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WSW (cont.): Inside the War Room w/Mike

21 Thursday Aug 2014

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I’m always looking for stories of draft-day intrigue. It breaks down the myth that all teams know exactly how the draft should look, how players are rated, and where they fit into the rankings. It just illustrates that this is a human business where people don’t always agree, and even the biggest names in the business make mistakes (and sometimes succeed despite themselves).

I asked Mike to pass along a couple of recollections of such times during his 18 years in the game. He had a couple interesting memories.

“I am trying to think of specific players but there was an argument in Dallas where there were two (defensive backs) on the board and I wanted one over the other, but was overruled by the head coach.  We got both of them but was mad that it happened the way it did.  The player I wanted stuck, where the other was released.  Now it has happened the other way around as well. Felt good about getting a player but currently has not panned out like I thought he would or should.”

I found this really interesting. Mike has too much class to name the head coach, but he had two during his three years (2005-7) with the team, Bill Parcells and Wade Phillips. Based on what I know of both coaches (though I’ve only met Coach Phillips personally), he has to be discussing Parcells. Though a Hall of Fame coach, Parcells has been known to be (a) rigid and (b) wrong on draft day. For what it’s worth, at least Parcells’ staff had the sense to keep the good player, even though he wasn’t the head coach’s ‘guy.’ To Mike’s credit, he doesn’t try to characterize that defensive back as a star today. It’s an inexact science, for sure.

For Mike’s second story, he’s a little more specific.

“The worst one that stuck with me was (OT) Cordy Glenn from Georgia(, who went on to be drafted in the second round by the Bills in 2012). I had some people on my side, but when it came down to the last meetings before the draft, the whole room had changed.  Something happened, and now there was a consensus that Cordy was overweight and had weight issues, which I vehemently disagreed with.  We took (OT Jonathan) Martin from Stanford, but Buffalo took Cordy the pick before, so it was a moot point, but (I was) very discouraged with the flip in the room, and some of the comments made about the player which were absolutely false.”

Glenn remains with the Bills as a starter on the offensive line, while everyone knows how the Martin story worked out. Mike would never say that he saw how that story would unfold. Still, it’s interesting to see how the scouts who’ve spent time on the road evaluating players can be evaluated when there’s sudden momentum against a player, and a group dynamic evolves. I’d give anything to know what prompted that ‘momentum,’ and it it was perhaps media-driven. I guess we’ll never know.

WSW: A Scout’s Day

20 Wednesday Aug 2014

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For today’s War Story Wednesday, we’re turning things over to this week’s interview subject, former Dolphins scout Mike Murphy. He goes into depth, with some interesting specifics, on what an NFL scout’s day looks like.

“You set your schedule in camp before you leave, and for the most part, you are gone 10 days to two weeks at a time. This can get drawn out but here goes.

“If you are a morning person and like to work out, this is the best time to do it, so you are usually up around 5-5:30 a.m. to get an hour in(, followed by eating) breakfast and (be) at your school somewhere around 7-8 a.m. depending on what time the school allows you in. You sit in a dark room by yourself or with other scouts and grind out the game tape.

“The game tape is not what you see on TV. There is no sound, and it is a sideline and end-zone view, and you watch a minimum of three games plus special teams. The biggest issue is to stay focused when it is quiet and you are in a dark room. At some point during the day, the pro liaison will come and talk to you regarding the players. He will either get into an in-depth conversation on players, or he will be vague. That will depend on the policy of the program set by the head coach.

“If you have watched the tape and spoken with the pro liaison, the next thing is (to) speak with the athletic trainer, strength coach and academic advisor. If you can get to a position coach, coordinator or head coach, (talk to them, too). All of these interviews help you build a bio/background on an individual player. This background can, and will, have a big bearing on the individual’s draft status. You want to dig and see if the individual can learn, and if he struggles, is it terminal, or is there a certain way he learns, and can he retain the information given to him? This will help also when you talk to your coaches about an individual player letting them know that there might be some issues with the player’s ability to learn. What we find are a lot of players that have reading comprehension issues. This causes a problem because of the volume of information given to players each and every day during training camp and the installation of an offense or defense.

“After you finish with your interviews, you head out to practice to get body types and watch the players move around. The body typing is helpful in many ways to see growth potential, for example. Are they a small-boned individual or big-boned? Large-boned players are usually naturally big and not self-made, allowing them to put on more weight, as opposed to a small-boned individual who is self-made, not naturally big, and who is susceptible to injury.  Is a lineman narrow-hipped, knock-kneed, high-cut (long legs)?  This will affect his ability to create power or anchor and play with good consistent leverage.

