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.

This week, we wrapped up July with our second ITL Agent Week. Our star-studded lineup included one of the most powerful agents in the business (Lagardere Sports’ Joel Segal), a former NFL cap chief (ex-Browns and Chiefs exec Trip MacCracken), an ex-GM (Mark Dominik, formerly of the Bucs) and a former pro scouting director (Dane Van der Nat, previously with the Raiders).

The week was very well-received. “All were awesome and provided info that you typically have to learn by trial and error,” said one participant. Said another: “The week has been amazing . . . and I’m looking forward to future seminars!!”

At the risk of being immodest, I’d agree, but it has nothing to do with me. It’s exciting that, this month, I’ve been able to bring together friends who are interested in giving back to the industry for a very small fee, and to find ITL clients who were willing to come out of pocket to listen to and interact with experts in the field. Kudos to everyone involved.

Here’s a bit of what you heard if you were on the Zoom sessions this week.

Van der Nat on developing players from other sports: “Coaches can be short on patience. If you’re getting (these players) early in the offseason, you could have an opportunity. We would bring those guys in for a tryout, maybe a CFL guy or a basketball player. . . . Can this big WR play TE? Can the tackle play tight end? Can the basketball player play tight end? Those are great situations to see. Can he learn it? Is he speaking the same language? After two days, a coach will have an opinion on a player to know if he wants to keep him or move on.”

Dominik on player attrition this year: “I think corner depth is hard to get. You can find three to four cornerbacks, but especially this year, there’s gonna be a lot of soft tissue injuries that usually hit corners hard, and if you have corners that can run a little bit, that’s a spot where teams will get hit quick.”

MacCracken on the value of relationships: “It was my job to take interest, to the best of my ability in whoever I’m working with. There’s no such thing as an agent you can disregard. . .  Every person has a different personality. It’s almost like you have to bend your personality to fit theirs. . .  And as an agent, you will deal with coaches, scouts, GMs, owners, negotiators, and they all come at this from a different skillset and standpoint. And you have to connect with all of them. You have to be able to touch each of them individually and make a connection. I always felt it was incumbent on me to make the best contact with agents. I would encourage agents to do the same with their contacts.”

Segal on getting started: “I went to law school at George Washington with the idea of being a product liability lawyer. Back then, being a sports agent was very different from what it is today. I didn’t know what an agent was. So I went to law school and got a good job at a great law firm, but it was kinda boring. So after a year, I quit and moved into my mom’s house. While I decided what to do, I parked cars for a while, made some money, and then printed up some business cards. One day, I read an article on Bob Woolf, an agent at the time, and it sounded cool, and that was it. I started cold-calling around, and I got hung up on a million times. Finally, I met Brad Baxter, because he was training next to my law school, and we hung out, and when he graduated, he signed with me. He was an 11^th round choice out of Alabama State.

If there’s one thing new agents always ask me, it’s this: how do I ask an established agent the hard questions about the business that no one wants to answer? I’ll admit it’s one question for which I have no answer. That’s why it was pretty awesome when, out of the blue, Chicago-based Mike McCartney of Priority Sports reached out to me last week and offered to answer questions from agents in a Zoom session.

This was a real coup. As the son of a legendary former college head coach, Mike is not only a member of football royalty, a former NFL scout himself, and the man who negotiated one of the most lucrative contracts in NFL history, but a 20-year contract advisor and member of a top NFL agency (by our metrics, Priority has been the 11th-best agency on draft day since 2007). When, last Friday, we put the word out that we’d be hosting a Zoom session with Mike on Tuesday, we had immediate responses from almost 20 agents. We thought we might have to turn some down (though we ultimately did not).

We chose not to record the session so Mike would feel fee to provide ultimate candor. However, here are a few nuggets from the hour he spent with 17 mostly new NFL agents.

