this agent would be a good fit for the young man, who has potential despite a small-school pedigree. Unfortunately, he’s put his trust in a man of faith who, at best, is highly uneducated on the process, and at worst is exploiting his position for personal gain. After one conversation with this pastor, my friend emailed me that he was asked, “what we’re really asking is what does (the kid) get for signing with you?” Unfortunately, more and more, that’s all the recruiting process has come to — what you put in the kid’s hand. “That’s what infuriated me,” my friend emailed me. “He is being misinformed in such a way that may wreck his chance to get a look. Too bad.” Too bad, indeed.
  • I was told yesterday that some players wrapping up their final year of eligibility (seniors as well as those entering the draft early) are now pocketing their residential scholarship stipends, then asking agents to pick up their back rent. In some cases, they’re asking potential agents to clear out their back rent, plus pay in advance for the next 4-5 months, even though they’ll be spending most of that time at a combine prep facility. In some cases, that’s a five-figure ask.
  • One kid had $10,000 in credit card debts that he wanted wiped away. This was not a first-round talent, just a late-rounder or maybe even a camp guy. This is in addition to major combine prep and all the other trappings of the draft process.
  • One player told an agent I know that he liked him, and that the agent hustled and worked hard, but the player had debts that he needed covered. Because that contract advisor wouldn’t cover those debts, the young man wanted to have two agents: one that would cover his debts, and the other who would actually do the agent work. No word on whether or not the ‘other agent’ would be cool with all the debts but only half the fees.
  • I’m told that a standard big-agency pitch to players with first-round grades includes (a) lifetime legal representation on all matters (barring an O.J.-style situation); (b) first-class flights for the whole (immediate) family for every game, home and away, in the ’16 season; (c) a guaranteed job in TV or music (but not the film industry) in retirement; and (d) covering the costs of the player’s father moving with him to the place where he trains for the combine. All of this is in addition to a weekly stipend, a signing bonus or marketing guarantee (but not a loan), and possibly reduced fees.

 

Part 2 with Agent (And More) Austin Atkinson

05 Friday Feb 2016

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Today is Part 2 of our guest entry from Austin Atkinson, an NFLPA contract advisor who’s served in personnel roles with the Charleston, S.C.-based Medal of Honor Bowl (’14-’15) and the Tropic Bowl (’16). I feel he’s got a unique perspective in how to build a strong presence in the game. Today, he talks about some of the unexpected drama he faced working with scouts and agents to build an all-star roster.

“Literally within the first 60 days of me taking the job in Charleston, I was contacted by two individuals who were affiliated with two of the more established all-star games. The first emailed to say that he had heard that the other was calling a bunch of agents and saying that I was planning on using my status as a personnel director to recruit players to my own agency. Days later, the second person emailed to say that he had heard that the first guy was actually calling around and saying that I was unscrupulous and that agents shouldn’t send their players to our game. At that point, I had no choice but to block out the outside noise and handle things my own way. It was obvious that neither one of those guys was going to play any sort of role in helping me establish myself as a personnel director anyway.

“Because of those two individuals, I actually drafted a letter and sent a copy to every single agent in the country via email (thanks, NFLPA directory!) and explained that they should have no concerns over my involvement with the game, and that any concerns could be addressed to me personally. Other than having to tactfully correct a few doubters on Twitter a few times, I never heard another concern from the agent community. I am happy to report that we actually had 38 players report to our game in Charleston that year that were unsigned or otherwise uncommitted to any particular agency. That kind of number is unheard of for a major all-star game, and is one of which I am particularly proud. I had hoped to make it clear to the scouting and agent community that I was going to give my best effort to find talent on my own, and not just ‘play favorites’ with any agencies.

“Now, that is not to say that I don’t value the input from my fellow agents. As many will attest, I’ve spent hours and hours on the phone with them during the last couple of years. Although I spend a lot of time traveling to games and attending practices before and during the college football season, the agents that I speak with that are scattered across the country serve as my eyes and ears on the ground. I am extremely grateful for their insight and I always try to give them an honest opinion or otherwise not ‘leave them hanging’ when they inquire about my interest in a certain player. I understand that this is a pressure-filled business, and I have personally been cussed out and threatened by a few agents during the last couple of draft cycles. But the vast majority are personable and respectful, and I enjoy hearing from them throughout the year.

