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NFLPA exam week thoughts

24 Thursday Jul 2014

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Here are a few thoughts gathered while standing outside the Ritz-Carlton, handing out ITL literature to aspiring contract advisors during their lunch break.

  • According to what NFLPA officials announced at the start of today’s session, there are close to 300 people taking the exam this year. That’s a second straight bumper crop. Last year’s total was in the 300 neighborhood as well, but that was chalked up to the fact that it was the first class post-‘runner rule.’ Many here this year are with big firms, but many are independent. It just goes to show the passion so many have for pursuing a career in sports representation. It remains a very attractive industry.
  • Based on the sample size that passed by me on the way to find lunch, applicants are about 50-50 white and black, about 80 percent male, and probably 75 percent 40 or younger. Probably 30-40 percent looked to be 30 or younger.
  • I think I spoke to 6-8 people re-taking the test after failing last year.
  • It’s a young man’s game, on and off the field. There is at least one 22-year-old and one 23-year-old taking the test this year. So far, it looks like the oldest person taking the exam this year is in his early 50s, and there may be 3-4 more in that age range, but no more.
  • I’m told there’s at least one couple taking the exam.
  • It’s interesting to watch how the various aspiring agents carry themselves and how they dress. There are a handful in shorts and T-shirts as if they’re attending a cookout, but far more in coat and tie or a similar look. The lion’s share are in slacks and business shirts.
  • It’s not all about football here at the Ritz this week. The alt-rock band Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds made its way through the hotel bar last night after a local performance. Give them a listen (I did). They kinda suck.
  • Activities wrap up around 4:30-5 this afternoon, then the applicants return tomorrow for a morning session before the test is administered Friday afternoon.

We’ll have more from the scene tonight at the Ritz and its surroundings in Friday’s post.

 

WSW: All Wet in Washington

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Johnstown, Pa.-based Casey Muir of CRM Sports Management is a longtime ITL client who was certified in 2010. Brick by brick, he’s carved out a niche in the business despite launching his agent career without significant financial backing or affiliation with an established firm.

Though Casey has found his way in the business, it wasn’t always such a smooth ride. Take his experience on Exam Day 2010. Here’s his story, in his own words:

“So this was the agent exam of 2010, the last one before the lockout, and it was pouring, an absolute monsoon in D.C. the day of the agent exam.

“I was staying at a friend’s place outside of D.C. and took the Metro in, and when I left my friend’s place, it was not raining. So I get on the Metro, get off the Metro, and it was an absolute monsoon, just a complete downpour. The Metro let me off about four blocks away from the Four Seasons, which is where they gave the test back then.

“I walk through the doors and it looked like I had just jumped into a swimming pool. I was dressed business casual, and my slacks, shoes, socks, shirt, everything was soaking wet. I had my bag and study materials, which were also soaking wet. So I said to the girl at the receptionist’s desk, ‘Do you have a dryer?’ And she’s just looking at me dripping a puddle in the hotel lobby, and she said, ‘Hold on, I’ll be right back, let me get a manager.’

“So I’m standing there and people are coming in with their umbrellas, and everyone’s just looking at me. That’s before I had an iphone, so I had no weather app. We’ll blame it on that.

“But anyway, they’re like, ‘Listen, go in the bathroom and take off what you want us to dry,’ and I take off everything. I think I still had my boxers on. So this dude from the hotel comes in and gives me a robe and slippers, and I’m like, ‘All right, here we go,’ and I’m about to go in and take the test.

“So while I’m putting this robe on, other people are coming in and going out of the bathroom. Another guy looks at me and he’s soaking wet, too, and so he did the same thing. So there’s two of us who walk into the exam wearing a robe and slippers. I have to go through registration in my robe and my Four Seasons slippers. I took the test, and sometime during the test, they brought me my clothes. It was a nightmare, and you talk about embarrassing. . . .

“That’s how I started my career as a sports agent. In a robe and slippers. And now look at me, you know. So no matter what anyone does on that test this weekend, they’re not going to start out any worse than I did, and I turned out OK. I took a selfie in the bathroom of me in my robe. It might have been my first selfie. It was an interesting experience for sure.”

Some exam week notes

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

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On Monday, we touched on the makeup of the people who’ll be taking the NFLPA exam this week. Today, a few thoughts about the week itself.

