Category Archives: Scouts

2022 Next Wave Zoom: A Few Scouting Takeaways

21 Wednesday Dec 2022

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Tuesday night, we had our annual Zoom session aimed at aspiring NFL scouts. It’s become a kind of end-of-the-year tradition. Last year, we had director-level scouts from the 49ers, Chargers and Vikings. This year, we had Brandon Yeargan (Raiders), Tyler Lyon (Chargers) and Rick Spielman, who until recently was the GM in Minnesota.

Here are a few of the highlights from last night.

On marriage/relationships: None of the three put off serious romantic relationships, though they all discussed the value of preparing their now-spouses for the rigors of life in pro football. Brandon and Tyler both met their future spouses in college, then nursed the relationships along for several years (most of a decade for Tyler; Brandon maintained a long-distance relationship for three years while with the Patriots).

On professional relationships: Rick is still on good terms with the Vikings, who let him go in January. In fact, things are still so close that team representatives were the first to reach out when Rick’s South Florida home was hit by a hurricane earlier this year. Head coach Kevin O’Connell has even spent time picking his brain. Spielman was fired by Nick Saban in his Dolphin days, but today, he works as a consultant for the Crimson Tide football team. 

On paying dues: Though Tyler was a highly recruited quarterback at Arizona, and his father was a longtime high school football coach, he worked hard to develop his own contacts in the industry, even writing for small online draft publications while attending law school. Brandon played at a small North Carolina college, Davidson, but made his way to Chapel Hill, where he was an intern, then a grad assistant, for the Tarheels. He worked for little or no pay there for several years, then did the same for the Patriots before finally making area scout. Rick build the athletic program from the ground up at a small college in Columbus, Ohio, when he got his big break with BLESTO.

On developing your evaluation skills: All three said the best qualities in scouting assistant hires had nothing to do with an eye for talent. Instead, it’s about treating every menial task as if it’s crucial to the performance of the team. Tyler even said he’d be more interested in hiring someone with no evaluation skills but a great attitude over someone with a stack of reports and hopes of making GM in 2-3 years.

If you’re an aspiring scout, we hope you can make it next year (we don’t record these sessions to encourage transparency and candor). It’s part of our special annual rate for prospective NFL evaluators. Let us know if you’d like more details. We also encourage you to sign up for our weekly newsletter, which you can do here.

2023 All-Star Season: Seven Fun Facts

15 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by in Agents, Getting started, Scouts

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We’re about three weeks away from the first all-star game of the 2023 NFL Draft season, the College Gridiron Showcase in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s a critical time of year if you follow the draft. We thought we’d discuss a few points of interest with each of the games that you may not have known.

  • For the first time at least since ITL launched in 2002, the NFL will not send team staffs to the Senior Bowl to coach. Instead, they’ll send those staffs to the East-West Shrine Bowl in Las Vegas. The teams are not yet determined, and will be the two who pick highest in the ’23 draft and that have intact coaching staffs (i.e., they didn’t fire their head coach).
  • Of the top six games (Senior Bowl, Shrine Bowl, NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, Hula Bowl, College Gridiron Showcase and Tropical Bowl), two are led by former NFL scouts. Jim Nagy, who runs the Senior Bowl, spent almost two decades with the Redskins, Chiefs, Patriots and Seahawks. Dane Vandernat, who leads the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, spent almost 10 years with the Raiders.
  • Meanwhile, two former NFL agents founded all-star games. CGS co-founder Craig Redd was NFLPA-certified from 1999-2015, while Tropical Bowl founder Michael Quartey got certified in 2007 and spend three years representing players.
  • There have been at least two all-star games in Florida since 2016, when the Tropical Bowl launched in Miami alongside the Shrine Game, which was in St. Petersburg, Fla. The Shrine Bowl has since moved west to Las Vegas, but the Hula Bowl has settled in Orlando.
  • Between its Small-School Showcase, specialists workout and two full rosters (Wranglers and Desperadoes), the CGS hosts about 320 draft-eligible players across its five-day schedule. That’s only about 30-40 fewer  than is invited to the NFL Combine each year.
  • The Senior Bowl, CGS and Tropical Bowl are the only three games played continuously since 2019, with the Shrine Bowl, NFLPA Bowl and Hula Bowl suspending play for Covid in 2021.
  • It’s not just football luminaries that show up at all-star games. In 2016, with Charlie Weis coaching the Shrine Game, his friend, Jon Bon Jovi, showed up for game week and hung around the lobby of the Tradewinds Island Resort, the host hotel.

