With the 2021 NFL Agent Exam just over two months away, we’re trying to do our part to get people ready for the test. However, it’s not just the exam that we’re preparing agent hopefuls for, but their new career. Part of that preparation is managing  expectations about what players seek during the recruiting process.

To do that, I reached out to several of my agent clients who recruit the Day 3/UDFA prospects that often take the long road to NFL stardom despite tough odds. The difficulty these agents face is that, increasingly, players are not willing to share the risk. Check out the following texts.

• “I had a rotational player (non-starter) at a top-tier SEC school tell me he wanted $10k to sign and $2500/month through the draft. I told him best of luck and went on about my business. Kid signed (as an undrafted free agent) for less than $5K signing bonus after the draft and is a long shot to make a team.”
• “(Defensive lineman from a P5 conference). Really good kid. Can’t emphasize that enough. Was a solid college player but didn’t have ability/tools to play in NFL. I knew, and the scouts confirmed, that he was going to be a low-level UDFA, but I liked the kid and told him to train at school and I’d give him some cash for supplements, position work and massage. His demands weren’t outrageous, but other agents, one in particular, (were) offering him a crazy package that included training and the works. I said good luck to the kid, he trained at this relatively big-time facility, tested poorly, signed as a UDFA and was cut after rookie minicamp a couple weeks ago. He didn’t have crazy demands but I think his teammates and other agent offers took him away from reality.”
• “Ya know, this year, honestly, It wasn’t so much ridiculous demands that caused us to lose players. One player went with an inexperienced agent with zero clients (but bragged to have connections with a rapper), (and) he unfortunately went undrafted. Another player went solely with his mom’s choice (undrafted). A lot of clients we lost this year actually went back to school because their coaches sold them a promise for the returning year, which I hope to God they fulfill for the kid.”
• One agent sent me a text, verbatim, from a young man at an FCS school who was a maybe UDFA/probable tryout (i.e., rookie mini-camp then sent home) prospect. He wanted a formal “list,” in writing, of the agent’s offer (training, stipend, per diem, etc.), which was also to include reimbursement for other costs like new cleats, gear, or whatever else came up (in other words, a blank check). Among his other demands: 
• “I had one where the kid didn’t show for the (Zoom) call so I said I am out. He had (training) demands related to Florida. Not drafted. Kid’s brother showed for the call. . . but the kid didn’t show. So (I was) out. I can (also) describe another agent’s experience. He knew he was (losing the bidding war) on a (priority free agent-level prospect) so (the agent) drove the stipend up at the end. (The agent the player chose) wound up paying $2,500/month, something like that, on top of training, car, food, housing, etc.” (editor’s note: the player went undrafted and signed a UDFA deal).
• “(A P5 defensive tackle) said within 5 mins of our meeting ‘what’s my stipend and what kind of rental car do I get?’ We (stopped recruiting) him immediately.” (editor’s note: he went undrafted)

Don’t stop here. Make sure you’re following us on Twitter, where we’ve had some interesting discussions with major agents on the realities of the industry (make sure to check out this thread in particular). You’ll probably enjoy our newsletter, the Friday Wrap, as well. Register here.

As of today, we are an even 70 days away from the 2021 NFLPA Exam (and 68 days until the start of the pre-exam seminar). Lots of people have picked up our study guide and practice exams this week, which tells me they’re bearing down on their preparations.

Inevitably, those people ask my advice on the best way to pass the exam. I figured that might be a good blog topic for the week, so here goes.

