If you follow me on Twitter, you know the number of would-be NFLPA contract advisors was down a bit this year, off by maybe 50-75 candidates (based on the number of people taking the agent exam this year). I have a number of thoughts about this.

• The fact that the numbers are off a bit from the past 2-3 years isn’t a big deal. Recently, having about 300 in the room was pretty routine, but this was easy to explain. The new runner rule, which outlawed any contact between a prospect and an agent’s non-certified representative, prompted many agencies to certify any and all of its employees.
• Then again, it’s possible there are fewer people with a passion to work with players, for a couple reasons. One, it’s been a long, long time since ‘Jerry Maguire’ was in theaters. Of course, maybe ‘Ballers’ will reignite that spark. Two, I think the move to analytics has probably attracted a lot of people who might previously have seen agent certification as their surest route to fulfilling work.
• If more people really understood what was in store for them once they became full-time contract advisors, maybe fewer really would get certified. I mean, check this out. It’s a copy of the minutes from the last players association meeting, and it shows that the players are actually considering dropping the standard commission on contracts from three to two percent. If this happens, it will be nearly impossible for new agents to recover their expenses.
• The NFLPA is a very good thing for players in some ways. It has been a leader in demanding certification for agents, and ensuring that they actually know what they’re doing with regards to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. This is very important. On the other hand, the union regularly runs over the agents who are supposed to be advocating for the players. To wit: the NFLPA is assisting a top NFL player who’s trying to negotiate his own deal, and it very rarely intervenes when an agent tries to poach another agent’s clients.
• When there’s no justice and no reason to have a presumption of fair play, it’s pretty demoralizing. The upside for the union is that so few people know how this business really works. So many young, idealistic people get into this game thinking the players are the victims; it’s a narrative that’s advanced by the media and people around the game. What you find out quickly, however, is that most of the people on the ground floor of the business — the less-established agents, trainers and financial planners who are trying to earn a foothold in football — are actually pretty earnest and fair-minded. Not all of them, mind you, but most of the ones I’ve met.

This is one reason why I’m pretty enthusiastic about ‘The Agent,’ which kicks off in about a week and a half (Tuesday, Aug. 11, on the Esquire Network). It’s a chance to see contract advisors conducting business in jeans and collared shirts rather than three-piece suits or leather jackets. It’s a chance to see them operating alone and uncertain, instead of talking fast and with total confidence.

I hope, for better or worse, it’s a great learning tool for anyone interested in the business side of the game. I think it will be.

I just watched the first edition of ‘The Agent,’ which follows four NFLPA contract advisors through the run-up to the 2015 NFL draft. It kicks off Aug. 11 on the Esquire Network at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT. Here are three thoughts.

• Think of every show that’s ever purported to show the life of a sports agent. Let’s see. You’ve got ‘Jerry Maguire,’ of course, and ‘Arliss.’ You’ve got ‘Entourage,’ and now ‘Ballers’ (boy, HBO sure loves agent stuff). You’ve got Morgan Spurlock’s documentary, ‘The Dotted Line.’ You’ve got ‘Super Agent,’ which aired in 2005. I’ve never seen ‘Ballers,’ and I’ve only seen bits and pieces of ‘Maguire’ (which really surprises some people). I’ve seen several episodes of ‘Arliss,’ though it was more of a screwball portrayal and not really to be taken seriously. I saw one episode of ‘Super Agent’ and nearly vomited. I’ve seen one episode, I think, of ‘Entourage.’ I saw Spurlock’s documentary several times. Anyway, ‘The Agent’ puts them all to shame (though I don’t grade ‘The Dotted Line,’ which was very good, alongside the rest of them). If you read this blog, you are not gonna want to miss it. In fact, set the DVR right now. I’ll wait.
• I’m proud to say the three people I’m closest to the in the show all come off as real people. No putting on airs or strutting around in sunglasses that cover their entire face. Two of the agents featured spend their first minutes on air riding in limos, putting on designer suits and the like. Bright lights, big city stuff. But two others, Ed Wasielewski of EMG Sports and Peter Schaffer of Authentic Athletix, are just regular guys, dressed in regular clothes. If you sat next to them on a plane, you’d never know they were agents. Meanwhile, Rick Roberts, who handles personnel for Pro Source Sports, is every bit the man on the show that he is in real life: knowledgeable, approachable, likeable and down to earth. All three of my friends are as authentic on the screen as they are in real life. You’ll enjoy getting to know them.
• I know I come across as a party pooper when I’m always preaching how much work agents do, but it’s true. You get to see it in this show. I’m sure there will be plenty of private planes and invitation-only parties in later broadcasts, but the first edition featured a lot of nights spent alone in hotel rooms and long, lonely car rides. There’s one scene that captures the life of an agent perfectly. An agent has been courting a player for months when, out of nowhere, he’s asked to meet the player’s ‘mentor.’ The mentor wants to meet the agent in the next 24 hours, which means a cross-country flight on a ticket bought a few hours before wheels-up. The agent sits in the darkness of his car, alone and exhausted, as he ponders whether or not it’s worth the energy and expense to drop everything and meet with this person he doesn’t know, hoping it gives him an edge. That, right there, is the essence of this business.