“To wrap things up, I thought I would share something that happened last week in Mobile that kind of brings my experience full circle. There I was at Veet’s (a bar that’s a Senior Bowl ‘must’) and I was speaking to a CFL coach and a veteran NFL scout. The CFL coach was going on about how much he liked a certain ACC player, and said he hoped to sign him if he didn’t get picked up by an NFL team. I knew, and the NFL scout obviously knew, the particular medical history of this player and how that accounted for why he hadn’t received a single all-star game invite. The scout must have sensed that I had some information to share, so he gave me an ‘after you’ wave of the hand. I then proceeded to spout off to the coach this player’s entire medical history, and told him that despite being an all-conference, record-breaking player while in college, the player had virtually zero shot at passing an NFL physical. The coach was initially shocked by this revelation, and then repeatedly thanked me for sharing that key piece of information. It was definitely one of those moments where I realized that I had come a long way from being ‘just an agent’ just a few years ago.

“I hope to see many of you at the NFL Combine later this month in Indianapolis. Please introduce yourself if we haven’t met already. I’m already working on another all star game for the 2017 Draft cycle, and I hope to share that information with everyone soon. Good luck to all of the players and agents in this year’s Draft!”

Finding Your Own Personnel Path (Pt. 1)

04 Thursday Feb 2016

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I met Austin Atkinson more than three years ago sometime after he passed the NFLPA agent certification exam in 2012. An attorney in South Carolina, Austin was enthusiastic, smart and details-driven, like dozens of new contract advisors. He’d also made alliances with several people in the football business before he’d gotten certified, which is always wise.

It was through these alliances that Austin found himself helping out with the Medal of Honor Bowl, a college all-star game that ran for two seasons (2014-2015) and saw 20-plus players get drafted and hundreds go to NFL camps. The game is also the place where Patriots Super Bowl hero Malcolm Butler first caught the eye of scouts. Though it didn’t get the headlines of the bigger and more traditional games like the Senior Bowl and the Shrine Game, the game became known, in short order, for its abundance of sleepers and the hospitality organizers showed to NFL personnel.

This year, the MOH Bowl moved to a more traditional bowl format, leaving Austin without a personnel role. However, he was able to assume the same role with another game, the Tropic Bowl, which launched in January. Once again, the game quickly gained traction with scouts, and Austin earned praise for the roster he (largely) assembled for game owner/founder Michael Quartey.

Whenever you handle such a role, you get interesting insights on the business and get to see a side few see. It’s almost like real-life fantasy football on the college level. There’s nothing more rewarding than providing a draft hopeful with a platform for achieving his dream. With this in mind, I asked Austin to take the reins of SIF for a day and give readers a peek into his world.

I’ll let Austin take it from here.

 

 

 

“One of the biggest challenges I faced personally when entering the personnel world was fighting the perception that I was ‘just an agent’ and couldn’t possibly know that much about evaluating talent. After all, it was only a year earlier that I had been the guy on the other end of the phone lobbying other all-star game directors to invite my players to their game.

“To overcome this, I made a decided effort to visit as many college campuses as I could to personally visit with coaches and pro liaisons. In year one, our personnel director,  Cal McCombs, and I visited something like 55 college football programs between the months of August and November. We were determined to make absolutely sure that they knew about our game, and that we were very interested in their players. During these trips, we would often run into NFL scouts or scouting directors who were there to check out the crop of senior prospects. In a few lucky instances, we would be allowed to head to the film room with the scouts before practice started.

“To be able to sit and dissect game film with a room full of NFL scouts was an education that is impossible to put a price tag on. Truth be told, I mostly just sat there quietly and absorbed every bit of information that they were willing to share. Whether it was finding faults with a certain defensive lineman, or expressing concerns over another player’s off-field issues, I made plenty of mental notes on the litany of things that a scout looks for when evaluating a prospect.

“The other major obstacle that I faced was being affiliated with a ‘new’ all-star game that didn’t have a long track record, or even a national television deal, when I first came on board. I chose to instead view these things as a positive, since we had not developed some of the bad habits that some of the more established games had developed over the years. Essentially, we had a clean slate to make a good impression on the scouting and agent community.”