  •  The area around the Ritz Carlton in Georgetown is a little barren for pubs and in-and-out restaurants, making quick lunch trips tricky and late-night beverage runs even trickier. That means most folks hunker down at the Ritz and make it their ‘island home’ for the 72 hours or so that they’re in town. At $400-plus/night and around $10 for a beer, that makes for some pretty pricey accommodations. And if you stay over ’til Saturday, make sure not to miss the $45 Yoga brunch! (Just kidding. I have no idea how you combine ‘yoga’ and ‘brunch.)
  • If you’re wondering, no, I won’t be staying there this week. I’m a ‘budget’ traveler. Actually, my wife and kids say I’m a ‘budget’ everything.
  • The relative ‘remoteness’ of the Ritz makes for some interesting stories. After the 2012 NFLPA exam, for instance, a big name in the football business — and this name is instantly recognizable to anyone who follows the industry — was re-taking the exam, and nearly got into a fight with another test-taker shortly after the exam finished that Friday afternoon.
  • If you’re around the Ritz this week, you won’t just be rubbing elbows with future contract negotiation heavyweights. There’s also a former amateur boxer of some note who lives there. Or does he?
  • On a more serious note, the masses huddling in one spot makes for some interesting relationships forming. Many times, the unsuspecting attorney in town to learn the ropes and make a few colleagues meets up with a former runner looking to take the test and find someone with deep pockets, and in short order, (financial) disaster ensues. This is a key lesson to learn in the industry. It’s kinda like the old joke: What’s the best way to make a small fortune in football? Start with a large fortune.
  • Make sure you come back tomorrow for War Story Wednesday. I’ve got the funniest story about the NFLPA exam in the history of funny stories about the NFLPA agent exam.

A big week ahead

21 Monday Jul 2014

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This week is a big one for about 250 people aspiring to enter the football business. The NFLPA holds its annual exam for prospective contract advisors in Washington, D.C. on Friday after a seminar that runs all day Thursday and Friday morning (the test is Friday afternoon). It’s the only time all year that the players association administers the test, so it’s now-or-never time for all the would-be agents looking to get a piece of the NFL action.

Friday’s exam will be open-book, made up of 60 questions with a three-hour time limit. The test gets curved, and though it’s all multiple choice and true-false, it takes almost two months for the NFLPA to get results of the test to participants. Attorneys seem to do well on it; it’s written by lawyers, and tends to favor legal-speak, making it a little easier for those who’ve taken the bar. That’s one reason why there’s a reasonably high pass rate. The lion’s share of test-takers are attorneys or people with legal backgrounds.

What kinds of attorneys tend to register for the test? They come from a wide spectrum. Every year, I talk to a young person who took the bar a month before taking the NFLPA exam. Sometimes, they’re taking it just days after taking the agent test; lots of young people go to law school expressly to become agents, so the bar exam almost becomes secondary. Often, it’s an attorney who gets interested in the profession after doing work with a company that is peripherally involved with the NFL. Maybe it’s a legal professional who has a family friend who’s a hot prospect for the next NFL draft. Very often, it’s an established attorney with a thriving practice who’s just bored.

Probably 10 percent of the people taking the test will be from established agencies; Relativity Sports, CAA, Rosenhaus Sports, Impact Sports and Roc Nation are big-name firms that will be sending representatives to sit for the exam this week. There will also be a generous number of recruiters — also known as runners — who have worked with such firms but who are now going it on their own. Often, when this latter group mixes with a green, unknowing (and well-funded) attorney, partnerships develop. We’ll address this later in the week.

We touch down in D.C. Wednesday. It should be a fun and interesting week with plenty of good stuff to talk about. Stay tuned.

The SIF Interview: Gina Swanson

18 Friday Jul 2014

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Travis Swanson was selected by the Lions in the third round (76 overall) out of Arkansas last May after entering the season as a good bet to go somewhere in the middle rounds as one of the top o-line prospects in the ’14 draft. We had a conversation with his mother, Gina, recently, and excerpts follow (the entire conversation is over at our sister site, Inside the League).

Did it concern you that Travis was going into his senior season with a team that had struggled and a coach who was in his 1st year? Did you feel that would hamper his NFL chances?

“Not in the least bit. Not in the least bit. In fact, when (former Arkansas head coach) John L. Smith came in as the interim two years previous, he really stepped up to the plate and told us everything was going to be fine, and being part of a team is picking people up and standing by the brotherhood they have. They struggled that year and had their challenges last year, but Coach (Bielema) was awesome and we never had a doubt in our mind. We knew he was going to be just fine.”