“Once you have gotten all your information and watched practice, you head to the car to drive to your next town.  It could be a hop, skip and a jump down the road or a four- to five-hour drive, sometimes more. Most times, you are done with practice between 4-5 in the afternoon.  Once you get to your next destination, you may have grabbed dinner on the road, or you get dinner and start typing your reports.  In any event you do not start typing reports until after dinner (time frame). I have been up until 1 a.m. typing reports, but most evenings will be somewhere around 11p.m., and you are up and back at it all over again the next day.

“The job has its perks, and where else do they pay you to watch football? The thing is, it isn’t as glamorous as people think, and it is a grind.  Most times, come November, there are a bunch of grumpy scouts, and that will affect how you view a player. You do find yourself coming out of camp being more lenient, but come November, you become much less lenient.”

The Media and the NFL Draft

19 Tuesday Aug 2014

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In the course of interviewing former Dolphins scout Mike Murphy about his experiences in 18 years as an NFL scout with four teams, I asked a question I always pose to ex-scouts: what effect, if any, does the media (beat writers, draft ‘gurus,’ ‘Twitter’ scouts, etc.) have on the draft process? Does it ever influence what teams do?

I found his answer interesting.

“I know if you are a good scout, then all other outside influences will not impact one’s opinion. Scouts (for the most part) are paid well and paid for ‘their opinion.’ Stick to it, right or wrong. You are trying to make your team the best it can be, and most GM or head coaches do not want ‘yes’ people.

“I have been around a few that would (pay attention to Internet scouts and media) and (who) have been influenced tremendously by what mock drafts say, and have gotten themselves and the organization in trouble. Those individuals in the media, etc., get their information from somewhere. Most of the time it comes from someone in an organization. Those individuals don’t know what your team needs are (and) what your emphasis is on a position. They could be wrong, not know the rest of the country and how a player stacks up against others, medical history or mental issues. So why would you listen to it or let it sway your opinion? Trust in your scouts, and scouts, trust in your ability to evaluate players.  The other is best left for the armchair QB.”

Mike makes the presumption that draft scouts “get their information from somewhere.” I’m not sure I agree. Obviously, the Mayocks, the Kipers and the McShays of the world get insider info to compile their reports and form their opinions, but I’m not sure how pervasive this is. My experience has been that the overwhelming majority of mock drafts are modifications of other mock drafts. It’s a ‘monkey see, monkey do’ proposition. Still, if NFL scouts are aware enough of what’s out there that they actually have formed an opinion, there’s no question it’s having an effect on things.

I had a conversation with former Redskins and Texans GM Charley Casserly many years ago, and he basically dismissed mock drafts and the like as bathroom reading material.

However, I interviewed Patrice Brown, an agent who had a third-round draft pick in her first year certified by the NFLPA, what she’d learned in her first year as a player rep, and she had this response: “I would say how important relationships with the media are. The media, people may want to discount it, but these teams, everybody’s human. The way the media responded, it appeared to have some impact. We’re not in those war rooms, and the teams have these highly paid staffs that handle that, but hey, everybody’s human. Even after the season was over, I would have worked harder to connect and get himself some (recognition). Hey, even locally, I’m reaching out to sportswriters and where’s the hometown love? I would have done all those things better.”

The media’s real impact on the draft is still something I’m trying to figure out. I’m open to others’ thoughts on this. The human element really holds true in draft rooms, no matter how much it’s dismissed by NFL officials. I guess that will always be true.

A week with a former NFL scout

18 Monday Aug 2014

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We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from last week’s series with former Jets Director of Football Administration Ari Nissim, so we thought we’d try a similar tack this week with Mike Murphy. Mike served almost two decades as an NFL scout before getting let go in Miami when the team made a chance at general manager. As a scout, your life rises and falls with the fate of your GM; when a team brings in someone new at that position, he regularly cleans house and hires his own ‘team,’ similar to when a new head coach comes in and builds out his staff.

In his 18 years evaluating talent for NFL teams, Mike worked for the Chiefs, Seahawks and Cowboys before his most recent stint with the Dolphins. He’s also got a CFL background, having coached for Ottawa and worked in personnel for Winnipeg. Here’s his full bio.

Mike has CFL bloodlines; his father, Cal, was a legendary coach and GM up north, and is even a member of the league’s Hall of Fame. However, there are plenty of people who never translate their Canadian roots to the NFL, and Mike was able to make that jump, to his credit.