We’re about a month from the second episode, and I can’t wait. If you are interested in the football business and really want to see it, warts and all, you’re going to want to watch every episode. Check it out.

This is a question I get all the time, and since we’re a week away from 300 people descending on Washington, D.C., to take the 2015 NFLPA contract advisors exam, I thought I’d try to answer that question today.

When it comes to the exam next week, it seems like it’s much easier for attorneys, especially those who’ve had a chance to take the ITL practice exam. Here are a few statements from agents who took the NFLPA exam after the bar exam, taken from our free newsletter:

• “I don’t want to say it was easy, but after taking the bar, I had confidence I’d pass it because of my law background. It was straightforward.”
• “I thought it was pretty straightforward and easy.”
• “If you put the time in and have a reasonable amount of intelligence, you shouldn’t really worry about it.”

Here are a few from non-lawyers:

• “I studied for three-and-a-half or four months, and being self-employed, I could spend 2-3 hours a day studying. After taking the test, I thank God I did that.”
• “The info on the exam can make you intimidated, but if you listen to the seminar and take good notes, it’s doable.”
• “I thought it was fair but tough. You definitely have to know your stuff. I. . . actually studied my stuff on my honeymoon.”

I also think players get a feeling of confidence when they find out their agent is also an attorney, so there’s a benefit there. And with litigation a constant possibility in this business, it comes in handy.

On the other hand, I think attorneys often ball back on their knowledge of the law as their salvation, and this is especially true of lawyers in a big firm. And they should — the law is an intricate and complicated thing, and it takes a smart person to help folks clear legal hurdles. If you spend most of your time wrangling with judges and arguing why a person is guilty/not guilty, you might put your faith in your knowledge of the collective bargaining agreement. Unfortunately, that’s not going to get you very far in this business.

How well you recruit is about 90 percent of your grade as a young agent. That’s something a lot of new agents don’t realize (especially established, high-earning attorneys). I spend a lot of time on the phone with new agents, and usually, I can get a good handle on whether or not that person is going to be successful. Lots of new contract advisors find out they passed the test in September, then don’t know where to start. Often, they punt their first year in the business as a result.

I know the lion’s share of people reading this blog aren’t attorneys and not all want to be agents, but plenty are. Some of them might be in D.C. next week, so I thought this was something to address. More next week.

I know it’s Friday, but let’s set that aside today to look at some research I did on Wednesday into the players from the ’15 draft class who made it into NFL camps (as draftees, undrafted free agent signees or tryout players).

Each year, lots of players sign standard representation agreements (SRA) with agents, but that’s no guarantee a player will be drafted, or even signed as undrafted free agents. In fact, well over half of the players at most positions will not make a roster despite signing an SRA.

Here’s a grid I developed that breaks down the number of players, by position, that made it into NFL camps this year.

The first five positions in the poll are all related to the offensive or defensive line, plus the current ‘glam’ position, tight end. In short, everyone’s looking for big-bodied players that can move a little.

Here’s something else the grid shows. There were 308 wide receivers signed by agents last year. That’s almost as many as the total number of tackles (112), guards (111), centers (55) and long-snappers (33) that were signed (311).

The takeaway I got from this breakdown is that big guys are always more valuable to NFL teams than the guys that score touchdowns. You can probably extend that logic to say that touchdown-scorers depend greatly on the guys that are making space for them, and that stopping the ball-carrier depends on having guys that can counter your o-line.

No matter what NFL teams say, it seems clear that the old cliche is true: it all starts up front.

I was on the phone with a longtime friend last week who’s in the business. In the course of the conversation, he asked me if I’d seen the new movie, ‘Entourage.’ I told him I’d seen the show once, and wasn’t really into it. I kinda left it at that, but he persisted, and mentioned that one of the central characters in the story had some scenes that dealt with the sports and entertainment business, and they were pretty authentic.

Well, I’m still not seeing it. Here’s why.