What kind of guidance did Coach Bielema and/or his staff provide regarding agents?

“It was fantastic. For us as parents, having never been through anything like this before, when they had their spring game last year, Coach (Bielema) and his staff put together a meeting of parents of seniors, almost like a little training seminar, and it was fantastic and gave us a lot of good info, things to expect, watch for, and plan for, and it was exceptional. We felt blessed to be a part of that and be more educated about the process.”

Did Coach Bielema bring in any agents to speak to y’all?

“No, no agents came in to speak.”

Did Coach Petrino’s staff help in the agent education process at all before he left? How about coach smith?

“I’m not aware because that was in Travis’ early years. I honestly don’t know the answer to that question, whether he did or not, and with the difficult transition with John L coming in there, there was nothing brought to the forefront for us personally, and that’s why we were so incredibly thankful for what coach b did, when we really needed it.”

Going into his senior season, what was your perception of where Travis would go in the draft? Where did you get that information from?

(Laughs) “You know what? I’m completely honest when I say this: we had no idea where he would go. We could get online and read a lot of things, but it didn’t matter to us in the least bit. We just wanted the opportunity for him to get drafted. There are a lot of opinions out there, and for every Google search you do, there’s an opinion, and that’s OK. We were just thankful he was being considered a part of that process. He had done everything up to that point that he’d wanted to accomplish in his life, and toward the end, we just turned ourselves off to what the opinions were. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen.”

That must have taken a lot of discipline, to avoid the Internet and Google.

“There have been days, but i think we made a decision as a family, that some days were good days and some were bad days, depending on what you read, but if somebody wanted Travis, he would be picked, and for our own sanity, that would take us through the process. It was actually kind of fun.”

For more on the role Arkansas compliance played in Travis’ education on the draft process, the family’s timeline on agent selection, the role the family played in the process, whether any untoward agents offered anything illegal, and other details, check out the full interview here.

A note about agent violations

17 Thursday Jul 2014

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I just wanted to weigh in briefly on an agent incident that’s gotten a lot of play lately.

It involves Justin Bingman, an agent based in Pacific, Mo., who’s entering his second year as a contract advisor. Justin’s a client and a friend, and while I won’t defend what he did in this story — and neither would he — I think it’s really important we give this story a little perspective.

When prospective NFLPA contract advisors are pursuing certification, they take a written test at the end of July, then find out whether or not they passed the test in late September/early October. That means they’re essentially trying to board a fast-moving car if they want to jump into recruiting that year. This is one reason it’s so hard for first-year agents to sign a solid prospect in their first year certified. At the same time, all agents are facing a three-year clock for getting a player on an NFL roster, or that agent has his certification pulled. If he wants to keep going, he has to pay the initiation fee of almost $3,000 again as well as taking the exam again. The clock starts the moment the agent gets word that he has passed the exam, so most of the time, Year 1 is a wash, making it a two-year proposition to get a player signed to an NFL deal.

For this reason, when the following spring arrives, most agents are excited to apply all the lessons they’ve learned in their first six months as registered agents. It’s their first chance to really get in on the ground floor with legitimate prospects. It was in this spirit that Justin reached out to a few University of Texas prospects this spring.

I don’t remember exactly how our conversation was initiated, but somehow last spring, we discussed the fact that he had dined with a a few Longhorns in a recruiting capacity. In the course of speaking, it became obvious he had covered the costs of their meals. Even as a rookie agent, it’s something he should have known, no doubt. Still, I’m sure Justin approached this the same way he would approach any business meetup involving a light meal. At any rate, the way I remember things, I made it clear he had made a misstep, and he got off the phone in short order. I presumed he was excusing himself to set things right immediately. I still believe that.

I realize there’s a great misconception among fans regarding the agent industry. Many feel that any contact between agents and players results in immediate loss of eligibility. That’s not true. The only mistake Justin made was covering the costs of the meals. It’s a mistake I doubt Justin will ever make again.

Once again, I’m not defending Justin, and he wouldn’t expect me to, anyway. But there’s a certain level of hyperbole that comes with any minor mistakes by NFLPA contract advisors, and it’s important to separate the minor mistakes from the big, intentional ones that take down programs.