Here’s how it happened, in his own words:

“I was coaching in the CFL (Canadian Football League) and there were issues with the ownership at the time, with them bouncing checks to name a few things. I got to know an individual that worked with Kansas City who used to come to Canada and scout. We struck up a conversation about scouting, and they happened to have an opening. It took a little doing, by having people call on my behalf to the individual that was doing the hiring in the personnel department. As you would have guessed, it isn’t always what you know, but who you know. Once I got in, my boss told me that it was now my job to stay in, and that was 18 years ago.”

The thing I like about Mike is that I explained him the purpose and audience of this blog, and he ‘got it’ immediately. He sent me some very long, very nuanced answers to the 10 questions I sent him. It’s always a measure of the success of an interview with a scout when I find myself reading and re-reading the answers, soaking it in and finding plenty of information I hadn’t heard before. That’s true of Mike’s interview.

Maybe the best part of Mike’s interview is that when I asked him what advice he’d give someone looking to become an NFL scout, he gave me a 10-item, point-by-point breakdown of the things he’d do (and has done). I found it really illuminating.

Stick around this week. I think you’ll find it to be very educational.

The payoff

15 Friday Aug 2014

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I wanted to wrap our week-long interview with Ari Nissim with a few finishing touches. Let’s start with the downside. I asked the former Jets Director of Football Administration what he learned after his first year on the job. I wanted to know what his biggest misconception had been.

He said he’d had no idea that the job never really ends.

“The all-encompassing nature of the job is the part that is tough. People don’t realize the seven-day-a-week nature of the job, not only from August through January, but from January through May. With the Senior Bowl (late January), the combine (late February), free agency (early March), draft meetings (April), etc., seven days a week, there really isn’t much time off, and many of those days are 7 a.m. – 9 p.m.-type days if not longer.  I remember the first year at the Jets it was 7 a.m.–11 p.m. every day except Sunday. Talk about crazy times.”

It’s the kind of job no one takes for the pay, or the cache of working for an NFL team. It has to be a labor of love. Next, I asked Ari what the biggest payoff for the job was. When did he find himself saying, ‘man, this is fun’?

“There are so many. The job is all-encompassing, but it has so many amazing moments along the way.

“Being at Gillette (Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.) as we beat the Patriots in the divisional round of the playoffs in 2011 was an amazing experience.  Many of the moments are just random.  Being on the field in Lambeau (Field in Green Bay) in 2006 as Brett Favre runs out for warmups was a cool moment, then being part of the night we traded for him two years later was another awesome moment.  Sitting and talking football with (Jets head coach) Rex (Ryan), or (other) coaches, can be surreal if you stop and think, ‘I’m talking football with NFL coaches.'”

So after a week-long interview with Ari, here, as I see it, are the takeaways:

  • Get into position to make as many relationships as you can.
  • Be on the lookout for a mentor (or two) who can advance your career and who is willing to help.
  • No matter how passionate you are about a career choice, there will be times when your passion is tested.
  • If you’re looking for a niche that is gaining in value in the football business, it’s analytics.
  • Getting an NFL internship, or job, or other professional toe-hold is just the start of the hard work. You have to continue to prove yourself and aggressively work to get ahead and/or stay ahead.
  • There will be a payoff, and maybe several, for all your hard work. They may not be headline-grabbing stuff, but they could be the kind of thing that you’ll remember the rest of your life.

 

The Future of Football?

14 Thursday Aug 2014

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As former Jets Director of Football Administration Ari Nissim described his job title and duties in Monday’s post, there was one thing he listed that caught my eye: he oversaw football metrics for the team.

We’re seeing a lot more of metrics in football as it spreads from its early beginnings in baseball. I believe people who are interested in a football career can’t pigeon-hole themselves as looking for established NFL jobs only, so I asked Ari where an independent-minded ‘football entrepreneur’ might place his chips. His answer didn’t surprise me.

“I think at this point it’s sports analytics,” he said. “There are many people trying to do it, but that is the avenue that I would look at.”

Also interesting: getting a handle on things such as metrics might be able to get you to a job as general manager, which in the age of fantasy football is most folks’ dream job. Ari has an interesting take on this.

“I think there will be more (Directors of Football Administration) as GMs as they, in many cases, have a better ability to relate to owners and thus come off better in interviews. The role of a football GM has also changed so drastically over time that the ability to multi-task and delegate is paramount, and I believe that many (Directors of Football Administration) have a better base in that from their professional training. With that being said, there are a exponentially more scouts in the NFL, thus sheer numbers and the importance of scouting will always be part of the equation.”

Don’t forget the importance of mentors in the process. I asked Ari who he’d say were the most influential people in his career, and his answer did not surprise me. They were Jimmy Sexton and Mike Tannenbaum.