All-star season is a great time to build your network and make key contacts. Travel always has costs, but if you’re smart and you book in advance, you can hit a lot of these stops without breaking the bank. I hope to see you out on the trail.

Make sure you’re reading our newsletter, the Friday Wrap, for more tips on scouting, all-star games, coaching hiring (and firing), player representation, NIL and everything else associated with the business of the game. Register here.

 

 

Ask the Scouts: Can an NFL Team Draft to Minimize Injuries?

02 Friday Dec 2022

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As a Saints fan, it’s been frustrating to see many of the team’s better players miss game after game. The narrative has developed that these injuries are simply bad luck, an unpredictable but expected aspect of a violent game. One Saints beat writer has even been dismissive towards fans’ frustrations with players like WO Michael Thomas, who has played only a handful of games over the last three seasons despite what seem like minimal injuries.

Is the “bad luck” narrative true? Or is there a way to predict which teams, and which players, will be particularly beset by injuries that lead to missed games?

Here’s my take on it, especially as it pertains to the Saints. Under Assistant GM Jeff Ireland, who has revitalized the team since his arrival in 2015, the team has drafted players with exceptional athleticism. When crafted and developed, such a player  can win matchups and be a disruptor on defense or a playmaker on offense. On the other hand, athletes as football players tend to be more greyhound than bulldog. When things aren’t just right, they lack the will to grind. That could be why, year after year, the team gets high marks for talent but has trouble keeping its players on the field. Even though they have changed doctors and even hired sports science professionals aiming at improving player health, injuries have stacked up this season.

Furthermore, I think that if you have bulldogs in each positional room, you’re more likely that they’ll put pressure on their peers to answer the bell on game day despite the nicks accrued during the season. I know personally that players have deferred to their agents before deciding if they’d play through injuries.

Of course, this is just my theory. Am I off base? I turned to several friends in the business to get their opinions.

  • Former Bills GM Doug Whaley, who’s now running the entire personnel side for XFL 3.0, said that, most definitely, a team could draft for health and toughness. “I think you can if you bring in players with the majority of the following qualities: Are they junk yard dogs? Is failure not an option? Do they hate to lose more than like to win? Are they dedicated to their craft on, and more importantly off, the field?”
  • Three-time NFL GM Randy Mueller said he thinks “you can develop toughness, but more from a mental standpoint, not physical toughness.”  He’s more philosophical about injuries: “I just think you have to plan on guys getting hurt — every year. It’s not ‘if’ but ‘when.'”
  • Former Bengals executive Jim Lippincott seems to lean more toward my thinking. “One of the true secrets of scouting is predicting the future,” he texted. “When we study players, we most certainly are aware of how many games a player plays in college..(the most important ability is dependability). . . You can put together a draft class and sign free agents with their availability history foremost in your mind. However, money makes players act differently, and who knows who is counseling the player on how to handle injury!!!”
  • Former Bears GM Jerry Angelo is similar to Lippincott in his thinking. “You want every player that you have in your locker room there because they love the game as demonstrated through their work ethic and competitive nature,” Jerry wrote. “They hold each other accountable with a ‘Team First’ attitude. That’s the culture all coaches and organizations want and strive to build. Saying that, each year teams need to fill holes, upgrade their roster and try to accumulate as much talent as they can to compete favorably each season. In doing so, they may compromise certain intangibles, that are integral tenets to winning. The line is so fine, you don’t know when you’ve crossed it. How much risk are you willing to take is the litmus test for every team.”
  • Former Titans executive Blake Beddingfield initially disagreed with my premise “Not sure I can answer that,” he texted. “Even players with a history of playing every game get hurt. I have seen players with bodies and frames that make you say durability, but they are always hurt. (Then,) players like (former Titans OH) Chris Johnson . . . looked frail (but) never got hurt.” After discussing this with him, however, he seemed to agree that some players are just tougher than others, citing Rams DT Aaron Donald’s durability despite his violent playing style, as well as former Oilers offensive lineman Bruce Matthews and his brother, former Browns linebacker Clay Matthews, who played almost four decades between them despite playing tough positions physically. 