College football has a number of systemic problems with the mega-agencies that won’t be solved easily. They include coaches who funnel players to their agents; payments and other accommodations made with the parents or advisors of top players; financial advisors, workout trainers, and others who work as de facto runners for agents; and compliance departments who are afraid to stand up to the powers-that-be in the name of transparency and education.

Justin will most likely face some kind of sanctions from the NFLPA over this, and may have his registration with the Secretary of State of Texas pulled. He’ll also get hammered mercilessly on social media because he made a rookie agent mistake. My guess is that the players will have to make restitution and may have to sit out an early-season game.

At any rate, my point is not to excuse what Justin did. Instead, it’s this: if we want to be honest about really regulating the industry and rooting out the exploitation of student-athletes, we can’t treat incidents such as these as if they were treasonous, punish the bad actor mercilessly, and then act as if a dragon has been slayed. If we really want to fix these  kinds of problems, we’ve got a long way to go.

WSW: Calming Carroll

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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As you may know, one key part of the NFL combine is the night when the players are herded into a big room at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and all NFL teams get a crack at interviewing them for up to 15 minutes. Of course, that’s a pretty tight window, so teams have to get their questions in quickly and draw their conclusions almost as quickly. Usually teams hold interviews knowing that a kid can play, but they want to make sure there aren’t any off-the-field red flags they need to know about, so they focus on the usual questions about arrests, alcohol- and drug-related issues and the like.

Seattle has acquired a reputation for being very thorough not just in its scouting but in evaluating players that will go outside the top 100 players, and obviously, it’s paid great dividends. With that in mind, the Seahawks took an all-hands-on-deck approach to interviewing players, with head coach Pete Carroll himself getting out and speaking to selected players. One of them was Rob Blanchflower, a tight end from Massachusetts who despite a great career at UMass had missed the Senior Bowl with a leg injury. This created a bit more mystery surrounding the pass-catcher as teams weren’t able to do the normal level of due diligence. Within that context, Carroll stopped by for a quick chat.

“Rob, nice to meet you and talk to you,” Carroll said. “You seem like a really good guy. Tell me a little about yourself. Have you ever been in trouble? Done any drugs?”

“I drink a little,” Blanchflower replied.

Eager to make sure “a little” didn’t mean two cases and a bottle of scotch per day, Carroll followed up with another question. “What’s that mean?,” he asked.

“I drink when we celebrate,” the tight end said.

Starting to get a bit concerned, and probably thinking he might have tripped up on an area of concern, Carroll asked for clarification.

“What does that mean?” he asked again.

At that point, the Minuteman sensed a brewing storm he needed to head off, and he knew exactly how to do it.

“Coach, we were 1-11 last season,” Blanch said.

Carroll had no more concerns.

The Dead Period

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

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At ITL, we focus on the game behind the game; once you start to understand how the business of football works, it can be just as exciting as the game on the field. With that in mind, we thought we’d take a look at what’s going on behind the scenes in football this time of year, a time when most fans are working themselves into a frenzy counting down the minutes until camps start.

AFL: Arena teams are making their final pushes for the playoffs. Many teams are frantically trying to plug holes created by injuries, ineffectiveness, etc. Team officials, most of whom do their own scouting, are trying to find impact players, and more importantly, hoping to find agents or other contact info that can get them to the players they need.

NFLPA agent exam: Aspiring NFL contract advisors are gearing up to travel to Washington, D.C., next week for a two-day seminar that ends with a three-hour, open-book test covering 60 questions on the CBA and other related matters. They’ll find out at the end of September how they did. Historically, about 200-250 take the test and about 75 percent pass.

Agent days: Speaking of agents, several schools will hold meetings between the contract advisors registered with the school and the seniors who will be draft-eligible after the 2014 season. Typically, agents submit the names of players they wish to meet with in advance, and the school notifies them of the players who have expressed a mutual interest in meeting. The school usually asks agents to refrain from any other communications with players until after the season, which is problematic, but best left for discussion another time.

Training facilities: With the advent of a new CBA in 2011, much of the offseason emphasis for training switched from team facilities to training facilities all over the nation. Especially in NFL cities, you can find athletes at selected gyms, especially those that focus on combine prep, especially those in the Southeast.

Job-hunting gets tough: The desperation really sets in for NFL scouts let go in after the draft (as well as those who were dismissed in 2013). There’s a flurry of job-seeking for scouts in early June each year, but those jobs are filled quickly, and once they’re gone, opportunities are rare. Some scouts will find places with AFL teams, but not until after the season is over later this summer. Others will try to latch on with colleges in the increasingly common ‘director of player personnel’ roles, but most schools are looking to fill these jobs with young (and less expensive) coaches.