“Mike was definitely the most helpful as he gave me the opportunity as an intern for the Jets. Jimmy Sexton taught me so much, (and) I have so much respect for him, not only in the business but as a person.”

We’ll talk about the fun parts of being in the football business in Friday’s post.

 

 

WSW: What It Takes

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

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I’m always looking for crazy stories of pure work ethic that espouses the will, persistence and sheer single-mindedness that characterizes people who succeed in football. Fortunately, in my correspondence with former Jets Director of Football Administration Ari Nissim, I was able to find a great one. He relates a story of a project he worked on during his internship that was probably integral in that internship turning into a paying NFL job.

At this point, I’ll turn it over to Ari.

“It always amazed me the people that got an internship and thought just by getting the internship they made it. Nope, you haven’t made anything; you got your foot in the door. Now, what are you going to do with it?

“I remember during my internship, I was asked to do this study on playtime in the preseason which at that point could only be done by watching every single play of every single preseason game and jotting down every player’s number on each play, and they asked me to do it for the entire league.  It literally wasn’t possible to do in the time frame wanted, but I was like, ‘screw it, we are going to get it done anyway.'”

Now before you say to yourself, ‘I’m a football junkie, and I’d do this for free,’ think about what this job would entail. This would involve accessing the NFL Films film bank for every game played in the preseason (about 130 games) and breaking them down, play by play, to log in numbers for each team. And by the way, you would have only a few weeks to do this.

We return to Ari’s story.

“One night, it was about midnight and in walks Herm Edwards (the Jets HC at the time). He looks at me and was like, ‘What you doing?’ And so I tell him about the study, (and) he looks at me, kind of scratches his head like I’m out of my mind, and turns around and walks out of the room.  So it’s midnight and there are two people in the facility, the head coach and this out-of-his-mind intern.

“That’s the passion I look for in my interns, and  I’m happy to say that two of the people that interned under me at the Jets are currently working for NFL teams, and another works for a sports agency, and it’s because you could tell they loved it.

“There are a lot of smart people in this world. What makes you stand out? Because trust me, when you don’t think we notice, we do.”

I think this story is excellent for two reasons. One, it illustrates what an UNPAID intern is asked to do. Two, it illustrates that the head coach — the guy who gets all the glory (and the $$$$) when the team wins — is also keeping intern hours.

I think this is something to consider if you’re really dedicated to working in the NFL. This is what it takes.

 

Getting and keeping an NFL job

12 Tuesday Aug 2014

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I think before we go any further, I have to address the one question everyone asks, and that is, ‘how did you get your job?’ In the case of former Jets Director of Football Administration Ari Nissim, it was a case of developing a vision, choosing a school that fit that vision, then aggressively pursuing the opportunities that school brought him.

“I wanted to work in the NFL since I was in high school, which was right about the time the salary cap came into effect.  Having no ‘in’s’ in the industry, I knew I would need to go to law school after college to have a chance, so I focused on going to the law school with the best sports program, and ended up at Tulane. Let’s not kid anyone: if I got into Harvard Law, I would have gone, but Tulane was an amazing experience, where I had the opportunity to meet a lot of people in the industry when they came down to speak.

“One of those people happened to be Mike Tannenbaum, then the Asst. GM for the NY Jets (and now a member of Chicago-based player agency Priority Sports).  There is a fine line between persistence and harassment, and I was able to successfully navigate that line into a one-week internship after my second year of law school.  I turned that one-week internship into a two-week internship, into a six-week internship, and then parlayed that into an internship at the NFL league labor operations department for the 2004 season, then had the opportunity to work with Jimmy Sexton in his sports agency (at the time, Memphis-based Athletic Resource Management, though Sexton is now with CAA), which gave me such a perspective of the agent/player side which I feel helped me working on the team side.  Then in 2006 when Mike Tannenbaum was promoted to GM, Dawn Aponte was leaving to go work at the league office and they had an opening and I got the call to work in the Jets football administration department.”

Ari is a big believer in relationships. I asked him what, besides good grades, would give someone the best shot at success in landing an NFL job?

“Networking. You want to make connections and keep connecting with people.  I am a big believer in relationships.  Sports is such a small group of people (that) the more relationships you build the more doors you have the ability to have opened.  I always tell students in law school to go to the sports lawyers conference every year.  Now you see the sports analytics conferences; those would be good for networking as well.  You never know who knows who.”

For War Story Wednesday, a story about persistence and doing whatever it takes that Ari tells. See you tomorrow.