The draft, by its very nature, is a very inexact science. Still, I believe tough teams are built on draft day by working to put hardy, tough players at key places in the locker room. They create positive peer pressure, especially as the season wears on and the temptation to take games off gets greater.

Am I crazy? Perhaps. Make sure you’re keeping up with people who are a lot smarter than I am by reading our weekly newsletter, the Friday Wrap. Register for it here.

 

Ask the Scouts: Who Helps the Most on the College Level?

03 Thursday Nov 2022

Posted by in Coaches, Scouts

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If you read this blog regularly, hopefully, you read our newsletter, the Friday Wrap, semi-regularly, as well. Last week’s edition was one of our most popular of the year as we asked NFL scouts to tell us which schools’ pro liaisons — the official who most often interfaces with evaluators to discuss players — were the best at their jobs. If you missed it, you can get caught up here.

The truth is, we got a lot more responses than we could possibly fit into one newsletter. We got a lot of names-but-no-comments responses, and we got some scouts who were absolutely effusive about pro liaisons that no one else mentioned. We even had some who expanded the question and gave us feedback on helpful people who didn’t hold the “pro liaison” title. It was all too much to just dismiss.

As a result, we’ve complied everything that wouldn’t fit into Friday’s edition, and we present it here. We’ve tried to organize it in a comprehensive way, but may have failed, as responses were all over the map.

Here goes.

Top pro liaisons who just missed the mark last Friday, with comments (presented alphabetically):

  • Scott Aligo, Kansas — “The king of the portal . . . he is the best host and he is a superstar. . . He competes to give scouts the best access in the country. He is smart, welcoming and a genius football evaluator. Kansas is home, and he might be the best in the country at what he does. The most unique and best liaison for a long long time.”
  • Tyler Barnes, Iowa — “Among those liaisons who are working at programs that weren’t so good to scouts before they took over as liaisons, and (who) are now great visits for us and do what they can to allow us to do our best work.”
  • Brendt Bedsole, Auburn — “The Southeast is loaded with liaisons who do a great job. There are so many who help us and put in a ton of time to communicate with us and help their players, but if I had to pick one liaison who’s gone above and beyond this year, it’s Brendt.”
  • Ricky Ciccone, Toledo — “Very accommodating, very welcoming, very thorough, very knowledgeable.”
  • Jason Cvercko, Boise State — “One of the best for a long time, knows the players and also good at the evaluation part of it. Was previously at Washington State and Hawaii before Boise and did awesome at those places, too.”
  • Nate Dennison, Purdue — “Just wide open. It’s almost as if they drop whatever they are doing to aid. Last-minute visit when someone else changes a schedule, and Purdue is like, ‘sure, come on in.’ They got the schedule lined up for (us). Gives access, honest about their players and (isn’t) ’t trying to sell. They have realistic views, which isn’t always easy when you love your own, which is appreciated.”
  • Ean Deno, North Dakota St. — “Very good communicator and follows up with info after visits. Organized visit schedule and knows what you’re looking for.”
  • Matt Doherty, Arizona — “Very informative and knows the players.”
  • Darby Dunnagan, Northwestern — “Highly organized, detailed, and facilitates a very efficient visit.”
  • Taylor Edwards, South Carolina — “Understands what we are looking for on the visit. Always communicating and is organized in his approach.”
  • Lucas Gauthier, Colorado State — “Good info pocket, access to coaches.”
  • Marcus Hendrickson, Minnesota – “Another great one. Very accommodating and willing to do anything to promote his players! As organized as there is!!”
  • Aaron Hillman, Iowa State — “Really good player info, access to coaches.”
  • Chad Klunder, Duke — “Duke always had three players on both sides of the ball who couldn’t play anywhere but Duke. He shored up the Duke roster and found players who are more rugged and more competitive. . . He provides us with all information, great access, and a flip card for practice.”
  • Aaron Knotts, Washington — “He is very accommodating and does a great job setting up appointments with coaches and making sure you are able to meet with everybody that you need to on the visit.”
  • Justin Kramer, Washington State: Great information, access to coaches.
  • Marshall Malchow, Oregon — He is always organized, up front and honest with scouts. Makes visits efficient and gets us in front of whomever we need to talk to.
  • Darrell Moody, North Carolina — “Is one of us, and he makes Mack Brown’s (team) more open and more welcoming.”
  • Jay Perry along with Brittany Thackery, Mississippi State — “They are an awesome duo. First, they make the visit special with the access to film and how accommodating they are. It’s not always fun being in ‘Stark Vegas,’ but they make it worthwhile because they are super-honest in their evaluation of the person and growth potential. They know the families in and out and really give good insight on how we can help them, moving forward.”
  • Justin Speros, Virginia (formerly South Florida and Western Carolina) — “Is always honest and digs up any information that we need in a timely manner.”
  • Bob Welton, Alabama — “Gets it. One of the, if not the, top visits in the country.
  • Matt Wilson, Arkansas St. — “Matt is very well-versed on all dealings of the program. He gives really good information and makes sure all visits are very organized.”
  • Roy Witke, Syracuse — “I respect him so much for . . .  his history as a coach.  But has super great insight and is still sharp as a tack. He knows the kids, (and) he’ll point you in the right direction for the questions you should ask (if you’re new to him). Always accommodating.”

