Last night, we had our second Zoom session aimed directly at those new contract advisors who passed this summer’s exam. Representing players is an incredibly tough job, and there are a lot of twists and turns involved with building a true NFL agent practice. We used to have a newsletter series that addressed these topics, but we’ve found that actually gathering with our clients on Zoom is much more effective.

It’s our second session for the 2022 NFL agent class. Earlier this month, Octagon Football’s Murphy McGuire joined us to discuss his rookie struggles that have led to big success in a short time. We don’t tape these sessions, but we did tape his “origin story.” Check it out here.

Last night, we discussed five weighty topics: taking unsolicited phone calls (which is a common occurrence when your cell phone is posted on the NFLPA website); who to sign (and who not to sign); the XFL and the USFL; how to handle the NIL era; and how to gather information on prospects you may sign. Here’s a quick overview on information-gathering, which is one of the toughest areas to tackle for new player reps.

GATHERING INFO ON PROSPECTS

• You probably have your favorite draft pundits; forget about them. You’ll be recruiting from a specific subset of the draft class, at least to start. Todd McShay, Dane Brugler, Matt Miller, et al, will not be focused on the players you will potentially sign in your first year (and maybe not your first five years). This is why you probably won’t have a lot of luck if you rely on the Internet to figure out who you’re going to sign. 
• You will need to develop your eye for talent. Gathering insights from NFL scouts is very helpful, but scouts can only offer their opinions, and they aren’t always right, anyway. At some point, you will have to trust your own instincts, and getting that right (or wrong) will do more to sharpen your skills than anything else. For me, it took about three years of intense film-watching to really get a feel for what NFL teams seek in draft prospects.
• You won’t have a decent scouting network until . . . . you have a client that NFL teams want to draft or sign. It’s simple. No amount of networking, connecting on LinkedIn, emailing or anything else will build scouting friendships that bear fruit. Scouts will not have much time for you until you have shown you represent legitimate prospects.
• Your “eye” will matter more than scouts anyway. The firms that regularly sign Day 3/UDFA players who make rosters are, more often than not, dependent on their own evaluation than scouts’ evaluations. It’s probably smarter to use NFL scouts to supplement your own opinion rather than expecting them to generate a list of players you should recruit. 
• Make sure to take advantage of our services. The ITL Profile Reports give you a brief look at the top 10 NFL prospects on every FBS team. Before you sign a player, make sure he’s a guy we see as draftable (or at least signable) player first. All ITL clients have full access to our Profile Reports. To get an even better look, order one of our ITL Scouting Reports. For $100 plus tax, we can get a report done in 24-48 hours. We’ve got the tape; all we need is a name, position and school. 
• The bottom line is that you have to spend a little to make a little. Be smart about the money you spend (I realize you just spent $5,000 to pass the exam and get registered), but be willing to spend money.

For more details on the business of the game and how to succeed in it, make sure you’re reading our newsletter, the Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.

In October, the new agent class finally gets to go to work. Trying to figure out what that looks like is the hard part. The biggest question I get this time of year is, where do I start?

We’re going to answer that question in our second Zoom of the year aimed directly at new contract advisors. It’s set for next Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 8 p.m. ET. Here’s what we’ll cover.

• New agents are going to get carpet-bombed by players from previous draft classes. Some of them are legit, having gone to recent NFL camps. We’ll discuss the question of whether to sign them.
• If you’re a newly certified contract advisor, you’ve probably dreamed of signing a first-rounder right out of the box, beating the odds and signing that kid that comes out of nowhere. We’ll talk about why it’s smart to temper your expectations, and what kinds of players are most often signed by new agents.
• As a new agent, you probably already have your favorite mock draft experts and sources all over the web. However, as a rookie, we’ll talk about why you probably need to look at other sources, and we’ll discuss where you can find them. 
• You probably have a lot of questions about the XFL and the USFL, and it’s good that you’re asking them. Still, do those leagues require registration/certification? Also, what does the draft look like, and more importantly, how are players evaluated and signed? We’ll cover talent acquisition in both leagues, who you need to talk to, and how to talk to them (I should mention that the XFL’s Doug Whaley will be joining us on Zoom next month to answer many of those questions).
• The topic of NIL may be overwhelming you. You might say to yourself, ‘I’m just trying to figure out how to be an NFL agent and now I have to figure out NIL as well?’ We’ll simplify things with our recommendations on a basic strategy for Year 1.

We kicked off our series the first week of October with Octagon Football’s Murphy McGuire. You can check out his “origin story” here, and if you’re a new agent, you should. You’ll find it inspiring, I think. His rookie year he was the only first-year independent agent to have a player drafted (Texas Tech’s Jakeem Grant, who went 6/186 in 2016), and in less than five years, he was hired by one of the more established firms in the industry. 

Want in? We look forward to you joining us next week. It’s free, but there’s one caveat: you must be an Inside the League client. It’s just $29.95/mo, and you can cancel at any time. Once you become a member, you can join us for our monthly Zoom sessions that will cover other key agent-related topics like all-star games, how to choose a trainer, how to recruit, how to build a network of scouts, what you can gain from going to the combine and many more topics. Sign up here.

I hope to see you next week. For more details, sign up for our Friday Wrap, which is also free. Do that here. 

Last Friday, this summer’s aspiring NFLPA-licensed contract advisors who took the exam got their results. After personally contacting more than a hundred of them over the last week, here are a few thoughts.

• I know personally of 20 would-be test-takers who will have to wait until next year due solely to technical issues with the proctoring service. I would estimate there are double that number, maybe 35-40, cooling their heels until next summer, including the ones I’ve spoken to. Though the NFLPA hasn’t released the total of those who got derailed by technical issues, it could wind up being as much as 10 percent of those who took the exam. Despite this, I don’t think we ever again see prospective agents descend on Washington, D.C., for an in-person exam. The PA will continue to work through its growing pains rather than make it a physical, pencil-and-paper exam again. In the meantime, my sincerest sympathies go to those 30-40 people who were hoping to recruit prospects this fall.

• This year, it took 51 days for the NFLPA to provide test results. Since we started tracking these things in 2013, it’s the longest test-takers have had to wait since July 2015, when answers came out Friday, Sept. 18, a 56-day wait. Whether or not it’s just coincidence, that’s also the year the NFLPA made the exam appreciably harder, dropping the usually passing percentage of around 55-60 percent to about 40-45 since then. 

• Was this year’s exam harder than last year’s? Based on my tally, having communicated with about two-thirds of the people we worked with, about 55 percent of our test-takers passed. It’s worth noting that many people who fail don’t respond, so it’s certainly possible our clients were below 50 percent. If that’s true, however, I’d expect the rate of people passing to be below 40 percent this year. When you consider that about half of each class is people taking the exam a second time, it’s obvious this is a difficult exam. I don’t know how NFLPA exam results compare to the tests for the other major sports, but my impression is that the others are far easier to pass, for a lot of reasons. Bottom line — if you’re taking the exam, use an exam prep service, even if it’s not ours. You’ll be happy you did. We had about a half-dozen clients who failed the exam a second time this year, and it’s hard to know what to say to ease their disappointment. 

Best of luck to all of those taking the exam next year, many of whom we’ve already heard from. Naturally, we’ll work with all of those who were with us this year and who will be giving it a go again next year. 

Whether or not you passed or failed, or whether or not player representation interests you, make sure you know what’s going on in the business by reading our Friday Wrap, which comes out later this evening. Register for it here.