Category Archives: Getting started

Words of Christmas Counsel During a Busy Time

05 Friday Dec 2025

Posted by in Getting started

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December is funny for people who work in football.

You’re watching all your friends gear down. Celebrate the season. Attend Christmas parties. Take time off, etc. Meanwhile, depending on the specific area of the sport you are part of, you’re:

  • Working hard to find your coaching client a job or some opportunity.
  • Working with a school to find the best possible front office or coaching hire.
  • Trying to find your own opportunity at a new school in coaching or personnel/recruiting
  • Making decisions on investments of several thousand dollars with players who may or may not have NFL futures
  • Figuring out who’s in the portal, who’s worth a financial commitment, and who will fit your team’s culture (or trying to talk a player out of entering the portal)
  • Pressing an all-star director to get your client (or potential client) into his game
  • Trying to decide which agent is best for you
  • Wondering if you’ll still have a job in early January when the NFL season ends
  • Otherwise weighing your football (and, probably, life) purpose or destination

For all these reasons, it’s easy to react the wrong way when you’re pressed. Recently, one of my best agent friends sent a completely innocuous and professional text to a member of the P4 personnel community (whom I also happen to know). The response he got was remarkable, in a bad way — dismissive, inflammatory and abrupt. Despite this, he responded in a very accommodating and patient way, and got more abuse for his troubles.

Another example is something one of the all-star directors told me recently. “A lot of these guys I’m dealing with right now are NIL people and they just don’t understand what’s going on with all-star games. They are not dumb by any means, they just don’t have any experience.” He went on to give a couple of examples: “I call the agent and they blow me off . . . Or they take my call and then just blow me off thereafter.”

I’ve been there, believe me. You might have been there, too, and if you haven’t, you will be. People get treated the wrong way all the time in this business. Here’s what to remember when it happens.

  • It’s a high-pressure business. If you work in the game, it’s a privilege. Try to remember that and recognize that you might be in the same situation someday soon.
  • Nobody’s perfect. Yes, there are a lot of egos in this game, but maybe the offending person wasn’t acting personally. Maybe he just got flamed and you happened to be the next person he had contact with.
  • The football world is a very small one. Chances are, you will see that person again. You may need him. On the other hand, if you can’t take the high road, at least think of the low road. You will probably get a shot at revenge if you’re in the game long enough.
  • It’s Christmas. Try to give people grace. It’s been rare, but there have actually been times when people have apologized to me. I’ve seen one person I really respect have to do that multiple times over the past few weeks because he’s new in his position and still learning the demands of the job.

Points of Interest Following Conversations with Multiple College Personnel Staffers

31 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by in Getting started, NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

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There was a time when pretty much everyone working in a college football personnel office aspired to work in the League. That’s not the case anymore, and that was underlined this weekend as I spent a few days talking to personnel staffers at local schools or who were in town for games this weekend.

The people working in higher-level positions on college personnel staffs are highly knowledgeable of the life and work of today’s area scout, and they are none too excited about taking such a position. Too much volatility, not enough power, not enough pay. The people I spoke to would instead want some kind of administrative position that also gave them say in personnel decisions and the ability to make their own evaluations. That’s just not how the NFL is set up, which is why the enthusiasm for going to the pros is waning, at least based on the conversations I’ve had and am having. Ironically, more area scouts than ever are asking me if I’ve heard of any college jobs they might be able to fill.

Also interesting:

  • Schools are sending more members of their evaluation team out on the road to see players in person, closer to a simulation of the NFL model. The problem they’re running into is that they are limited in the number they can send out, and those people must be designated in advance with the compliance office. If there’s one change that seems unanimous, schools would like to see the rules eased so they can do more in-person scouting. 
  • One thing I learned that was surprising: we’re starting to see college grads who didn’t work in a personnel office during their pre-degree days begin to volunteer in a different school’s personnel office (for free, remember) in an effort to get hired somewhere. Often, they move in with a relative within driving distance of a school, grind tape and do whatever they have to do, and work until an opportunity arrives. Very interesting. Schools are seeking out potential volunteers by sifting through LinkedIn and social media.
  • The CAC is still a thing, though in these days when players are staying in college longer than ever, it doesn’t seem to play such a crucial role. 
  • Executives I spoke to said he’s happy to work with NIL agents, and even encourages these relationships. He only wishes there was some kind of regulating body that maintained standards. 
  • We in Texas think of the Metroplex (Fort Worth and Dallas) as one big city, almost, but it’s not. In fact, some schools only recruit from different regions of the Fort Worth/Dallas megalopolis, and don’t like the makeup of players from other sections. One Metroplex school recruits Houston more heavily than it does Dallas. 
  • With the new portal window in early January, December looks like it will be similar to the NFL’s “legal tampering” period, only it will be a month instead of a week. That’s unlucky for the teams in bowl play but a big benefit for the CFP teams that will still be playing in January. It’s going to be especially warmly received by G5 schools who’ve grown accustomed to P4 schools picking off starters in late May. Try finding a key corner, left tackle or outside receiver a week before summer training starts. Especially one you can’t pay. 
  • One downside of the new January portal window, at least in Texas, is that state schools begin the new semester two days (I think) before the portal closes. No enrollment equals no eligibility, so Lone Star State colleges are really going to have to move quickly to close deals, then get players registered for classes, in the space of just a few days.
  • One way bigger schools are getting away with staying under the rev-share cap, but getting talented high school players in, is by paying them their Year 1 NIL share before they get to campus. Some high schoolers are getting $800,000 lump sum payments that don’t count against the $20.5 million as long as they are done post-graduation and pre-enrollment.
  • There is still a small number of NFL agents working in the portal, relatively speaking. I spoke to one official who had only dealt with two NFLPA-certified contract advisors over the past year. Here’s another phenomenon: we’re starting to see college staffers quit, then immediately turn into portal agents representing the players at the school where they formerly worked. Unethical, maybe, but totally legal.
  • While some players have a big week on the field and then try immediately to turn that into NIL dollars, the G5 GM I spoke to this weekend basically said he’d like to see one of his school’s players try that. Hopefully, as the market of players grows, the number of outlandish asks will be reduced.
  • There will not be a Big 12 Combine this year, we’re told. That’s a big story, as the conference had tried for two years (despite scouts’ protests) to aggregate its schools’ March workouts into one made-for-TV event. It was never as efficient as hoped, and didn’t score ratings. Now, apparently, it’s officially gone. 
  • There seems to be a dissatisfaction with Hudl, both from a cost standpoint (the company recently raised its prices) and a services standpoint (limited expansion of new services). That’s not stopping anyone from subscribing, though. It’s a must-have if you want to be part of college football, one official insisted, and it’s true. It has no competition and a tremendous head start on anyone else trying to get into the space.

The dialogue isn’t over. Want to continue the conversation? Register for the Friday Wrap, which is free and comes out this evening.

Are NFL Front Offices Getting Smaller?

17 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by in Getting started, NFL draft, Scouts

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Today in the Friday Wrap, we’ll conduct our annual fall breakdown of NFL front offices. We’ll look at how their respective college scouting staffs stack up against their pro scouting and analytics staffs, track growth (or reduction) of each, look at where teams are directing their budgets, and otherwise try to sift out the trends.

Based on my observations over the last 24-48 hours, here’s the takeaway: NFL teams are trying to do more with less, at least as it relates to actual, traditional members of the front office. I’ll get into why this is in a minute, but this shouldn’t catch you off-guard if you’ve been following the league for the last few years. Consider:

  • More and more owners are coming from non-football backgrounds.
  • They’re business first, and less about the game for its sports value and more for its entertainment value (there’s a difference).
  • They want to see a return on investment, and that’s probably defensible given how leveraged most of them have to be simply to buy a team.
  • Making money depends on spending less, and generally speaking, that means spending less on your workforce. This is one reason only 10 teams are still in the pension program, as of earlier this year. If you think about it, it’s incredible that 32 companies that are printing money are too cheap to provide a lasting financial commitment to the 20-or-so employees they have in their respective front offices.
  • There’s also the Covid effect. When lockdowns closed the country in the spring of 2020, the NFL changed how it did its evolution, but football didn’t grind to a halt. I think a lot of teams (especially owners and bean-counters) did a lot of thinking after that.