Others who received a mention: Chandler Arbizzani, Montana St.; Michael Doctor, Oregon St.; Billy High, Tennessee; Mike Pechac, Indiana; Landon Salem, Memphis; and Troy Wingerter, La.-Lafayette.

 

Others offered unsolicited comment on school officials who excel.

GUYS WE MISS: One scout offered an extensive list of not only the liaisons that excel, but those who are no longer working with scouts for various reasons. They include:

  • Gone for the NFL: Wake Forest’s Taylor Redd (Patriots) and Charlotte’s Carter Crutchfield (Rams).
  • On the move: Duke’s Jim Collins, who left for the AAF and then Elon; Matt Lindsey, who left Ole Miss for Athletes First; and Geoff Martzen, who left Michigan State for private business. Also, John Srofe (Richmond to Appalachian State) and Patrick Hickman (Virginia to BYU) have taken on new roles in new places.
  • Retired: South Carolina State’s Gerald Harrison and Liberty’s Paul Rutigliano.
  • Passed away: Texas A&M’s Gary Reynolds and Texas Tech’s Tommy McVay.

And finally:

STRENGTH COACHES, ETC.: Pro liaisons aren’t the only ones scouts come in contact with, and strength coaches are especially in demand. Here are a few comments on the best ones.

  • David Feeley, Duke — “One of the most honest strength coaches with scouts.  Great charisma. He also maximizes players’ potential in the weight room.”
  • Kevin Glover, Maryland — “Is a mentor. Coaches the coaches on how to  coach hard and coaches the players on how to accept constructive criticism.”
  • Brandon Hourgan, Vanderbilt — “A great, goal-oriented strength coach. He started giving us the numbers and pictures over a player’s freshman to senior seasons, with numbers for every calendar year, almost a decade ago when he was at Wake. . . We (get to) see a body change over time. We see strength numbers, test numbers, body fat percentage numbers change. No hiding bad test numbers or bad pictures. He provides an open book, a true portfolio of what his players have accomplished. Accountability attained!”
  • Woody McCorvey, Clemson — “Coaches the players at Clemson to accept hard coaching. He is an excellent resource if he allows you schedule a one-on-one visit with him.”
  • Chad Scott, Coastal Carolina — “A young star. He built a weight room at Charleston Southern. He built the credibility between the players and staff at Coastal. Unsung hero who speaks truth, has morality, and is a great role model. Motivates players in an impressive manner.”
  • John Williams, East Carolina — “Mentors individual players who are very difficult to reach. He is a life coach and a strength coach.”

If you missed last week’s Friday Wrap, make sure not to miss this week’s by registering here.

In Memoriam: Vikings scout Kevin McCabe

08 Thursday Sep 2022

Posted by in NFL draft, Scouts, Uncategorized

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I never met Kevin McCabe, but boy, judging from what my friends say about him, I really wish I did.

Ever bump into two different people, who live states apart, who both called a recently deceased person their best friend? I had that experience Wednesday, when I (and most of the NFL scouting community) found out about the passing of McCabe, who had fought a long, tough battle with leukemia.

Here are a few things to know about McCabe, who surveyed West Coast schools for prospects for the Rams and Vikings since the late 90s.

