These days, when I’m having one conversation after another with agents, combine trainers, parents, media members, some scouts, coaches and others around the game, I hear a lot of things. A lot of it is code, so I thought I’d pass along some of it here, partly because it amuses me, and partly because, if you’re going to be in the business, you need to know what it means.

Today’s lesson is on the statement: ‘We haven’t even spoken to that kid.’

A big part of what our Rep Rumblings reports is credible information on who’s signing with whom, who’s recruiting whom, who’s firing whom, who’s hiring whom, and other such buzz. Not all of it is proven, black-and-white, cut-and-dried stuff. That means I have to trust the sources that have shown themselves to be reliable after 10-plus years of doing this. Sometimes I’m wrong, I’ll admit, but most of the time, I’m right.

This time of year, especially, we are constantly rolling out info about players who are near signing with certain agents. Sometimes the info is hazy, and we can only report the progress of the vetting process, but sometimes we name the agency. That almost always earns us a phone call from the agency. Sometimes, they freely admit that they are talking to the kid, but deny that they are the favorite. Sometimes they admit they are the favorite, but they’re upset (based on our relationship) that we reported it. But sometimes, they categorically deny that they’ve even spoken to the kid. In fact, that’s exactly what they say: “We haven’t even spoken to the kid.”

In these instances, I’ve learned, it’s important to parse words. Last week, I posted sensitive info about an agency that I was told had the inside track on a mid-round talent in the ’15 draft. Sometime later that day, I got the inevitable call, with an agent (who’s become one of my better friends and is with one of the more honorable firms in the business) claiming there had been no communications with the player in question. I expressed my regret for information he claimed was misguided. I was to learn later, however, that no actual verbal communication did not mean no interest. To his credit, later the same agent expressed that he and his agency had tried to get in through the player’s coach, but had not actually spoken to the young man. What he had originally said was untrue is still untrue, and I had been wrong, but it was also true that I hadn’t been completely off-base.

Here’s another, better example. Probably four or five years ago, I got a tip from a reliable source that a major firm would sign a big-time player in draft that was still more than a year away. My source had been reliable and he was adamant, so I ran with the info. I got no response from the agency right away. However, a year later, shortly after the draft, one of the firm’s agents contacted me. “We never even talked to that kid until a couple of months ago,” he said. Well, maybe not, but obviously, someone had been talking to him. You don’t sign a highly touted player with a casual phone call a couple months before the draft.

You almost need a Rosetta Stone to interpret some of the things you hear in this business. More translations to come.

Last Thursday for our weekly war story, I talked about a difficult situation I’d encountered in my days running the Hula Bowl that was handled with class and respect by an agent I’ve had a long-running relationship with. Today, the other side of the coin.

In those days, though the Hula Bowl was the No. 3 game, it was a hard sell to established agents and top players. Though the game was being played in America’s paradise, East Coast-based players faced a 7-10 hour flight to get to Honolulu on a commercial airline flying in an economy class seat. We were also the first game in the cycle, meaning players would have to miss the first week of combine prep and/or they’d be playing a bowl game almost right up to departure time for Hawaii. There were also concerns about how many scouts would make it to the game and other considerations that are a normal part of the process. Bottom line, I had to be in ‘sell’ mode 24-7, always recruiting, always trying to keep invitees and their agents happy.

Sometime late in December, I got a call from an agent who had signed one of our better receivers and one of our few invitees from the SEC. Obviously, a touchdown-scorer from the nation’s most glamorous conference was a key part of our roster, and would help draw scouts, so I was pretty angry when he called to tell us the young man was withdrawing. But my anger doubled when the agent casually reassured me with this: ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ve got you another guy.’

Well, I was younger then, and maybe I would handle things better today, but that really made me blow my top. I tried to control my anger on the phone with the guy, but I’m sure I was tempted to throw something as soon as we were done. Why? Because not only was he pulling one of our ‘A’ players, but he wanted me to do him a favor by substituting in a ‘B’ player. I felt, and still feel, that getting an agent’s player into a postseason all-star game does the agent and his client a tremendous service (though most agents feel they’re the ones doing the favor). So when he dismissed me, then expected me to happily take his lesser client, well, that was tough to take.

The football business is a rather small one, so you see the same faces every year. At the time, I didn’t know this agent especially well, but I’ve continued to move in the same circles as he does, and I’ve since found other reasons to believe my trust in him would be misplaced. It is what it is.

If you’re aspiring to work in this business, let me just say that you’ll come across many people who are self-serving and disrespectful. That’s life, but maybe people like that are more common in the gridiron game. Never repay disrespect with your own rancor, but also trust your gut and your instincts. Those who burn you once are probably going to be inclined to try to burn you twice. Avoid that if you can.

With college football season wrapping up, there are a lot of questions about the agent selection process. With that in mind, I wanted to step away from our look inside scouting to post an interview with Rob Blanchflower, whose son, Rob Jr., is a tight end with the Steelers after being selected in the seventh round (230 overall) last spring. This piece is far longer than our usual posts here, but Rob has some interesting insights on the process and what tools he did and didn’t have when it was decision time for his son.

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Did it concern you that Rob was going into his senior season with a team that had struggled? Did it worry you that it might impact his draft status?