So why do I say the “human element” of scouting is in decline?

  • Let’s start with the average size of an NFL scouting staff. For the first time since we started tracking things in 2021, the mean size of NFL scouting staffs decreased slightly (from 23.81 in 2024 to 23.47). It’s not much, but it’s significant after staffs were growing by about a scout a year in 2022-23.
  • In 2024, only three teams (Chiefs, Bengals and Dolphins) had fewer than four area scouts. This year, there are four (the Rams, with just one staffer designated as an “area scout,” have just one). Granted, titles aren’t uniform across the league, and teams break up duties in different ways, but this is still notable.
  • It’s anecdotal, but in my work gathering the information to put together our Scouts by Area Grid (an annual board listing the specific scouts each of the 32 teams uses to cover areas of the country), I found out that a handful of teams still haven’t made even one visit to some of the bigger schools in the country. It’s mid-October. That’s amazing.

So what other trends are apparent? We’ll be discussing it all in today’s Friday Wrap, which comes out this evening (7:30 p.m. EST). If scouting is your life goal, or if the business of the NFL is an interest, I hope you’ll check it out. Register here.

What To Do If You Failed the Agent Exam Twice

09 Tuesday Sep 2025

Posted by in Agent Exam, Agents, Getting started, NIL

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The day that the NFL Agent Exam results come out — in this case, last Thursday — is a very exciting one. It’s an awesome feeling to see some of the hundreds of people we work with during the pre-exam phase realize they are going to get to live their dreams, and I get to share that celebration with them.

On the other hand, for those who get bad news, there’s pretty much nothing to say to minimize the pain. That’s especially true of those who fail for a second time and who are staring at a five-year wait (and another $2500) just to try again.

Today, I’ve given a lot of thought to what to tell those people. Here’s what I came up with.

Don’t let this defeat you. Let’s start here. If you are even qualified to take the exam, you have a secondary degree and a clean record financially and criminally. This means there are a lot of things you can do in life. We estimate that about a quarter of test-takers pass on the first try and about half pass on the second try. This is easily the toughest agent exam of the four majors. If you come up short, you are far from alone, and you shouldn’t let this define you.

Consider an appeal. The testing service the NFLPA uses is far from perfect, and I’ve heard of at least one new agent who passed despite long delays (including two complete computer shutdowns in the last hour of taking the exam). I also heard about odd experiences at the testing center in July (like site officials disallowing materials the NFLPA clearly allows). If this was you, don’t be a martyr. I think you have 30 days to appeal the results. Don’t mess around. Hire an attorney if needed.

Really decide if you want to stay on this journey. There is no shame in turning around. This business eats people alive. You have talent. Decide if you want to use it on people who, in many cases, will not appreciate you. I’m just trying to be honest.

Take a sales job somewhere. For new agents, the job is not really about negotiation (popular misconception). It’s about sales. You’re selling yourself. If there’s one reason why most agents fail, it’s because they are not comfortable with the vagaries of talking to others, listening to them, figuring out their hopes and fears, and addressing them . . . which is pretty much what sales is. You won’t be able to succeed in this industry without sales talent. Oh, and one other thing.

Save your money. The other main reason people fail in this industry is lack of resources. You’re looking at $10,000, minimum, to get one player ready for the draft these days (or at least one who’s worth representing). Believe me, people try to do it without money, but the overwhelming majority fail. Go out and try to save $20,000-$30,000 in the next five years, and then come back ready for war.

Embrace life as an NIL agent. If you want to really see what this business looks like, go out and try to represent high school and college players seeking to make money in the portal or otherwise. We are in a truly unique time when there’s a chance to make lots of money representing players in a largely unregulated environment with almost no start-up costs. Success is about seizing opportunities, and there’s lots of opportunity on the NIL front. You might even realize you’re good at it and decide you don’t need to work on the NFL side. Really. That might happen.