I know this series has always been marketed as a sort of ‘insiders look at the entertainment industry,’ and I know there have been lots of walk-ons and cameos by athletes. I think the movie that’s out right now has a lot of the same thing. And who knows? Maybe a lot of it captures the feel of what it’s like at the billion-dollar level where the real titans play.

However, the episode I saw — and this had to have been 8-10 years ago — only superficially dealt with the business. It was really a lot more about four guys chasing girls, smoking joints together, whatever. Just sorta cruising through life, with a couple guys coat-tailing off their famous friends. Now, maybe there’s a lot more to the show than that, and I’m sure plenty of my readers are screaming at their screens right now, calling me names. But having gotten a sense of the marketing of the show, it seems like a rather fair assessment.

Well, here’s the thing. I guess lots of people aspire to an ‘Entourage’ lifestyle, and hope they can run in that crowd by making the same choices the characters in that series/film make. All I can say is, I haven’t seen it. The people I see that make it to the highest levels in football aren’t anything like that.

Forgive me if I sound like a tired old man, but the people I know in this business who are really succeeding never lived like that. They spent the days when their friends were messing around, blowing their time on mindless pursuits, on building a plan and pursuing it. Chasing goals. Making sacrifices. Fearing they wouldn’t succeed and breaking their backs to make it happen.

I remember when Roger Goodell was first named NFL Commissioner, his story of working his way up through the NFL offices became widely known, and it came out that he had started out as an intern, probably working for little pay or no pay and no promises. Back then, some idiot in the cybersphere wrote that hey, there was a time that the Commissioner of the NFL was probably sitting around, smoking a bowl with a bunch of roommates and trying to look busy when his boss was around, and that guy made it to the top! Another lottery winner who goofed off all the way to the highest seat in football!

Well, no he didn’t. I’ve never met Goodell and know nothing about him, but I can guarantee you he was intense, focused and hard-working on his way up. That’s what got him there. Mediocrity rules in modern society, but it never defined him.

I get emails, Tweets and Facebook friend requests from young people all the time, wanting to show me their work or seeking advice on the way forward. I never get the sense that they’re just laying back, waiting on stuff to happen. If you’re hoping to succeed in football, I hope you’re just like them, and not like any of the characters living misleading lives on some stupid TV show.

People interested in the agent business often ask me if they need to be a lawyer. I always tell them it’s a big bonus, but more importantly, you need to be smart about business and opportunity. That’s gotta be your first priority. I just got off the phone with Dave Schuman of Inspired Athletes, and he illustrates my point exactly.

Dave is the subject of today’s edition of our newsletter for people slated to take the NFL agent exam this summer (it’s free — register here), and he has a great story. Briefly, he played at Connecticut in the 90s, and after graduating, started a company called National Underclassmen Combines, which was aimed at high school athletes that wanted to get recruited for scholarships. After building it into a business on par with the Nike and Under Armour camps, he decided to get certified as an NFLPA contract advisor. His reason was not unlike many people who get into the business — he had been approached by many young men who needed trustworthy counsel and he wanted to provide it.

He didn’t think for a minute that he was unqualified because he didn’t have a license to practice law. In fact, he sees some disadvantages to having a legal background.

“I’m not a lawyer so I was never used to getting cases and having them handed to (me),” he said. Today, many attorneys with large firms “don’t have to go out and get (cases), and as an entrepreneur for so long, I’ve been in so many situations where things didn’t work out and I just had to think, ‘how can I make them work out?’

“I look at it like, where is the opportunity? Where do we fit, and how do we provide the service we want to do? We don’t have to be Drew Rosenhaus or Tom Condon. We can be very successful doing what we’re doing and growing by doing what we do well. We’re trying really hard not to get concerned with what other people do, but what makes us different and what we do well, and (finding) clients that think that’s something they want. You’re going to lose more battles than you win. You’re gonna lose 90 percent (of your battles), and you have to be OK with that.”

You might say, hey, Dave Schuman has access to lots of players I don’t have access to, and a lot of key relationships. That’s true, but here’s an interesting fact: none of the three active NFL clients he has in camps right now are NUC alumni. They all signed after Dave started relationships from scratch. That’s a really impressive year for a first-year contract advisor and his partner, Daniel Smith.

Actually, there are two lessons from Dave’s story. No. 1, you don’t have to be an attorney to be successful. You have to be entrepreneurial, and you must be able to recognize opportunities. No. 2, you have to be willing to fight and create a Plan B quickly if Plan A doesn’t work out.

To read more about Dave’s story, don’t forget to register for our free newsletter.