Tuesday night, dozens of our clients who are in their first year as certified contract advisors assembled for our monthly Zoom session. This time, we were joined by Bob Morris, GM of the USFL’s Houston Gamblers. Here are a few takeaways.

• I take no joy in saying this, but it’s incredibly hard to get a small-school player into a big-school pro day, and I’d say it’s gotten harder each year over the past decade. It’s gone from “maybe we’ll let you into our pro day if your school is in our state” to “we’re gonna need at least one scout who’s attending the pro day to call and vouch for the player” to “we’re gonna need two scouts to vouch” to “we’re full.” Almost exactly a third of players signed by agents so far are from sub-FBS schools. That’s a lot of players who may not get a chance to work out for scouts.
• If you do get a player into a pro day, there’s no guarantee he’ll get to do the entire workout. Most schools use the 40 as a weed-out drill. A slow 40 might mean game over for the entire workout.
• There’s a perception that the USFL (and to some degree, the XFL) are easy backup plans for players who go undrafted. However, Bob made it clear that he’s looking for NFL-caliber players and not just any player who’s every put on pads before. Also, the USFL can’t take players who weren’t in the draft pool until after Week 3 of the season (around the end of April). If there are any positives, it’s that the player doesn’t have to undergo a physical or a tryout to become part of the player pool in May. The player just needs a USFL GM to ask the league’s personnel director, John Peterson, to add him to the pool. That way, all eight teams have a crack at him.
• In the USFL, players who are brought in for a tryout are responsible for their own travel and lodging. Hey, it’s a new league. They’re trying to be smart about spending money.
• Bob said he uses all-star appearances as a good indication of whether or not a player has even minimal appeal to an NFL team. He said he wouldn’t even consider recommending a player for a pro day if he didn’t at least participate in an all-star game.
• There are about 1,400 players signed to standard representation agreements this year. The size of the class should be down this year. Given how many Day 3 types went back to school with tidy NIL deals, the depth in the class isn’t great. That’s good news for first-year agents whose clients are more fringe.

Next month, we’ll have our final Rookie Agent Zoom, and it’s a key session. We’ll talk about draft weekend, how to gauge interest in your client, what to do if your client goes undrafted, how to spark interest and may other topics. Especially if you’re a new agent, I hope you can join us. Sign up for ITL here, or sign up for our free newsletter here.

Wednesday, an old friend in the business reached out about the son of a friend who’s getting into player representation. “Since the area of NIL and being a player agent is out of my comfort zone, I knew you could provide a link or two for third party guidance,” he wrote. “I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I know you are the best in this area.”

I didn’t have any ready links to send him, and I felt a little bad about that. But since it’s Thanksgiving, I thought I’d give back a little. Having worked with and watched agents make mistakes for more than two decades, here are the three biggest mistakes agents commonly make.

“The contacts I have are enough to make me successful.” I’d say about a third of every agent class enters the business with no contacts. It happens, but it’s rare. Most new agents have an ex-roommate, a friend, a family member or someone else at a key school or NFL team, and that person has promised to help him. i’d even say that more than half have been told by a draft-eligible player, “if you get certified, I’ll sign with you.” It rarely happens, though. The truth is, you have to commit to making a slew of contacts AFTER you get certified, or you’re dead in the water. You have no chance otherwise.

“Negotiating is the most important part of my job.” This is the big takeaway that most sport management programs drill into their students for four years (and maybe two more if the student is dumb enough to pursue a master’s). The truth is, since the 2011 CBA was approved, a rookie deal is cut and dried. Unless you have a player signed as an undrafted free agent, negotiation is not really something a young agent has to have in his bag. It will be a long time before you’re sitting across the table from an NFL executive, angrily haggling over dollars and deals.

“I can do this without spending much money.” I have a wealth manager who is like the Michael Jordan of investment. He is highly accomplished in his field. About 10 years ago, he became part of the ITL family. I kinda rolled my eyes, thinking this was a flight of fancy for a man who’s successful but bored. His first year was pretty much right out of the “how to be an NFL financial advisor” annual. With my guidance, he dutifully attended the top all-star games, handed out his literature to the players, and bought dinners for friendly but usually lightly regarded agents. After a couple years of doing that, he had zero clients. However, he stuck with it, and like anyone who’s smart and pays his dues, he has built a decent practice. But that took 10 years and who knows how much money, not to mention time? He was willing to make the commitment, but even then, it wasn’t easy.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, and if you’re part of the ITL family, that is especially true. If you aren’t, and you want to be, I’m eager to start working with you. Don’t want to commit yet? At least sign up for our newsletter.