If you’re in this difficult but select group, I hope you found this helpful and maybe even a little encouraging. I have some idea of what you went through to get here, and can only imagine the frustration. But you can still make something great happen. Just give yourself a chance.

Getting NFLPA-Certified? Don’t Make These Three Mistakes

22 Friday Aug 2025

Posted by in Agent Exam, Agents, Getting started, NFL draft

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We’re expecting results of the 2025 NFL Agent Exam a week from today, next Friday. That would make 38 days from exam to answers, right on track with last year’s term of 39 days. If you took the exam, you’re probably getting antsy, but before you find out if you passed or not, there are a few strategic errors you need to not make.

After sifting through how every agent did (draftees, UDFAs, tryouts and signees that didn’t achieve anything), both in the 2023 and 2024 agent classes (sorry, pay links), here are a few major mistakes that were made.

Signing no one in Year 1: It seems crazy, but 49 of the 140 contract advisors certified last year didn’t sign a single player for the 2025 draft. These people waited all their lives to get certified, passed a difficult test, then got nothing out of their rookie years. Still, that’s nothing compared to the 2023 class, in which 79 of the 164 first-year agents (close to half the class) skipped out on signing anyone. But here’s the kicker — 45 of those 79 from 2023 didn’t sign a single person in their second year! Now they’re staring at a do-or-die 2026 draft. If they can’t get at least one player on a 90-man roster in 2026, they’re out of the league practically before they got started.

Signing too many players in Year 1: One member of the 2024 agent class signed 17 players and not one made it into camp this summer (just one of them even got a tryout, which seems impossible). One signed eight players and not even one of them got a tryout, much less a UDFA contract. I get it — there’s a temptation to play the numbers game, but if you sign the wrong players, you have a monumental problem because now all those players (and their parents and coaches and girlfriends) are now calling you all summer wondering when they’re gonna get signed (and they aren’t). In my estimation, 2-3 clients is the sweet spot in Year 1 (no more than four). Basically, plan on spending money on training for all your clients. Usually, the agents who sign dozens of players aren’t training them. They’re trying to beat the system, to outsmart everyone. You can’t do that.

Signing small-schoolers: This is a big mistake for two reasons. No. 1, usually a sub-FBS player won’t have a pro day, which means you’re desperately calling around, trying to find a school that will take your player. Usually, you hit a brick wall. No. 2, and more importantly, a growing number of NFL scouts aren’t spending their time poring over FCS and lower prospects, reasoning that if they had ability, they’d take the NIL money and run to a bigger school. That’s the reality in the modern era.

We’ll talk more about the agent business, the success stories and the mistakes that are made in the Friday Wrap, as always, which comes out at 7:30 p.m. later today. Want in? It’s free. Register here.

Want to Sign a Legit NFL Draft Prospect? Here Are the Rules

14 Thursday Aug 2025

Posted by in Agents, combine prep, Getting started, NFL draft

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With the NFL agent exam in the rear-view mirror, our focus turns to helping agents who’ve had a little trouble getting started. For a lot of contract advisors, it takes a while to learn a few lessons. These include:

You can’t tell a legitimate prospect where to train. At least, not one who’s in that group of 800 players in each draft class that are actually worthy of a 90-man roster spot. Obviously, there are exceptions, but usually the best players come from FBS (mostly P4) and play marquee positions (OL, DL, QB, plus a few WRs and CBs). Those players know the market will bear a good training spot and a decent stipend (monthly allowance in the low four figures, usually) from an agent. If you don’t want to pay that, you better be real good at rolling dice.

You can’t create buzz for a player no one wants. I always feel terrible when a new agent comes to me in April and asks what he can do to promote his client(s). NFL teams begin to show their respective hands three weeks out from the draft. At that point, if he’s not getting interest from scouts, there’s nothing the agent can do. Zero. You have to have solved that problem in December or January.