“I think when you look at what’s out there in the U.S. and the powerhouses that you have, the Stanfords, Michigan, SEC, and coming from an area other than Washington, D.C., not a lot of people are developing programs. It’s always a concern. We were hopeful that being in a Division 1 program might raise some eyebrows, and as a parent, you’re always pulling for your child, but you balance that with being at UMass. Even at Vanderbilt, that’s not a powerhouse, but it’s still a respected school in the SEC.”

What kind of guidance did former UMass head coach Charley Molnar and/or his staff provide regarding agents?

“I think they were OK. Coach Molnar had some challenges and I don’t think he had the connections with the larger programs and with other guys in the NFL that the more established schools could have. But from a standpoint of being encouraging and helpful, they were there. It does nothing but help their program if they have guys like Blanchflower in the league. One feeds the other.”

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

“To be honest, as a parent, you always want to try to balance your child’s expectations, and this was always a dream, and as he went through his senior year I became more respectful of his drive and focus, and his talent started to unwind. He broke a 40-year-old record for receptions that was held by Milt Morin, who happened to be from his hometown, and (Morin) was a Pro Bowler for three years, I think, so those things come along and you don’t want them to be disappointed, but as the season began going, it became more of a (possibility), and we didn’t have the resources you would normally have, and that’s about the time (ITL) reached out to us, and (its) program and (its) services provided were very strong and a very good influence on what’s happening and how the process works, and understanding the mindset of the agents, and what to do and what to talk about and what to think about, and as it gets closer, you have to be prepared for that step.

“I didn’t really focus on it too much because we just wanted to get him through the program, but we had no idea of the qualities they were looking for in each round. It’s seven rounds, and then you see the 1^st, 2^nd and third rounds, and then his agent said he might go anywhere from fourth through seventh, and at that point I would say probably 2-3 games into the season when Rob started to put up numbers and I started doing some pretty exhaustive and intensive research and tracking every tight end in the country on a weekly basis, and seeing where they stood, and at that point all the soothsayers come out, and I probably had 25-30 guys on my spreadsheet what we were tracking, and it distilled out to a dozen or 15 or so, and you start to weigh where they might go. I was hopeful he could go as early as the fourth round, but that was pretty high expectations, and it would be a great thing to go as high as someone from the SEC or California. I was always hopeful he would go somewhere in the fifth or above. And if a team had a hole maybe they would jump on it, probably late in the fifth or maybe the sixth. Until draft day, I thought maybe sixth round. And the other thing that’s been a phenomenon for me, is the number of insane people out there (who follow) fantasy football. It’s like these people don’t have a life. You can get all kinds of (research), and somebody’s done (the research) somewhere, with Bleacher Report and a lot of them you told me about, and then it kind of rolls out. You go there, find another one, and it’s amazing. You’re not going to get the kid from Maine, who was also pretty good, but you do get the big names. You can see them, and the harsh reality is that you have 250 or thereabouts picks, and any given year you might have seven tight ends go and some years two. (With all the research I did), my wife was starting to wonder about me.”

When did agents really start reaching out?

“I think we had 1-2 guys really reach out to Rob even in the late spring/early summer, and we started getting some promotional materials in the mail. Nobody would directly reach out but you’d get an email or something in the mail and congratulations on a great career, and maybe one or two in June, and then we had three or four in late July/August, and then probably 3-4 guys again in August or September, and the frenzy probably was really, well, what happened was that the former GM from Dallas, Gil Brandt, ranked Rob as one of the top five tight ends in the country on NFL.com, and that was an unbelievable surprise for us, and once that hit the (web), we started getting people calling, and that, I think, was probably the first week in October, and then it started to build, then it quieted down a bit, and then we went through the selection.”

Did you have any resources or friends or ex-teammates or attorneys who helped you vet people in the process?

“A local attorney . . . was a very big help, and he knew a couple of agents, and when it came time to look over (the SRA) he helped, but that’s pretty boilerplate. He was probably the best resource there, and when you start talking to people, everyone knows somebody who’s an agent, and you have to be kind of careful there. You want someone who’s a full-time agent and not someone who’s selling cars on the side. But some of the coaches were very helpful, and his old coach was very helpful with Robert, and (ex-UMass teammate) Emil Igwenagu was a big help, as well as (ex-UMass teammate) Michael Cox he talked to, even some of the other guys around the league were out there. . . There was not really anyone who pushed a certain guy. We had a few guys who were runners who pushed and some who were trying to get in with agents, and I was relatively surprised. It was a pretty clean process. Everybody wants you to believe they’re Jerry Maguire.”

What’s the one thing you wish you had (resource, website, advisor, anything else) that you would have found helpful?

“I will tell you that until my son became a junior in football, I was always a fair-weather fan. I always taught my children that sports are something you do and shouldn’t be a spectacle, so I never got into the minutiae. If I’d had a crystal ball, I would have tried to learn more early on the process. It’s hard to try to absorb in a six-month period of time, and (agents) would tell you of signing bonuses and who got what and where they went, and from that standpoint, I wish I had been more enthusiastic and had taken a detailed interest in the game prior to having a dog in the hunt. I thought (the ITL newsletter) was very helpful for me, and those are the sort of resources you can really use. They helped me tremendously. The Internet is a tremendous resource. I do think the schools could do a better job, and maybe the schools that have a better hit ratio do. If they had someone you could call and say, ‘what’s this all about,’ that would be very helpful.”