Austin will be back Friday to wrap things up, discussing some of the issues he faced in his campaign to advance his game (and his personnel work) in the face of tremendous competition. Back tomorrow.

 

Nobody’s Perfect

01 Monday Feb 2016

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Like all kids, when I was young, I thought my idols were perfect. I thought they gotten to their respective places of prominence because they were simply better than everyone else. Not just athletically, but morally, too, and maybe even academically. Sure, no one bats 1.000 across the board, but people that had reached the top had done it solely on merit, I figured. Any mistakes they’d made along the way were pure happenstance.

Then I started hearing things like I heard last week from an ex-scout, who told a story of joining several other scouts one night after the draft wrapped up to run 40s on the stadium turf in the dead of a cold, windy night. Naturally, this activity had been prompted by several rounds of adult beverages, and ultimately ended with a high-level NFL executive tearing his hamstring.

I also heard that Major League Football, the latest alternative league vying to sell tickets to a suspicious public, drafted an NFL starter this year. And this league is run primarily by former NFL scouts, coaches and executives.

Meanwhile, today I got an email from a longtime subscriber who said he and his client had gotten very excited by a series of enthusiastic texts from an NFL team. Unfortunately, the texts came to a screeching halt when the team realized it was communicating with an underrated free agent teammate of the top-five pick they thought they were talking to. “That might go to show why they are always at the bottom of the league,” my friend said.

The point is that nobody’s perfect. From these stories, I hope you find encouragement. I hope these examples take a little pressure off of you. God knows I’m far from perfect, and I’ve been able to carve out a small toehold in the business. You can, too. Even if you’re not related to an NFL owner, and didn’t come from a Power Five school, and didn’t get straight-A’s in your sport management classes.

The people that run NFL teams, and that scout for them, and that coach them, and every other job associated with pro football, are just that: people. Work extra hard to make as many breaks as you can get, and when you get them, work until you’re blinded by blood, sweat and tears. But never believe that you aren’t good enough to make it, for any reason, because you are.

Determining Your Value

28 Thursday Jan 2016

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I was having a conversation with James Jefferson, a longtime friend who’s a former NFL scout as well as longtime NFL defensive back, last week. James will have a special role in preparing Clemson DC Mackensie Alexander for the combine and his pro day, and I helped arrange it through Inside the League. Anyway, we were commiserating about a few things related to the game, and he said something that really stuck with me.

“My girl is always telling me I don’t charge enough for what I do, that I don’t value myself the way I should, and that I’m worth more,” he said. “It’s hard to explain to her.”

Amen, I told him. I have the same conversation with my wife, I told him. Then we had a discussion about how hard it is to truly put a value on what we do in the game.

Here’s James, a guy whose life a lot of guys would give up a limb to have. Came out of a small school in deep South Texas, beating the odds (he had to go to the CFL before the NFL would have him), then enjoying a lengthy NFL career before becoming an NFL scout for several more years, then a college coach. Still, he struggles to put a price on the talents and experience he brings to the table.

I see it everywhere. I’m often approached by first-year agents who want to get hired by bigger firms. They’ve never signed a top-level player before, and in some cases haven’t signed anyone at all, yet they feel they can demand $80,000 with benefits because they work hard and hustle. When they come to me, it’s hard to explain that they’re off the mark.

To some degree, I have the same problem. What we provide through ITL is unique, and in some quarters, truly desired and valuable. But we have to be very careful with pricing for a couple reasons.

One, in this game, you deal with a lot of fragile egos. If you charge too much for a service, some folks in this business will take the ‘I don’t need you’ approach. We get that a lot.

On the other hand, for many others, this is a vanity profession. Charge too much, and they say, hey, this is a glorified hobby for me. I may not even be successful with it. I’m only spending so much.

If you’re aspiring to be in the world of football, I think this is important to understand. No matter how hard you work, no matter how loyal you’ll be, no matter how badly you want it, there are hundreds of people a lot like you. Don’t overplay your hand. I’ve been in this business almost 20 years, and I’m still fighting that battle every day.