Like it or not, a player’s pro day performance matters a great deal. I’m old enough to remember when the Eagles got killed in the media for taking Boston College DE Mike Mamula in the 1995 draft. Because Mamula owned his pre-draft workouts (which back then were still a rather new phenomenon), Philadelphia traded up to take him seventh overall, before Warren Sapp and Hugh Douglas. Though it’s popular to criticize the “underwear Olympics,” if we’re being honest, 30 years later, workout numbers still matter just as much. One thing I learned while writing my most recent book, Value Picks, is that a poor workout almost does more damage than poor character grades, i.e., a player could be taken completely off the board for it.

Representing a player who makes it to the NFL is worth it. There’s a reason the NFLPA had to institute a three-year rule (you must get at least one player on a roster over a three-year period) to cull the herd of agents on the rolls. It’s because signing and helping a player reach his dreams in the country’s most popular sport is well worth the cost, whatever it is. Lots of people get into the business before realizing how hard it is, then give up soon after certification because they don’t have the contacts, NFL background, or recruiting skills they need to sign a player with league bona fides. They never realize how close they could have come to actually accomplishing their goals.

Next week, we’ll have a Zoom session for people who are NFLPA-certified but struggling to get a player into an NFL camp. We’ll have details about our “bridge” program and who’s eligible. If you’re an agent who just hasn’t had any luck so far, make sure you register for our Friday Wrap, which will have more information. I hope you can join us.

A Few Thoughts from Nashville

08 Friday Aug 2025

Posted by in Agents, Getting started, Media, Scouts

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I was in Nashville this week for the 2025 Personnel and Recruiting Symposium Presented by Teamworks. It was hella impressive, which I’ll discuss in more detail in this week’s Friday Wrap (register here). I thought I’d share a few observations based on what I saw this week. Here goes.

  • Having spoken to some recently hired personnel types with NFL backgrounds, the big question is if they’ll be “attached” to the head coach, as often happens on the pro side. One person I talked to said he interviewed with about a dozen schools before getting hired and about half made it clear his job continuity would be tied to the athletic director, while the other half tethered him to the head coach. If today’s personnel hire model becomes untangled with anyone — i.e., there’s no spoils system, and scouts can expect to stay at a school for a decade, as long as they perform — it could become an even more enticing place for NFL evaluators.
  • I love how they were serious about networking there. The last hour before Monday night’s social was a “speed dating” type of event where about 500 people from across personnel, recruiting and operations sat at tables of 6-8 people, each answering questions off a card. Everyone was encouraged to share their name, school, title, contacts, etc., with everyone else. That’s a big step up from when I was here in 2019, when people were mostly left to their own devices to network (and most remained in their silos, unfortunately).
  • What’s remarkable is the sheer volume from everyone across the industry. It’s far more than just personnel and recruiting staffers. Monday night alone, I saw probably a half-dozen agents, plus representatives from probably 10 NFL teams, and I had just gotten there. Most people I spoke to who were here last year said it’s doubled in attendance since 2024.
  • It’s pretty clear why Nashville has become such a destination place for bachelorette parties. The nightlife in Houston, my hometown, is definitely mild downtown, but wow, it is booming here. Monday night in Nashville is something I’ll never forget. One of the members of my party this week called it a “mini Vegas.” From a lights and electricity perspective, it’s hard to argue. The Renaissance was a beehive Monday night, but there was even more action once you got out on the street.
  • At one point, the topic of visiting Memphis came up. The Tigers are located in a questionable part of town, apparently, which makes for expedited exits once practice is over. A few years ago, one director-level scout went to check into his ground-floor hotel room, only to find the window open and TV, microwave and anything else of value cleaned out. He immediately returned to the front desk, cancelled his reservation, and established a policy whereby scouts would only evaluate the Tigers on the road.

Hats off to this year’s organizers. They have a tall order in topping this year’s event. As I mentioned, I’ll touch more on the symposium in the Wrap.