• Give yourself plenty of time: I usually recommend two months of robust study for the exam. Now is a great time to get started, but if you wanted to wait until the beginning of June, that wouldn’t be terrible. Like anything else, however, it’s better to have too much time than not enough.
• Set aside recruiting for ’21: Some of the people registered for this summer’s test ask me about the best prospects for ’22 and ask me when to start recruiting. I get it — identifying players worth recruiting is part of the fun of the business. For a number of reasons, however, I feel this is pointless right now, especially before you’ve passed the exam. Hold off, at least until September or so.
• Learn all the basic concepts: A lot of people wade into the exam thinking they’ve followed the game, and how hard could the test be? It’s really hard. That’s why 55 percent of all test-takers fail. You must learn all about P5 contracts, accrued vs. credited seasons, etc. Don’t think you can just learn everything during the pre-exam seminar.
• Test yourself: It’s not enough to feel like you know the material, in my opinion. Current contract advisors from virtually every major NFL firm have used our practice exams to see what the questions look like in advance and really get a feel for the material. I think you’re taking a sizable risk if you don’t do that before you actually sit for the test.
• Get tips from others on how to pass: This is something we will do as we get closer to the exam. One way we’ll do it is our daily email series that starts next month; its chock-full of tips, ideas and examples on what to expect and how to pass the exam. It’s free to everyone who’s purchased any of our products or services. However, if that’s not enough, we also have an affordable in-house instructor who’s available for personal tutoring or Zoom sessions that we’ll have in the coming weeks. We’ll talk about him more in our newsletter. Bottom line, there are too many materials for you to risk failing.

I hope this helps, and if it doesn’t, I hope you’ll reach out. As I say so often in this space, I believe in the win-win, and would love to be of assistance if you’re winding your way toward NFLPA certification. For more on who we are and what we do, check out our website, our Twitter feed or our weekly newsletter, the Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.

Wow! It’s March already. If you’re registered to take the NFL agent exam this summer, you’re probably eager to start digging into preparation for the exam (especially if you’ve been registered since last year).

We have a lot of people who check in on our exam prep materials but don’t know for sure how they should use them. Let’s go through them, and I’ll provide a few tips on each.

ITL Study Guide: This is the best exam prep resource on the market, bar none. We’ve been offering it for close to a decade, and it’s rare when a client doesn’t provide rave (and unsolicited) reviews. Once you have this, it cuts the CBA down from a gargantuan document to a more manageable size. However, the most important benefit is that the study guide focuses on the relevant topics and cuts out all the fluff. After you buy it and we verify payment, we email it to you, usually within an hour of purchase. I think it’s smart to spend at least a month on it and really absorb all the key concepts. “Exam was easy thanks to the resources available on ITL – study guide laid everything out perfectly,” said one recent client.

Practice exams 1 and 2: These are pretty self-explanatory. We offer two 40-question, multiple-choice exams. Once you complete the 40 questions, the answer key (with explanations of how we arrived at each answer) are at the end. You can take the tests as many times as you want, and I encourage all our clients to do that. The questions are very similar in format, tone and context to what you’ll see in July. So much so, in fact, that test-takers often say the questions were exact to what they saw on the exam (that’s awfully kind, but not true). Once you buy Exam 1 ($175 for non-ITL clients, $125 for clients), you can buy Exam 2 ($75/$50), though I don’t recommend buying them at the same time. In my opinion, buy the study guide, get the information down, buy Exam 1, ace it, then get Exam 2. “Appreciate the practice questions, wasn’t sure what to expect when I paid for the service blind, but I was impressed,” said one client. Said another: “The practice test is great, and I am glad I discovered you guys.”

Inside the League: This is the mother ship. If you subscribe to ITL ($29.95/mo), you’ll save a little money on the practice exams. But more than that, you’ll learn about the business of the game, and maybe more importantly, the (off-field) players in the game. You’ve got to know the big agencies, the scouts and executives who are on the rise vs. falling, the trends in the game, the kinds of players who are getting signed and succeeding in the game, etc. If you are as interested in the game off the field as you are on the field — and if your aim is to be an agent, you should be — check us out.