Thinking (Big) Out Loud

22 Friday Jan 2016

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I’ve written pretty extensively about the College Gridiron Showcase held a week ago in Bedford, Texas, just outside Dallas. Its owners, Craig Redd and Jose Jefferson, took some chances and had big success, and I think the job they did will impact future all-star games.

Part of the week that helped sustain it financially was a workout on Monday that featured ‘street free agents,’ i.e., players who are no longer draft-eligible. The problem with such player is that the NFL forbids its college scouts from evaluating these players, which kind of defeats the purposes of their workouts. Unless a team sends its pro scouts to check out the action, there aren’t any NFL representatives to give players a chance. Most of the time, these players have been watched and evaluated multiple times, so pro scouts don’t see them as especially sexy.

However, big players are sexy. You can’t teach size. That’s why I’ve been thinking about an idea that might just attract NFL teams’ pro scouts to next year’s game.

Why not cast a wide net for ex-basketball players under 25 years old, then pitch them on the idea of trying football? Basketball players are the best pure athletes in college athletics, and they bring the kind of explosiveness and strength that the NFL is always seeking. What’s more, there’s a track record for such players. Jimmy Graham, Julius Peppers, Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez are all former hoops players that turned into stars on the gridiron. Even Steelers OT Alejandro Villanueva and Eagles OT Jason Peters, though not basketball players, are examples of big men who played other positions with varied success before finally plugging into the o-line and getting traction.

I’d been thinking about this idea for some time, but felt it wasn’t a powerful draw for a simple reason: basketball players not good enough for the NBA can still make good money overseas. Or, at least, I thought so. Last week, I had a long talk with Tyler Glass, who partners with his father to represent several NBA players when he’s not working with his NFL clients. Tyler told me two things that encouraged me. One, the international game is more fast-paced and doesn’t lend itself to players much above 6-foot-6, so the true giants aren’t especially valued in foreign lands. Two, most big men who do land contracts overseas aren’t making much more than $60,000-$70,000. That’s not bad pay for a few months’ work, but it pales in comparison to an NFL minimum salary of $435,000 for those who make a 53.

The NFL has a number of rules for the way all-star games can conduct workouts, and there may be several reasons why this idea would be untenable. However, what if it were? And what if we padded up 50-60 (or more) men 26 or under, and for a full day, timed them in the 40, ran them through pass-catching drills, weighed and measured them, and even did some modified pass-blocking drills? Wouldn’t it be beneficial to see if the next Graham or Peppers is out there, finished with his career on the hardwood and wondering what’s next?

It may be something worth looking at next year. Or am I crazy? Your thoughts on this idea would be appreciated in the comments section below.

32 Opinions (and More)

21 Thursday Jan 2016

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As we’re entering draft season, I thought it a good time to remind players, fans, and even a few people in the league where the info being Tweeted, broadcast, written, IG’d, etc., comes from. This is kind of a companion piece to Wednesday’s post.

  • Small agents: Let’s start here. Many players see an agent’s job as to ‘get their name out there,’ and given that this is kind of hard to do with NFL teams (that already have opinions on these players), many agents turn to the media. Once we get to April, countless small-school draft hopefuls will have had features done on them by small-school beat writers and/or draft websites trying to produce original content. This is why when you read these features, you really have to take it with a grain of salt when the player is described as ‘rising’ or ‘a probable draft pick’ or given other vaguely hopeful platitudes. Almost every time, this story was pitched by an agent and most of the backstory came from the agent. He’s just hoping someone somewhere will take notice.
  • Big agents: This is where the major media really come into play. Once we get into March and April, when pro days take place, there’s a constant jockeying for places in the draft order, and it’s important to understand the quid pro quo among top writers/broadcasters and the major firms representing players. Much of the on-air talent is represented by the same agencies representing players, so often the big firms can control almost all communications, good and bad.
  • Director-level NFL personnel: Many of the top front office personnel who haven’t yet made GM work furiously with the media to put themselves in the best light. Obviously, they can enhance their standing with national writers by passing along tidbits about the draft process and various players. Sometimes, a player, an NFL executive and top media member are all represented by the same agency. It’s really easy to keep the draft narrative on script when this is the case, and don’t think an agency doesn’t emphasize this during the recruiting process.
  • Coaches: More and more, the coaching staff is becoming part of the draft process, and I see this as a trend that could become even more pronounced if analytics continues to take hold across the league. Coaches often have cordial relationships with writers; they see each other every day, whereas scouts are out on the road and have far less daily interaction with writers. I remember a scout telling me that KC head coach Andy Reid, when he was in Philadelphia, used to give short shrift to the local beat guys, but when the national media came around, he always trotted out the ‘I’m fat’ schtick, and that’s just one instance. Everyone’s trying to get someone to tell their story, and coaches are one of the best examples.
  • Area scouts: I think this is the least common source of info. Most scouts at this level, unless they’ve been in the game for years, lack media contacts and are constantly trying to hold onto their jobs, so they’re loathe to provide inside info. Still, it happens sometimes. It’s just more rare.