2025 NFLPA Exam: Wrapping Things Up

25 Friday Jul 2025

Posted by in Agent Exam, Getting started

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As we turn the page on five months of getting hundreds of people ready for the 2025 NFL Agent Exam, we wanted to tie up a few loose ends. Here are a few last thoughts, whether you took the exam, want to take it, or have taken it.

The NFLPA’s online sessions got mixed reviews: The Players Association’s first run-through since Agent Relations chief Mark Levin retired was always going to be a little bumpy, but all in all, the feedback received was not a lot different from what we’ve heard the last 10+ years. Bottom line, if your strategy is to let the NFLPA serve as your exam prep program, you’re in deep trouble. There’s just too much content to present in a two-day period.

Don’t like math, but want to be an agent? You’re in luck: If the last two agent exams are any indication, you don’t have to be able to work simple algebra to obtain certification. Though we aggressively taught all the concepts for figuring workman’s comp offsets, injury settlements, termination pay and forfeitable salary, questions have focused more on the theoretical than on determining hard numbers of late.

There were a few repeat questions from last year’s exam: Last year, dozens of test-takers expressed surprise at a question that involved a scenario where a player pushes a coach, then punches him, during a game. Well, that question made a surprise reappearance this year.

The study guide remains a big hit: We got lots of unsolicited (positive) feedback on our study guide, which remains the best resource on the market for passing the exam. “The study guide was really helpful as a quick reference!,” said one prospective agent. Said another: “I would have been lost without your study guide and practice exam.” One more: “The study guides and practice tests have been worth their weight in gold.” On second thought, the practice exams have been pretty popular, as well. We’ll have more feedback from this year’s test-takers on our exam prep materials in the Friday Wrap (register for it here).

Extreme measures: Judging from the experiences of a couple of this year’s test-takers, some of the staffers at testing facilities have a background at TSA. At least two people showed up for the exam and had to prove they had nothing in their socks. Jackets, shoes and all manner of pockets were not off-limits.

Results are about six weeks away: So how long will it take for results to come back? Last year’s results arrived Sept. 6, a Friday. The two previous years, they came in the second Friday of September. Generally speaking, the Players Association likes to give successful test-takers about a month to round up the necessary funds to pay for liability insurance and dues (about another $2,500).

We’ll go into greater detail on our service the people we serve in today’s Friday Wrap. Register for it here.

Your One-Week Cram Strategy for the NFL Agent Exam

15 Tuesday Jul 2025

Posted by in Agent Exam, Agents, Getting started

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We preach 60 days, minimum, to prepare for the NFL agent exam. It’s a very challenging test with a very high failure rate. Of course, we still have lots of people who, for whatever reason, get a much later start. Those people need an expedited plan, obviously. We thought we’d put one together this year.

If you’re a big-time procrastinator, or you’ve been studying but suddenly realize you need some help, here’s the strategy we recommend. Disclaimer: It’s going to involve plenty of our products and services. Sorry if that sounds self-serving, but you’re going to have to come out of pocket to do this.

Here goes.

Buy our study guide. It all starts there. No study guide, you seriously impact your chances of passing. That’s why we sell lots and lots of them every year. “The study guide explains everything very simple which is great,” said one client this month. “I’m able to catch on to it quickly. Said another, also this month: “The study guide has been amazing.” We get these comments every year.

Or . . . buy our videos: Maybe you’re more of a visual learner. We have six one-hour videos for sale (February, March, April, May, June and July) that cover all the important topics in the CBA. They are $50 each, plus tax. If you prefer to watch our CBA guru, Ian Greengross, teach all the topics, order them all here. Theoretically, you could watch all six over the course of a day as a kind of self-taught CBA course. Each video lists the topics covered.

Either way, you need to spend 10-20 hours studying the guide or the videos. To me, that’s the minimum for covering the topics like split contracts, injury grievance, reading the signals report, drug policy, benefits and the like. You’re talking about a detailed 700-page document and, technically, everything in them is game for the exam. You’re probably talking about taking one or two days off from work this week. I’d also say 10-20 hours is the floor. It might take you longer to really grasp the concepts.