Have a great day with your family, and enjoy the games.

Sometime in the summer of 2013, when my wife was working for our church, she mentioned that she had met a kid who wanted to meet me. He found out what I did and wanted to learn more. She said she thought he was interested in being an agent. I think I rolled my eyes. A lot of people think I have a really cool job until they find out how mundane most of my work is. Murphy stuck around, however, and worked as an intern at ITL for 2-3 years until he graduated from law school.

Most of my interns get the passion for working in football burned out of them, so when Murphy told me he was gonna take the NFL agent exam in the summer of 2015, I was surprised, and a little pissed. Have you not been paying attention, I thought? Do you not understand the futility of working as a small, independent NFL agent? The costs involved? The years of frustration? The potential for wasted money and time? Still, despite my urgings, he took and passed the NFLPA exam on the first try. It’s worth noting that 2015 was the year the NFLPA sharply increased the difficulty of the test, but Murphy still passed on his first try. 

He has surprised me several times since. He was the only independent rookie agent to have a player drafted in his first year (Texas Tech’s Jakeem Grant, who went 6/186 to the Dolphins in 2016 and remains active with the Bears today). He even starred in a reality TV series on the NFL Network that year (Murphy is in the first frame, wearing a ball cap, in this video). He also made the leap to a major agency (Octagon Football) just 2-3 years after getting certified, and today, less than 10 years after getting certified, he’s tied for No. 59 among all active NFL agents with 16 clients in the league. That may not sound like much, but it’s pretty impressive for someone who was told he “looks like some young kid” when he solicited a major agent at a top firm about a job at his first Senior Bowl in 2014, I think. 

Anyway, I say all this because Murphy will be my guest Thursday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m. ET, as we host our first monthly Zoom sessions for members of the 2022 NFL agent class. It’s something we started last year, and I found that getting rookie contract advisors on Zoom to ask questions of someone who was once in their shoes is a great way to learn. I’ll make a few brief points, then we’ll get on with the interview. Here are a few things I’ll ask him about:

• How long did it take him to build a network of scouts willing to talk to him?
• How did he build that network?
• How did he choose Jakeem as his first client? What did he tell him so Jakeem would take a chance on a rookie agent? 
• How did he handle training costs, etc., in his early, independent days?
• How did he latch on with an established agency so quickly? 
• How has the industry changed, and what’s the biggest challenge he faces now? 
• How have the players changed? 
• What would be his advice for agents getting started today? 

Bottom line, this is your chance to get the keys to the kingdom from a real NFL agent success story, straight from the horse’s mouth.

If you’re interested in joining us, you’re welcome to, even if you’re just curious and not  even a contract advisor. However, there’s one catch: you have to be an ITL client. You can register here. It’s $29.95/mo, and you can cancel at any time.

I hope to see you in a week. In the meantime, get more scoop about the football business by registering for our weekly newsletter, the Friday Wrap. Do that here.

This is the last weekend before the 2022 NFL Agent Exam, which means it’s go time for everyone hoping to become NFLPA-licensed this fall. At ITL, for the past week, we’ve been frantically filling orders on our practice exams, study guide and videos. Still, just having the right tools isn’t enough. Encouragement and counsel on how to pass matter, too.

We try to accomplish that every year with the ITL Rising Contract Advisor Newsletter, in which we interview members of the most recent agent class who got players on 90-man rosters. We find it’s a good way to remind test-takers that their mission isn’t impossible.

Here’s a distillation of some of the best tips we’ve gotten from agents we’ve worked with over the past decade. If you’re taking the test Wednesday, we hope you’ll find some useful morsels of wisdom:

• “I remember that there was a question about if there is a playoff bye, do you get a playoff bonus? The guy at the lecture said twice it wouldn’t be on the test, but it was. I don’t think he was doing that intentionally, but it did end up being on the test. So be thorough, and get your questions answered (during the pre-exam seminars).” — Aston Wilson, Agency1 Sports Group, Class of 2012
• “The most difficult part of the exam is not the different concepts. It is knowing how to find the information.” — Nathan Shackelford, Higher Calling Sports, Class of 2019
• “The way it was structured, you had to know what they were talking about or it would lead you to the wrong answer.” — John Thornton, Roc Nation Sports, Class of 2013
• “If you go in there well-prepared, I think you can take it and pass.” — Tory Dandy, CAA, Class of 2013
• “The way I did it, every sub-section of the exam, I created a binder for that section. It’s not about what you know, but how fast you can get to the material. If you didn’t print it out and have it organized, you’re not gonna get it.” — Ty Tascioglu, Sports Planning, Inc., Class of 2021
• “The way they presented the material, you really had to study the CBA and all the material, from beginning to end, because the test had a lot of things on there.” — Malki Kawa, First-Round Management, Class of 2014
• “My advice is to go into the exam with the mindset that they are trying to trip you up with the way the exam is worded.” — A.J. Vayner, VaynerSports, Class of 2018
• “Every slide at the seminar I wrote down. My hand was so cramped when it was done, but I’m one of those guys, when I write something down, I memorize it. And since it was an open-book test, it really helped me to go back to some of the stuff I might not have remembered during the test.” — Murphy McGuire, Octagon Football, Class of 2015
• “I went through flash cards and I had the CBA color-coded.” — Christian Kranz, Generation Sports Group, Class of 2015
• “I probably interacted with 50 guys, and I’d say 35 didn’t come prepared whatsoever.” — Josh Grady, Grady Sports, Class of 2016
• “By all means, use the ITL practice exam. The questions and how they were worded are very similar to the actual exam.” — Logan Brown, Logan Brown Sports, Class of 2016