All-star games: Many groups see all-star games as a good way to bring the excitement of the gridiron to a city that doesn’t have an NFL team or direct affiliation with a major college football program. They use the summer to explore the viability of bringing 100 draft-eligible players to their local stadium in January to be studied and evaluated by NFL teams. Right now, we know of at least three games that are in exploratory stages, and I’m in preliminary discussion stages of running one of them. If I come to terms with the game’s organizers, I’ll announce it in this space.

I know this kind of information isn’t necessarily the kind that gets your blood pumping and your heart racing, but if your aim is to be part of the game — and this blog is designed for just such people — it helps to start thinking of the football biz as a 12-month proposition. Knowing what’s going on all around the game will help you find your niche.

Finding sleepers

14 Monday Jul 2014

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If there’s one question I always get, especially from my newer agent clients but also from my more seasoned ones, it’s ‘how do you find a sleeper?’ Where are the seniors who come out of nowhere, climb the charts over the last weeks of the season, test well, and wind up on NFL rosters?

I can’t say I have the answer to that. In fact, at last year’s combine, I had lunch with one of the more seasoned scouts in the game, a great guy and a great friend. I asked him this question, and he didn’t really have an answer, either. In discussing it with him, my takeaway was that most teams spend about two-thirds of their time on the guys who’ll be taken in the top third of the draft roughly, i.e., rounds 1-3. Most teams see these guys as the real difference-makers, the players that will make or break their rosters, so they want to spend an inordinate amount of time on these particular players. The ones who go in rounds 4-7 — most typically the players we’d characterize as sleepers — aren’t seen as players who will help you win titles. They may be solid starters in time, and might even develop into stars, but the risk isn’t worth the reward, generally. Teams get busy, they can’t apply the resources to evaluating everybody, and players fall through the cracks.

So what’s the best way to find guys that are ‘under the radar’ or ‘off the grid?’ Here’s my take on it.

  • One way is to find players who were jucos that don’t have a lengthy body of work at the four-year college level and bloom late. I know there is very little evaluation done at the JC level, mostly because players don’t go from a juco to the draft very often.
  • A second way is to find a college basketball player who just switched to football (i.e., the Saints’ Jimmy Graham or Chargers’ Antonio Gates). There’s a tight end at Indianapolis, Erik Swoope, whom we’ve mentioned previously that fits this profile for the 2014 draft class.
  • Another way is to find players who didn’t play football until college, or very little high school ball, especially if they came from other countries (a la Detroit’s Zeke Ansah or Indy’s Bjoern Woerner or Oakland’s Menelik Watson, all from the ‘13 draft class).
  • A fourth way is to find guys who switched to impact positions late (usually before their senior seasons, but maybe even mid-season). These are typically tight ends who move to OT, or maybe DTs who move to OG, or whatever. Less frequently, you find RBs or WRs that move to CB, or even QBs who move to WO. But all of these qualify.
  • The fifth way is to find a good player at an un-sexy position – he’s good, but not high-impact – who plays either in the far Northeast (Maine/New Hampshire/Rhode Island, etc.) or the Southwest/Mountain West (West Texas/Utah/Nevada/New Mexico/Idaho/Montana/Dakotas). A good example for the ’14 draft class is New Mexico C Dillon Farrell, who signed with the 49ers as an undrafted free agent this spring. They’re trying him at tackle.
  • A sixth way is to find pure track stars that will ‘test out of the gym’ but who aren’t really ‘football players’ yet (but want to give it a try). Florida WR Jeff Demps is an example of this from the ’13 draft class; he’s a guy that’s got great tools that is still developing as a player.

There may be other ways. I know no one has the ‘patent’ on this, but these seem to be the patterns for most players who come out of nowhere, figuratively speaking, and enjoy NFL success.

The SIF Interview: Don Mewhort (Pt. 2)

11 Friday Jul 2014

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Today, we continue our conversation with Don Mewhort, whose son, Jack, was drafted 2/59 by the Colts in May.