He was loved by members of the scouting community: We are blessed to have lots of current and former NFL scouts who follow us on Twitter, and we’ve tweeted about scouts’ deaths before, but I’ve never seen the buzz McCabe’s passing created. Getting 285 likes and 61 RTs (as of 11 a.m. CT) is just not something that happens for this kind of tweet. Twenty-seven comments is crazy, too. That tweet might have generated the most attention of any tweet I’ve ever sent. I got the same vibe from scouts I reached out to. “Great guy! Always willing to help you out if you need anything. He has a calm approach to his scouting style,” said one NFC scout. An AFC evaluator told me McCabe was “my best friend and mentor. I’m a much better husband, dad and scout because of all the time I got to spend with Kevin. . . (he) was a living example of how we should treat each other.” 

He was loved by agents, too: Until an agent really makes it, contract advisors are half nuisance, half necessary evil to most NFL evaluators, but McCabe got plenty of posthumous praise yesterday. James Krenis of Accel Sports said, “Kevin was kind to me when I started in this business, and that isn’t common.” That comment was representative of what I heard from other agents, as well.

He was one of the select few scouts who take position groups around at the combine: This is a really cool story about McCabe’s work leading the running backs in Indianapolis each year. The story indicates that he volunteered for the job, but it wound up being a pretty valuable tool for gaining more insights. The team actually drafted two rushers, Florida State’s Dalvin Cook and Boise State’s Alex Mattison, after first sourcing McCabe’s take on them post-Indy.

Our prayers go out to his friends and family across the game. To read more about the industry that McCabe was such a big part of, check out our weekly newsletter, which comes out Fridays at 7:30 p.m. ET. You can register for it here.

Ask the Scout: Highlights of our Zoom with Rick Spielman

01 Friday Jul 2022

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Thursday night, former Vikings and Dolphins GM Rick Spielman graciously agreed to join me for a one-hour Zoom session. Joined by about 40 NFL scouts and executives, we took a deep dive into team-building and player evaluation as I asked him 10 questions about the game. We opened it up only to NFL personnel eager to develop professionally and willing to give up an evening during their vacation to do it.

It was a riveting hour and he had some very interesting things to say. Here are four takeaways you might find helpful if your aim is to be an NFL scout someday.

  • Regarding analytics, Rick gave a lengthy, nuanced answer. One thing I found interesting is that the team was able to find some metrics for players who continually failed (i.e., defensive linemen without a minimum arm length, height and 40 time). They were able to rule them out as draftees. The other area they found analytics helpful was in sorting through the hundreds of players in the late Day 3/UDFA range. Again, the analytics team was able to find players with certain height/weight/speed combinations who had a better chance of success than others. He gave and return specialists Marcus Sherels, whom the team picked up as a UDFA in 2010, and WO Adam Thielen, whom the team signed out of Mankato State in 2013, as examples of players the analytics squad helped identify as possible success stories.
  • When asked how a young scout can get past the party line when trying to get sensitive information from a school’s NFL liaison, Rick didn’t sugarcoat things: it only comes with relationships and years of building trust. That’s a problem today with NFL teams hiring younger and younger scouts and sending them out on the road with very limited networks and contacts. It’s inevitable that these less-seasoned evaluators get fewer details until they become more familiar around the campuses they cover.
  • When asked about the worst thing you can do in an interview for an NFL job, he said that failing to do research was the easy answer. He gave as examples any correspondence that asked for a job from “Chris” Spielman, his brother (a former Lions player and current team executive). However, it was more about how much homework a job applicant had done. One dead giveaway: if Rick concluded the interview and asked for questions, but the interviewee had none, that was a dead giveaway that the applicant wasn’t prepared, and wouldn’t be hired.
  • He expressed concern about how elite prospects might approach pro days and the combine in the wake of David Ojabo’s injury at Michigan’s pro day last spring. He said the league has been focused on the player experience, especially at the combine, and could even see the league providing incentives to work out or making the combine less of a pure workout and more of a competition, though he didn’t expand on how that might be accomplished. Food for thought.

We’ll be talking plenty about the scouting industry, as we do every week, in tomorrow’s Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.

Ask the Scouts: Did the ’22 Draft Truly Have Day 3 Depth?