Zooms: Last year, with the whole world sequestered in their living rooms, we began bringing members of the NFL business community to online settings, mostly at the $25-$30/per night price point. We had current and former scouts, current and former agents, cap experts, etc. It was a lot of fun and very informative. Our first Zoom session of 2021 will be next week with Mike Sullivan, who not only has negotiated the contract of the top pick in the draft twice, and not only worked as Denver’s Director of Football Administration from 2012-20, but also won the Eugene E. Parker Award for Lifetime Service to the agent industry (read more here).

Exam prep class: At last year’s combine, we had our first-ever in-person class for test-takers. It was in Indianapolis during the combine, and led by a current player representative with a history of representing first-rounders. There’s no combine this year but the class isn’t going away. We’ll have more details in the coming weeks. 

Still have questions? Maybe signing up for our free Friday Wrap would help. It’s a weekly look at the football business, and widely read across the industry. You can register for it here.

Friday is the last day you can apply to take the 2021 NFLPA agent exam, so I’m starting to hear from more and more aspiring contract advisors. After so many impactful developments over the past year, I thought now was a good time to make a few points on the industry.

• Don’t take anything for granted: I’ve been doing this long enough to know that most people come into the industry believing they’ve already got a commitment from an NFL talent, and that signing their first client will be easy. All I have to say is, make sure you have a Plan B. That player you helped raise, or coached in youth football, or who has been relying on you for the past several years . . . well, as he gets closer to realizing a lifelong dream, he may become less willing to put his goals in the hands of a novice. Don’t take that personally. Just be prepared for it.
• Making relationships will be harder than ever: Under perfect, pre-Covid conditions, connecting with a young player was difficult. Now that players and their parents (and maybe even you) are less inclined to meet one on one, the personal link that is vital to winning a player’s trust is ever more elusive. That doesn’t even factor in something else that’s more important than ever, which is . . . .
• Players just expect a “package” these days: Last week, a longtime agent friend texted me about a recently signed client — one who is barely on the fringes of even being an NFL prospect — who sent him a late-night text asking if he was supposed to get money simply for signing with his firm. NFL Draft coverage, locker-room talk and friends and family often create outsized expectations for players. Congratulations! You get to unwind and reset those expectations if you expect to sign a player who (a) has NFL ability and (b) doesn’t drive you crazy before the last weekend of April, 2022.
• You can’t do this on the cheap: Actually, I guess that’s not true if your goal is simply to achieve NFLPA certification. Shoot, there are a lot of players who really only want the status that comes from signing with an agent so they can splash it all over their social media and brag to their friends. However, if you’ve gone to the trouble to spend $2,500 you can’t get back to take a test that you’ll probably fail (55 percent of test-takers do every year), you probably want to succeed. You’re going to need to set a budget and stick to it, and that starts with knowing what’s smart and what’s not.
• Knowledge is power: The most common mistake I see from young agents is thinking they know more than they do. I don’t care if you’ve got a degree from an established sport management program, and I don’t care if you were captain of the football team in high school. There are relationships, opportunities and potential signees you will miss out on unless you approach this business humbly. And if you don’t, you’ll find it humbles you anyway despite your best efforts. 

We can definitely help with the last point. It starts with our agent exam prep materials — our study guide and practice exams A and B — but it doesn’t end there. Our daily emails, which start in November and go all the way through the draft, have become must-read material for rookie agents who subscribe. We also have former NFL scouts who can write a report to tell you if a prospect can actually play (for just $100); we have a book on the NFL draft process and a book on the NFL scouting profession that are reasonably priced and focused on the information you need to know; and a weekly email that encapsulates the industry every Friday (you can register for it here). 

We hope to work for (and with) you. Best of luck on the exam, whether or not we cross paths in the next five months. 

In today’s Friday Wrap, we present the results of a survey of almost 40 former NFLPA-certified contract advisors. We wanted to find out if they still miss the game, if they felt they got a fair shot at success, what the biggest problems they faced were, and if they’d ever consider getting certified again.

If you don’t receive the Wrap, and want to read about what the numbers told us, make sure to register for it. It comes out at 7:30 p.m. ET every Friday.