Still need an extra boost to pass the exam? We have a study guide, practice exams, six instructional videos and even agents on call, ready to provide one-on-one help for reasonable prices. Don’t wait. Hit us up here or on our Twitter, where DMs are always open.

Having worked with members of the ’21 agent class for the past several months, I hear their concerns and their questions every day. With the sub-FBS seasons over for teams not in the playoffs, and nearly over for about half of FBS teams, there are big decisions that are starting to be made.

Bottom line, there are certain things you need to know by Thanksgiving Day if you’re a certified contract advisor. Here’s what I came up with.

Know who you hope to sign: If you’re a newly certified agent, you are getting contacted daily by two groups. They are, people who hope to be agents some day and want you to hire them as interns, and players from previous draft classes hoping you’ll sign and train them to pursue their long shot NFL dreams. Well, we’re just getting started. As more and more players’ seasons end, they will start calling, too. I hope you’re recruiting, and not just waiting for something to float in over the transom. Sometimes those signings work out, but by and large, someone recruiting you is not being considered by NFL scouts.

Know who you can’t sign: Every year, there are agents who come into the business solely because a young man, or members of his family, promised that new agent that the player would sign with him or her upon certification by the NFLPA. For these people, I like to tell ‘the story of the high school girlfriend.’ I’m 52. So are Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez and Catherine Zeta-Jones, so all of them were in high school when I was. Now, let’s say I went to high school with one of them, and maybe I was even lucky enough to date one of them (I know, in my dreams, but let me tell the story). We might have expressed our love for each other, and maybe even made long-term plans, discussed kids, etc. Well, once those girls left Hometown U.S.A. and met the Brad Pitts, George Clooneys and Dwayne Johnsons of the world, suddenly, they don’t remember me anymore. That happens every year to new agents once the players they coached in Pop Warner or knew from the old neighborhood start to get recruited by the big firms. If this describes you, you better have a Plan B.

Know who the real prospects are: For most new agents without a network of NFL scouting contacts, figuring out which players have NFL talent takes real guesswork. Most aspiring NFL players have a well-rehearsed story explaining why they have been overlooked by draft pundits and scouts alike, and they can be pretty convincing. Have I mentioned that former NFL executive Blake Beddingfield writes scouting reports on any college player at any level for just $100+tax? We can turn a report in 2-3 days, most times sooner. Contact us for details.

Know about what you can spend: I would estimate that for every 100 members of a draft class signed to a 90-man roster post-draft (either drafted or signed as a UDFA), one makes it through the draft process costing his agent $1,000 or less. If about 600 rookies enter the league as draft picks or UDFAs, you’re talking about 5-7 players. For all the others, you’re looking at $5,000-$10,000 per player (again, we’re talking about actual prospects, not backup punters from NAIA schools). We discussed this extensively on our Zoom session last week. If you’re a new agent, I hope you caught it. Greg Linton (HOF Player Representatives) and Alex Campbell (Ajax Sports Agency) were magnificent.

Know, in minute detail, the all-star landscape: There are eight all-star games this draft cycle, more than any since ITL started in 2002. We had seven of the games’ directors on our Zoom last week, and they explained dates, schedules, costs (where applicable), invitation progress, roster sizes and scarcities, how to contact them and plenty of other details. I can’t describe what kind of opportunity these games are, especially if your client comes from a sub-FBS school or was only a one-year starter.

Whether or not you’re part of the football business community, and whether or not you’re part of the ITL family, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving spent with family and friends. One of God’s greatest gifts is our loved ones. Have a blessed day, and don’t forget to sign up for our Friday Wrap if you haven’t already.