It’s also important to remember that plenty of the info coming out over the next 2-3 months is subterfuge intended to mislead other teams about draft intentions.

At the end of the day, it’s very important to know how info travels around the league and just how much weight you can put into what you read. So keep in mind what you’re hearing and where it might be coming from.

Here’s Why I Don’t Do All-Star ‘Stock Reports’

20 Wednesday Jan 2016

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This time of year, I do a lot of traveling to all-star games, and I try to make every practice. After all, that’s the beauty of all-star games. The workouts are the show, and they’re open to everyone, so why not go? But this creates a predicament. I’m often asked who looked good, and I have to say, ‘I don’t know.’ I know that sounds ridiculous, but there are several reasons for this.

 

No. 1, I guess I’m not really good at it. In the early days of ITL in the ‘00s, I used to take a hand-held cassette recorder, show up a half hour before practice, and studiously watch every play. Afterwards, I would retreat to my hotel room and spend hours transcribing the tape. At the end of the month, I would publish my winners and losers from the all-star slate. Almost always, they wouldn’t match up with the ‘winners’ (or losers) the national media types had picked out. You can argue about why that was – I distinctly remember in ’04 or ’05 when ESPN’s top draft guru published a glowing report on a player who had no-showed the week (it was promptly taken down; unfortunately this was pre-screen shot) – but the bottom line is that it was embarrassing when the players I had liked were nowhere to be found on the various websites. I recall one year when Louisville DT Amobi Okoye earned plaudits from various media sources for his Senior Bowl work, and it even vaulted him to the top 10 in the following draft. But I didn’t see it, which earned me some friendly jabs from his agent, a longtime friend. It’s odd, though, because I remember the performances of Oregon St. WO Chad Johnson (2001) and North Carolina DT Ryan Sims (2003), two players widely regarded as having had superb Senior Bowls that paid off on draft day. Those guys both killed it in Mobile, and I saw that with my own eyes. But apparently, other times, I’ve missed out.

 

No. 2, picking winners and losers is the best way to lose relationships. If you’re in any business for two decades, you make a lot of friends. In my case, most of my friends are also clients. So it behooves me to avoid providing a lot of controversial opinions, ones that I might add could be wrong. Criticizing an agent’s client is a lot like criticizing his kids, and it goes over just about as well. I can think of two contract advisors, right off the top of my head, that are not ITL clients because of things I said about their players on the site once upon a time.

 

No. 3, all-star workouts are where the league comes out to network and socialize. Just today, I’ve had two aspiring football professionals reach out to me about when I would be at practices this week and next. The whole week it’s been tough managing conversations with people and renewing acquaintances while also seeing friends coming my way to say hi, and trying to balance multiple conversations while simultaneously fielding texts and emails. It’s a very delicate thing. I want to give people my time and attention, and they deserve it. It’s just hard.

 

No. 4, it’s weird, but I’ve observed that often even scouts don’t watch the practices with their full, undivided attention. Many sit in the stands (you could always count on Texans GM Charley Casserly to be planted in the stands during his time in Houston, and I’ve noticed that normally his protégé, Jets GM Mike Maccagnan, does the same), but many roam the edges of the field with the agents, financial planners, marketing pros, parents, fans and other general hangers-on. I often wonder what their assignments are; are they there to watch specific players, or positions, or to just gather off-field information? No two teams do it the same way, so I can’t fault them for how they spend their time, but it just doesn’t seem like what’s happening on the field is as critical and urgent as some of the ‘stock reports’ make it seem. Hey, maybe I’m wrong.