As you read Jack’s answers, there are a few things I find noteworthy. First, he cautions that a good agent doesn’t over-promise, and in fact is adamant that the only person who can improve a player’s ‘draft stock’ is the player himself. Second, though contact with agents was (rightly) restricted by Don and his attorney father, the limited contacts that several agents had with Jack before the season seemed to factor into the Buckeye’s final decision. He also has an interesting idea on what the NFLPA might provide to NFL draft prospects that he would have found helpful.

When did you conduct meetings with agents?

People would come into Toledo and meet with my father (an attorney) and I and that happened from right now through Thanksgiving, maybe the Michigan game (Nov. 30). We met with a number of people, then narrowed the list down after the regular season, after the Big Ten Championship Game (Dec. 7), and we narrowed the list down, and after that, coordinated that, narrowed it more. After the Big Ten Championship Game we had it down to four. Jack was not that involved in that process. It was more my father and I who did it, and he left it up to us. He was more focused on football at that point. And really the reason for that was that the people we had spoken to, everybody emphasized that the most important thing for Jack to do was having a good senior season.

Did any agents ever offer anything illegal or make any untoward advances?

No, no one.

From what you saw, what tipped the scales to Priority Sports for Jack?

I think there was a personal connection between Mike (McCartney) and Jack that they developed, and I’ll tell you, the final four were very, very close. It was a very difficult decision. I think the client base that Priority Sports had was helpful, because they had (ex-Buckeye and former NFL first-rounder) A.J. Hawk as a client, so the other type of clients they had we thought fit with the kind of player and person Jack was. We felt the agent selected would be accessible for Jack, and we felt that way for the others as well, but (we felt that) once he made that decision, the agent wasn’t going to disappear for four years. We felt any of the final four were going to be real advisors to him. One of the things I think Mike did a good job of doing, and one of the things Priority did well, was that they were very straight from the very beginning that there’s not a lot of things that an agent can do to improve your draft slot. It’s really how well you do in your senior year. I would warn people that go through the process that if (an agent) tells you they’re going to make you a first-round draft pick, ask them how they’re going to do that. It’s really flattering (for agents) to tell (potential clients) how good they are, but if they can’t tell you how they’re going to take you from a fourth-round draft pick to a first-round pick . . . ask them how it’s going to happen. One thing that was consistent among all the finalists was that they were very straightforward with us, and what they were telling us was true and not what we wanted to hear.

Did you have a lot of people who told you they could really move Jack up in the draft?

Some people would tout their relationships in the league and stuff like that; they know this guy or they’re tied in with this person, or, well, you know. But we were pretty careful. Of the 10-15 people we met with, we were pretty careful with who we met with. The ones we met with were all pretty professional. We were pleased. They were all very competent people. You have to make a decision, and one personality might fit a little better with your son.

So Jack made his decision based solely off the presentations the four finalists made on that day after the season when you conducted interviews?

 

Well, he had had conversations with most of the guys, on and off, and had talked to them before, before we had asked people to hold off on calling, or maybe traded some texts or had some interaction with them. Maybe he had seen them after a game. But (the day when we conducted interviews is) when the harder questions were asked about how it was going to work. We couldn’t have even brought them in if they hadn’t had some interaction with Jack before then.

Did the school try to limit your contact with agents or put any other restraints on you?

The compliance department at Ohio State is ‘on it.’ They do an excellent job of trying to educate the kids and parents about the pitfalls if you don’t handle it properly. They didn’t put any restrictions on us but they did educate us on it, and if you have a question, you better go to compliance and talk to them. That comes straight from Coach Meyer. He doesn’t want anyone to say they didn’t know. (Athletic Director) Gene Smith and the compliance people do a really good job.

What is the one thing – resource, advisor, whatever – you wished you’d had at this time last summer?

What would be helpful for parents is if the Players Association would put out the contracts from players from the previous draft. Like, ‘here’s what the second pick in the fourth round got in ’12, and this was their agent,’ because everyone brought in their own interpretation of the contracts. If the (NFLPA) could put out a consistent document that said, ‘this is what everyone got, and this was their agent,’ that would be helpful. Because you can go online, but you can’t tell what’s guaranteed and what’s not guaranteed, and I think it would be helpful for agents as well.

We’re probably a little different, but you got to find someone you can trust. You feel someone else can do it better, or a coach, or a lawyer, or an accountant, somebody at church, but somebody who doesn’t care and that can help you with it. As a parent, you get a little biased, and you’re probably not as objective as you should be. You should find that person who only cares about your kid, that can be helpful, and obviously the service (ITL provides) is helpful.