A conversation with Ari Nissim

11 Monday Aug 2014

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This week, we’ll be talking to Ari Nissim, who until 2013 was Director of Football Administration for the Jets. I reached out to him last week, and though he didn’t know me, he was kind enough to agree to an email correspondence. This is true despite the fact he’s quite active on Twitter, a frequent radio guest, a featured writer on National Football Post, and an adjunct faculty member at NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies. We’ve since found common friends, as well as common ground on a number of issues.

One of those issues is helping young people in the business, and from the start of our correspondence, I knew he’d be perfect for my blog. In one of his emails, he said this (and it was unsolicited): “I’m a big believer in paying it forward and helping others break into the industry.  Always told myself that I would be willing to be accessible.  So I’m happy to do the interview.” Ah yes, a kindred spirit. It’s fair to say not everyone in NFL-related professions has the same philosophy.

Before we go any farther, let’s pin down exactly what a Director of Football Administration does and doesn’t do. Again, in Ari’s own words:

“The (Director of Football Administration) does a variety of jobs. He is the salary cap manager for the club; handles the football cash budget for the club (typically this includes player cash budget for the year, plus other budgets under the football umbrella); assures compliance with all the NFL and CBA rules for the club; negotiates player contracts; drafts contract language; structures contracts; works with the GM and scouts to build the roster; (and) is involved in free agency and draft preparation.  The (Director of Football Administration) is also responsible for daily administration for the club (i.e. signing/releasing players, trade paperwork, and sending transactions in to the league). I also oversaw our football analytics, coaching contracts, and worked with various different departments inside the organization and handled and oversaw grievances that players may file against the team.”

In other words, his position is not the kind of pure scouting/evaluation/coaching position with the sizzle that excites everyone sitting in a sport administration class right now. Still, he got to touch on a lot of different areas, and there’s lots to unpack, and we’ll be doing that this week as he addresses questions I’ve already directed him.

Of course, he’s flexible, and I am, too. If there are questions you would like to ask, or you need more information on a specific topic, or there’s anything at all that you have questions about, either include it in the comments section this week or email me at nstratton@insidetheleague.com, and I’ll pass it along. I want this week to be a real win to everyone interested in the inner workings of an NFL team. It’s going to be a fun week.

New frontiers

08 Friday Aug 2014

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I think the key to really making a mark in sports, to making money and establishing yourself in a lasting way, is to identify a megatrend and get in on the ground floor. I think high school football is the next big theater for explosion, and I think Ground Zero will be in Texas. Don’t believe me? Consider this.

Eastbay is sponsoring a program in which schools send in a short video featuring their off-season workouts. Schools can compete for a $20,000 prize for doing nothing more than filming their players running through drills, hitting the weights, chanting, cheering, and doing the things young men do to prepare for war in the fall. It’s called Preparation Nation, and if you’re interested in details for your school, this link provides all the info you need.

So if you look around YouTube, you find that two examples Eastbay provides for others to model are from Texas schools, Southlake Carroll and Denton Guyer. I recommend you especially check out the Carroll entry. It’s filmed in the school’s indoor practice facility, which is finer than what several NFL teams have. There’s one shot of a wall filled with pictures of current and former college and NFL passers (Greg McElroy and Chase Daniel among them). Later, the players run through a workout gauntlet in a weight room that is well-appointed and stocked with gleaming new boxes, bars and mats. The Guyer video is more stripped down and focuses more on traditional field work, but includes interviews with not one, but two, team strength coaches.

So here’s the point. Ten years ago, how many schools in the nation had indoor practice facilities where athletic teams could prepare for competition free of the elements? How many schools had a dedicated strength coach? How many had TWO? All of this is happening here in Texas.

Here’s what else is happening. High school football games are a regular feature on ESPN. High school coaches at bigger schools in Texas are making north of $100,000 per year. More and more high schools are building multi-million dollar stadiums with public money.

Here’s how I’m seizing the opportunity. One of my projects is that I’m one of six partners with Champions Search Firm, which helps schools fill vacancies on their athletic staffs. We’ve worked with schools in the hiring of more than 30 coaches in the last six years. We work with coaches and schools to try to streamline the process and put good coaches with good schools. Incidentally, the former Directors of Athletics at Denton (Ken Purcell) and Southlake (Bob Ledbetter) are among my partners.

So here’s the takeaway. Are you interested in working in football? Here’s one idea. (A) Get to Texas. (B) Build some relationships in football you can leverage. (C) Find a market to serve involving high school football. And if you don’t want to follow these steps, find another big trend in the game and come up with an idea to serve that market.