• The key to success as an agent is signing players that NFL teams want. It follows that knowing NFL scouts who will recommend players is critical, so it made sense agents would ask Mike about that. Predictably, he didn’t have a ‘magic bullet’ solution. The only way that I, personally, made friends in the scouting world is two ways: time and credibility. Mike essentially echoed that. I guess, if you’re a new agent, your job is to find 1-2 players in your first years on the job that somehow crack the NFL scouting bubble. Once you are somewhat proven to scouts, they’ll begin to have a more reciprocal relationship with you.
• Another thing Mike was adamant about: never lie to scouts. He said that if he has a client who’s not fast, he’s not going to try to convince teams the player can zoom. Instead, Mike will emphasize his client’s positive qualities. God knows one of the themes of the 2020 draft season has been the questionable times posted on social media.
• If you can’t sign a player with excellent triangle numbers, find a player who has heart and grit. In 2002, his rookie year as an agent, Mike signed a quarterback out of Sam Houston State, Josh McCown. McCown was a player who had transferred to SHSU from SMU for his senior season and lit things up, but he was still mostly an unknown. Mike badgered the head of National Football Scouting at the time, Duke Babb, to let McCown be one of the passers who throw the ball in drills at the combine, and Babb consented. On the last day of the combine, defensive backs were going through drills, and the three passers needed to heave 80 deep balls as part of the drill inventory. For whatever reason, the other two quarterbacks begged off, so McCown threw all 80. Babb was so appreciative that he flew McCown home first class, and he wasn’t the only one that took notice: McCown went from a probably UDFA to a third-round pick (3/81) by the Cardinals.
• Speaking of UDFAs, Mike has a very regimented process he goes through with his clients who are Day 3 guys. He essentially prepares them for the worst-case scenario (that they are “eighth-round picks”) and sets up the NFL in three tiers: 4-5 teams that are the absolute best fits for his client, a second group of teams that are good-but-not-great fits, and a third that includes the rest of teams. He then gets on the phone with scouts from his top-tier teams and makes sure he’s on the same page with them as far as his client’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the team’s depth chart at the player’s position.
• Also: he said that a GM or scout who wants your client isn’t nearly as good as a coach who does. Mike even said that, during the post-draft UDFA process, he has asked scouts to walk down the hall and specifically ask the team’s position coach if he wanted his client. If the coach seemed lukewarm, he passed on signing with the team. He said it’s absolutely essential that your client’s position coach is excited about coaching your client.
• As far as this draft, he sees most Day 3 picks as long shots to make teams, to say nothing of the UDFAs. Think about that. Due to the uncertainty and probable lack of rookie camps this year (and spare number of physicals), teams will lean more toward veterans and the best of the best draft picks on cutdown day this fall. I’d agree with him. It’s just one more reason it’s incredibly hard to be a new agent this year.

We’ll talk more about Mike’s words of wisdom in this week’s Friday Wrap, which you can register for here. Happy Draft Day!

This week, we take a break from the series by guest blogger Donovan Martin of Donovan Mental Performance to look at the changing industry. I can boil it down to three texts I’ve received in the last seven days, all from veteran agents who’ve represented big-name players and who know the industry top to bottom.

I’ll provide their texts and then a little context and perspective.

• “I’ll never forget one of my first clients, a PFA-type kid from Coastal Carolina, got in a car accident a month before the draft and my firm repped him on the soft tissue bodily injury case. We made more money off a minor, run-of-the-mill fender bender with that kid than we ever did in football with him.”

I provide this really more for comedy relief than anything else. This text comes from one of the most devoted contract advisors certified in the last five years. He’s smart, driven, and has resources, but in today’s system, often, that’s not enough.

• “A player called me about representation. He asked about training – told him no. He called back and asked me if there are places that will arrange a loan for training and housing.”

This text gives you insight into the perception of so many players, especially fringe prospects, that combine prep can turn them into overnight first-rounders. Desperation is part of being young sometimes, but for a young man to take on a $20,000 to $30,000 loan on a million-to-one shot is a failure of so many people close to him who should know better. This misperception is almost solely social media-driven.

• “This rookie business sucks as is…really from the top down. First-rounders, you have to damn near pay them what you are going to make off of them. Then you have Day 3 guys have the nerve to request stipends. The day I pay a Day 3 guy a salary for 4 months to sign with me is the day hell freezes over.”

In its zeal to make life better for players, the NFLPA has stayed largely out of the fray as the signing chase has become an arms race. I get it; it’s a volatile sport, so let players take advantage of the market. At the same time, this has taken a dramatic and tragic toll on the “middle class” of veteran agents who are extremely connected and knowledgeable, but don’t have endless resources. At the end of the day, signing should be about sound counsel, not cash. In my opinion, it’s a pretty short-sighted position that the Players Association has taken.

If you aspire to be an agent, consider these texts and make sure you’ve read previous posts here about the state of the business. If you’re a coach or work for a college team, make sure you’re providing your players with mature counsel. If it’s your son who’s trying to get to the league, make sure you’re thinking about the best for your son, and don’t be afraid to tell him some hard truths.

If you’re part of any of these groups, and you need to know more, or need help communicating these lessons to a prospect, please reach out to us.