One thing I found interesting is that many of those that I reached out to completed the survey, but still had plenty to say (one even remarked that he didn’t see any place for comments, then sent me a lengthy text on the business’ challenges). The passion remains for virtually everyone who gets a taste of the game, even if that taste turned out to be a bitter one.

The responses broke mostly into three groups.

• What they learned: “The little guy will never wins against the big fish and marketing advances,” said one. “Couple that with training costs, good luck.” Another listed the three main factors that new agents face, going into detail how “capital,” “player contact and communication,” and “understanding the team side of the equation” are all determining factors. “No amount of letter writing, text, email, etc., can persuade a team to bring a guy in for a workout,” he said. “Every team knows the availability of free agents, and the teams call when they call. The players, unfortunately, have trouble understanding that the call may not come for weeks.” Another faulted the Players Association: “To me, the biggest problem is the NFLPA, because they have the power to cure many of the problems/hurdles agents face. But they just choose to stand by and watch.”
• How and why they miss the game: “I miss the business everyday,” said one former agent. “Wouldn’t have left if it wasn’t for my now-wife threatening due to my travel.” Another said, “I miss the relationships of the business. I met a lot of good people.” Camaraderie is always cited by people who leave the game and miss it.
• They haven’t lost the itch: “My wife actually encouraged me to return after watching me help my daughter get a basketball scholarship. I need to do something in the game — not sure what it is. I tried to get into personnel, but most guys felt like, because of my age, I’d be a hard sell.” Said another ex-advisor, “Still wish I was in the business sometimes, but apparently it just wasn’t meant to be.

I often say that no one walks out of the game. They only leave ‘on their shields,’ most often due to threat of divorce, litigation, bankruptcy or even all of the above. It’s something to remember for everyone who aspires to work with NFL players.

Every summer since 2012, the NFLPA has held a certification exam for aspiring contract advisors in July. That string (like so many others) was broken this year as the test was postponed earlier this year.

Will there even be an exam this year? Good question. Given that we don’t even know if there will be an NFL combine this year, when the draft will be held, or if we’ll make it through a 17-week season, whether or not an exam will be held is pretty far down the list to most. However, to those people who have waited all their lives to represent NFL players, it’s a most urgent matter.

For the ninth year, we’re offering study materials for everyone taking the exam. For the last five years or so, about 200-250 people sat for the exam. We typically work with about half the test-takers in each class, and we have a passing ratio of around 80-90 percent of our clients passing on the first try. When you figure that since 2015, only about 45 percent of each class actually passes the exam, I’ll let you do the math on our materials’ effectiveness.

Here are a few more facts.

• There are 128 contract advisors who have at least 10 active NFL clients, and 34 of them have been certified since 2012, when we introduced our first practice exam. Of that 34, 20 (58.8 percent) used our study materials to pass. Of those certified since 2015, nine of the 10 used our exams and study guide.
• We tabulate the leaders in draft value points each year, by agency. Basically, a firm gets points for each draftee, with a sliding number of points based on
• the scale credited to former NFL head coach Jimmy Johnson.
• Since 2007, the active top ten, in order, are CAA, Athletes First, SportFive (formerly Lagardere Sports), Independent Sports & Entertainment, Rep1 Sports, SportStars, Octagon Football, SportsTrust Advisors, Rosenhaus Sports and BC Sports. Of the 10, nine firms have agents who got certified using our materials. Several of them have multiple contract advisors who used them.
• As of October of last year, there were 276 contract advisors still active from the last three classes (2017-19). Even with the attrition that happens every year, 176 of those still standing (58.3 percent) used our study materials to get certified. They are with agencies large and small and across the country.

If you’re one of those people who are still hoping the NFLPA holds the exam this summer, and you haven’t gotten to know us yet, please check out our study guide and two practice exams. You can read more about our materials, as well as testimonials from the past several classes, here.

Also, for more on our study materials and what we do at ITL, register for our Friday Wrap here.