17 Friday Jun 2022

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Scouts, agents, players and media have pointed to the 2022 NFL Draft to be special in a way that few have been, historically. The reason? Hundreds of players took advantage of their Covid year to skip the 2021 NFL Draft and enter the ’22 draft instead. Some scouts I’ve spoken to even feared that numerous players would slip through the cracks entirely due to the talent logjam.

So that’s the theory, but was it really true on draft weekend? I asked several NFL evaluators this week, and a couple were emphatic that the late talent pool was better than normal. “I would say that you had a bigger UDFA pool than you ever had, so it wouldn’t shock me if you see more UDFAs make teams this year,” said one scout. “You might have had 20 guys left on your draftable board in previous years. You probably had 30-35 guys left on your draftable board this year.” Said another, “Yes, heavier than normal talented player pool in 6th/7th and UDFA’s!, and a third added, “We signed a couple of guys that would have gotten drafted last year.”

However, others were just as adamant that it was a false narrative.

  • “I think the initial thought a lot of people had going into the year was the draft would be really strong because of all the players going back to school for an extra year, but in reality, most were late round-to-(free agent) players. . . I think it was a little stronger Day 3 compared to the year before, but not like I think a lot of people thought it would be initially.”
  • “I think the narrative was that, for sure, but once it came down to the end, it seemed like a regular amount of guys left after the draft. For sure, more names, but wouldn’t say more talent than years past.”

  • “Only time will tell, but no, I don’t think (that was) true. I thought the high picks, three-quarters of the first round was light, weak. QB, RB, TE and DL (were below standard). The second round thru the end of Round 4 was stronger. . . I did not think it was over-stocked. Here and there, a few players might have got pushed (down).“

It’s one of those things we won’t know for sure for 3-4 years, but it’s interesting that there are mixed opinions on something that seemed so certain a year ago, when only 716 players signed with agents (about a third of the number who signed this year). 

We’ll talk more about scouting and player evaluation, including a roundup of the week’s hirings and firings, in this week’s Friday Wrap, which comes out (you guessed it) Friday. Go here to sign up if you don’t already receive it.  
 
  

An Update on XFL Player Acquisition

27 Friday May 2022

Posted by in Agents, Coaches, Scouts

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We’re starting to get a lot of questions about the XFL player pool and how an agent (or anyone, for that matter) gets a client into the league player pool. XFL officials want to make sure agents and players are aware that its showcases are around the corner and that spots are filling up quickly, with some dates already at capacity.

Here are a few things XFL officials want to make sure are clear to players and their representatives.

  • The XFL will have a comprehensive player pool.
  • The league will announce its team-by-team personnel directors next month, though we’ve heard that timetable might be moved up so as not to miss out on any talented players from the ’22 draft class.
  • Though we don’t have any definitive info, it’s our understanding that players need not have participated in one of this summer’s engagement camps to be signed.
  • All players interested in demonstrating their skills in front of XFL personnel and coaches are asked to visit showcases.XFL.com or to email info@XFL.com.
  • The HBCU camp and the engagement camp in Hawaii are by invitation only because the league is trying to tightly control participants, limiting them to only those of Pacific Islander heritage for the event held in Honolulu and to players from historically black schools for the HBCU workout.
  • XFL head coaches and personnel directors will select players for the exclusive XFL draft pool based on the following criteria:
        1. XFL Showcase evaluations
        2. College/pro film evaluations
        3. XFL staff evaluations at NFL training camps. Invites to the draft pool will be sent to players in early June.

Only players invited to the draft pool will be eligible to be drafted. Visit Info@XFL.com and check out the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section for more information.

Another Chance to Grow: Mueller Scout Camp

19 Thursday May 2022

Posted by in Getting started, Scouts

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Scouting (and specifically, getting jobs in scouting) is on the minds of many these days  with teams hiring and firing as part of the usual post-draft phase. I can’t count the number of members of NCAA personnel and recruiting departments who’ve reached out to me over the past 2-3 weeks, asking for tips on how to interview.

I try to respond to all of them, and do the best I can to give them good advice. However, there are those who have actually done the hiring that can do way better. One of those people is former NFL GM Randy Mueller, who’s spent time in the front offices in New Orleans, Miami, Seattle and San Diego in various roles (serving as GM of the Saints, Dolphins and Seahawks). These days, Randy writes a must-read blog on his personal web page, but next month, you don’t have to get your advise and counsel through via the Web.