Listen intently to the NFLPA virtual seminars Wednesday and Thursday. This is still a legitimate way to learn the material, and NFLPA officials tend to give hints on what’s going to be tested. The problem is, they go at a breathtaking pace, so it’s hard to keep up (especially if you don’t have our study guide, which gives an excellent overview of all the key topics). You also tend to get really boneheaded questions, and the officials try to take them all seriously. This takes away from the time on task and the flow of teaching.

Take our practice exam on Friday. We actually have two, but you have to buy them in sequence, so start with Exam 1. I’d try to take it Friday morning. Don’t expect to ace it, but you’ll get a good handle on your weaknesses. Register for it here. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get them both (Exam 2 registration is here), but at least get one of them.

This is the bare minimum that I would recommend. I’d also think you should join us for our two-hour exam review and Q&A on Saturday night at 7 p.m. (details in the Friday Wrap, which you can register for here), but I think this at least gets you to some level of competence before Monday’s exam.

Best of luck. I fear you’re going to need it.

Some Reality for the 2025 NFL Agent Class

04 Friday Jul 2025

Posted by in Agent Exam, Agents, Getting started

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At Inside the League, we spend a lot of time getting prospective contract advisors ready for the NFLPA exam, which is 17 days away. It’s a test that must be taken seriously, but it’s far from the only one that agents face.

We recently got finished breaking down the 2025 draft class (sorry, pay link) with respect to which players got drafted, which ones got signed in undrafted free agency and which ones got to camp as tryout players only, cross-referencing it all with the agents who signed these players. The information we got back was sobering but, I think, relevant, because player representation remains such a popular route into the football business.

First, let’s start with the presumption that it costs at least $10,000 to get a player through the pre-draft process. You might get lucky and spend less, but we’re talking reality here. As an agent, you have three years to get a player onto a 90-man roster or you have to start over — pay $2500, pass the exam, etc. This is why our one goal at Inside the League, when it comes to new agents, “is resetting their clocks.”

With all that in mind, there were 139 agents who got certified in the 2024 agent class. Here’s what we found.

  • Only 13 had clients drafted (less than 10 percent). Keep in mind that most of the new agents who had draftees work for major firms. Only a portion of that 10 percent were truly independent — guys who took the exam, then dove in head first without any help and figured it all out.
  • Just 34 of the 139 (about a third) got a player onto an undrafted free agent deal, the absolutely lowest possible level of achievement that allows the new agent to reset his clock. That’s two-thirds of the agent class who now have just two years to attain getting a player signed or drafted.
  • There were 21 first-year agents who sent players to rookie mini-camp tryouts but who had no undrafted free agents (in other words, their clients went to rookie mini-camp with no contract and left without one three days later). Simply sending a player to rookie mini-camp on a tryout does not reset your three-year clock — it feels like an achievement for an agent, but it doesn’t really help. That means despite recruiting, signing and training numerous players for the draft, these agents have nothing to show for it. Of the 21, six signed multiple clients who only got tryouts. One agent signed four! Presumably, they trained all those players, which isn’t cheap (as we mentioned before). That’s a big hole in their respective budgets going into the 2026 class.
  • A total of 49 members of the 2024 agent class didn’t even sign a client for the 2025 draft. That’s about a third of the class that went to the trouble of passing the exam, then took the year off. They have to learn all the hard lessons of player representation in two years, not three, to beat the clock.
  • Thirty-two members of the 2024 class signed one or more players, but didn’t get a single one as much as a tryout. One had eight, none of whom got to an NFL camp. Another had seven and two more had six each. That’s a lot of work and effort ending in frustration.

The road to superstardom as an NFL agent is filled with huge potholes. We can help you avoid them, but it’s not easy. If you’re taking the test on July 21, please consider working with us. We’ve offered exam prep longer than anyone else and we’re also cheaper. Want more details about how we can get you ready? Register for today’s Friday Wrap, which comes out this evening, here.