 

Anyway, this is why you won’t get reports on who’s hot and who’s not though I’m at virtually every all-star game this time of year. I hope that doesn’t disappoint you.

Interesting Things in Bedford (and Elsewhere)

15 Friday Jan 2016

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This week, I was in Bedford, Texas, for the College Gridiron Showcase (CGS). Here are three things I thought were worth passing along.

  • There were two people I bumped into this week, David West and Tess Taylor, that were in the Greater Dallas area putting their obsession to work. David was an unpaid intern at the CGS, and Tess, who volunteered with the game last year, is now working at a high-end fashion store, Trunk Club. David spent the week working with scouts — fetching late-arriving players, keeping weigh-ins moving smoothly, helping fill in information gaps — and generally making himself as useful as possible. All of the time, I get asked, ‘how do you become a scout?’ Well, I don’t know if Dave will ever be a scout, but he surely improved his chances this week. Tess, on the other hand, is using the connections she made at last year’s game to build a book of business at Trunk Club, which provides concierge-level service to the apparel industry. Both of them are taking chances and stopping at nothing to bring their dreams to life.
  • I’m privileged to have been asked to speak at the 2016 Entertainment and Sports Law Symposium at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law, just outside Los Angeles, in February. In the course of speaking to Evan Brennan, a grad (and highly successful young agent, by the way) who’s helping put the event together, I found out that one of the challenges of putting a panel together is finding people willing to share the dais. He said several agents simply refuse to participate when they find out who else will be providing insights alongside them. I found that amazing, but also a good snapshot of the intensity of this business. The stakes are high. Very high.
  • Already this week, I discussed the possible reduction of fees that contract advisors are facing if NFL player reps pass a measure this spring that caps SRAs at 2 percent (from 3 percent). Most of the agents I dealt with at the CGS this week are early in their careers, and they’re working hard for their clients, covering training fees, and trying to stay afloat without a heavy war chest. When I spoke to them, I figured they’d be so angry about the topic that they’d curse their circumstances and wag their fingers at the new rule they faced. But virtually all of them simply said they’d find a way to adapt. Their resolve remains strong and they are undaunted.

So what’s the common denominator in all three of these examples? Passion. Fire. Intensity. Pressure. High standards and a refusal to quit. It’s the kind of thing that I find really admirable, and the kind of thing you have to have to succeed in this industry. Have a great weekend.

The 2 Percent Solution

11 Monday Jan 2016

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Because it’s the season of all-star games, January is always a time when I’m with ‘my people’ non-stop — the agents, financial planners, scouts, coaches, parents of players and everyone who make up my clientele. It’s a pretty exciting time. It’s great to deepen relationships and make connections. This week, I’m in Bedford, Texas, just outside Dallas, for the second annual College Gridiron Showcase.

Seeing so many people here who understand the game gives me a great platform for answering questions about a business that has an ever-changing financial model. For that reason, last year, I decided to ask one question consistently to people around the game (especially contract advisors). Last year, my question was, ‘What’s the going rate for representing a player you know may or may not be drafted, but will surely go to a camp? What’s the going rate?’ Here’s the answer I got.

This year, there’s a large shadow looming over the business as the NFLPA seems set to lower the maximum fee for representing players to two percent from its present three percent. The players will vote on the measure this spring at their annual meeting, and it would be an upset if it doesn’t pass. For that reason, I asked three agents today this question: “If you can only charge players you recruit for the ’17 draft two percent, what will you do?”

I got three responses, and I’m paraphrasing them below:

  • “I have a great passion for this business, and I have other professional endeavors that bring me resources, so I don’t have to rely on it for a living. I’ll find a way to make it work.”
  • “I was always encouraged by my mentor to get on the business advisor side of the business. I could still work with players, but it’s not regulated and you can charge as much as you want.”
  • “I guess I’ll try to figure out some way to ask them to repay training fees (which can run as high as $25,000) when they get to the league.”

Three interesting responses. Note that none of them said flatly, “I’m out of football and I’ll never return.” This game, and this profession, kindles a fire in people that is very hard to quench. It’s why I always say that no one walks out of this game. They only leave on their shield.

More responses as we proceed through all-star season.