Randy will host a two-day workshop in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, that will be the first-ever Mueller Scout Camp. Included in the event will be five individual sessions, including a resume review and a mock GM interview with Randy. Sessions will included pointers on film evaluation, the dynamics of team-building, how to gather character information on recruits and prospects, how to build a consensus without encouraging groupthink, building your board and more. 

“A couple of bigger-program head coaches asked me if I could coach up some of their people on the art of identifying and evaluating players,” Mueller said. “Everyone, coaches included, needs a refresher, so think of a coaching clinic, but this is an evaluator’s clinic. 

“People who do this for a living have got to be able to identify what most don’t see when looking for talent.”

Randy said his goal is to “give (attendees) some tools and a process to build fundamentals as an evaluator as they progress in the business.”

It’s a pretty exciting opportunity when you consider that he’s only taking 12 students. As someone who loves to see professionals invest in the next generation, I’m pretty enthusiastic about Randy’s camp, as well as the one I’ll be attending this weekend in Las Vegas, the 2022 Personnel/Recruiting Spring Clinic in Las Vegas. That one is being run by UNLV’s Gaizka Crowley and Colorado State’s Lucas Gauthier. Hope to see you there.

For more information on Mueller Scout Camp, including pricing, email Randy at info@muellerfootball.com. 

Turnover in NFL Front Offices, Why It Happens and What it Means

12 Thursday May 2022

Posted by in NFL draft, Scouts

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In the last two weeks, scouts with decades of experience in player evaluation have been sent packing by their respective teams. How is this so, you might ask? Don’t you want seasoned people helping you pick the players for your team?

I admit it’s hard to understand. Let me try to make sense of it.

  • There was a time when old coaches in the fourth quarter of their respective careers became NFL scouts for a number of reasons: they primarily scouted regions where they’d worked; NFL teams had healthy pension programs; and it gave them a chance to get away from the weekly grind of trying to win on Saturday. In many cases, these scouts weren’t career-minded. They were looking to wind down their careers but weren’t on a GM path. A big percentage of younger people who came into the industry had connections to owners and others in the business; there has always been a lot of nepotism in the NFL.  However, there was not a substantial number of young up-and-comers because teams were mostly hiring scouts based on their experience.
  • During this time, team ownership was dominated by the Maras, Rooneys, Wilsons and others who saw teams (at least partially) as part of a city’s profile and heritage rather than as an investment. Obviously, given the financial strength of the league and its teams, this attracted a new class of owners who were attracted to the game, but also were attracted to what teams would add to their respective portfolios. Think Dallas’ Jerry Jones when he first entered the league, or more recently, David Tepper in Carolina. As those new owners have gained power, they are less constrained by the traditions of the game. They have been willing to expand the size of scouting departments — in the last 30 years, most teams have gone from 5-10 scouts/advisors to an average of 20 — and, slowly, improve pay. At the same time, however, most are dumping pensions and other long-term investments in scouts. This has led to a tendency to make shorter-term commitments to scouts and evaluators.
  • These new owners are also open to new ways of doing things, and have themselves often used technology and analytics-driven methods to accomplish business success. They are therefore prone to wanting to apply those ideas to football. Sometimes this translates, sometimes it doesn’t. However, it lends itself to the idea that intelligence can be gathered without the human element. This is exacerbated by the distinctly “human” aspect of scouting. Football evaluation has never been solely about what happens between the lines; injuries, personalities, the money involved in the game and other factors greatly impact a player’s NFL success. New-guard owners are also more prone to looking at their teams as a form of entertainment more so than a sport. A sport imparts values and a culture, whereas forms of entertainment are eminently disposable and agnostic.
  • While all of this was happening, fantasy football was taking off across the sports landscape, giving rank-and-file fans a taste of team-building. Simultaneously, colleges were rolling out sport management programs to capitalize on this, promising undergrads a chance to live their dreams of working in pro sports. This led to a swell of candidates looking to break into the industry. Anyone on Twitter can sift through and find hundreds, if not thousands, of aspiring scouts and evaluators. Just check their bios.

Bottom line, you have a business model where success is hard to measure, with people at the top of the pyramid lacking experience in hiring, and thousands of young professionals — many of them very talented — aiming to get in. Simultaneously, owners and executives are under relentless pressure from the media and social media on how to do things. It makes for a difficult path to getting hired. Good luck.