Last night, former Falcons area scout Rodrik David (if you don’t know his story, read this) joined ITL clients in an online Zoom session. Here are a few highlights:

On whether he could see big backs coming back into popularity on the NFL level: “I absolutely believe it’s it’s a cyclical game, and there is a growing place for that big back as you get more safeties playing down in the box and schemes change. . . Then you start bringing all the other factors of those guys, and they’re talking now about 18 games in a year and those guys take a beating. You know, the war of attrition comes in.”

On dwindling scout access at schools during the Covid era: “There are schools . . . where you are living on the phone with anybody you can find from that school that you can talk to, when you almost hope that you have some coaches get hired there that you’ve met along the way because they can be your resource.”

On how schools that bar scouts from practice penalize the the Day 3 prospects: “You’re focused on those top-round guys in game warmups. Some of those guys that you really like late, it’s harder to watch those guys (in pre-game). Those are the guys that are, a lot of times, you just kind of (see) reps in practice because they’re workers, they’re dudes that are just doing everything right, giving themselves a chance. . . And so those types of guys, that was where after the 2021 draft, that is where it felt like it was hard to really pound the table for any of those guys.”

On how to parse through the info you get from friendly sources when evaluating a prospect: “So you probably won’t get the warts, but it is with anybody you talk to, what you want to hear is is really what I would call a consistency of message. You know, (Bears QB) Justin Fields, I was just speaking specifically about Justin. I mean, if I hear one thing, like he was a leader from when he came in, had a voice from Day 1, and then somebody else talked about, it took him time to get going, then all of a sudden, I’ve got to reconcile that, and that’s where the phone calls keep going. Now if I get the high school coach, maybe a coach that was with him early . . . and he says it took him time to compete . . . like, OK, like this is who this kid is. He’s going to to take time, but when he takes a room, he takes a room. That consistency of message for me was always really, really important. You get that same message, and it’s probably going to tell you that’s a that’s a pretty good indicator that this is this is all lining up.”

On how technology is changing the way scouts and college personnel directors talk: “Most big colleges, Power Fives, I know a number of the MACs, will (use Catapult). It’s basically your tracer. It’s tracking steps, yardage and then it’s going to measure that top speed and then top speed for how long. . . This is part of the normal strength and conditioning cycle. . . Now it’s got to match (what we see with our own eyes). If we’re getting stuff that says things at 22 and he looks like he’s about a 20.5 Catapult . . . you may get those guys that may have a little bit of an asterisk or something like, hey, we just got to go back double-check this. But it is absolutely accepted and colleges are really leaning on that because they understand. I mean they want to put their best information on their players out. . . And it is absolutely something that’s in reports, it’s talked about, it is leaned on, especially as we don’t have some of that good testing data that’s kind of always been part of your spring process that guys have gotten used to.”

We’ve got a pretty robust Zoom schedule ahead over the next couple months. Some sessions will be no cost, some are free to subscribers, and some are priced reasonably. Some deal with scouting/evaluation, some are aimed at new agents and learning the game, and some at NIL. For more details and to keep up, make sure you’re reading the Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.

The first time I ever even knew of Jim Hess was at the 2001 Blue-Gray Football Classic in Montgomery, Ala. He was an area scout for the Cowboys at the time, and as it happens, he was on the phone with another person who would become my mentor, then-Bears scout John Paul Young.

He was chiding John Paul, who had not arrived at practice yet, in his West Texas accent. With a smile on his face, Jim was needling him, accusing him of taking an early lunch break. I don’t remember much of what he said. I just remember the friendly ridicule, the way men bound by athletics do when they’ve been friends for years, and Jim saying “John Paul” a lot. 

The next time I remember talking to him was in June 2002 at the Angelo Football Clinic, of which Jim was one of the co-founders along with John Paul, Wade Phillips, Mike Martin and Jerry Vandegrift. I had driven out to San Angelo, Texas, alone in hopes of networking, knowing I would be launching a new website devoted to “inside football” in mere months. I stalked Jim for three days, like a hunter does his prey, hoping I could somehow talk him into giving up a few nuggets I could use for draft prep. In those days, ITL was very different from today’s iteration, and I needed something that would look good in a mock draft (“a scout I know told me . . . .”). At last, I found him alone on the second deck of the Junell Center at Angelo State University, taking in one of the lectures. I nervously approached, introduced myself, and asked if I could ask him about the 2003 draft. At the time, Jim was still in the midst of his decade scouting for the Cowboys. He politely declined, of course. “Neil, I just wouldn’t feel comfortable about it,” he said. 

There’s plenty more you could learn about Jim, from his sense of humor (I used to call him the Dean Martin of the plains for his dry wit and gregarious nature; he would always correct me with, “OK, but I don’t drink, though”) to his many accomplishments (too many to list here; here’s his Wikipedia page) to his humble nature (watch this video, in which he lists the various places he’s worked, then adds that he wouldn’t have gotten one of them without the help of a friend on the inside).

However, if you want two stories that describe Jim Hess’ character, those are the two best ones I have. If you were his friend, there was no better friend. Even though Jim had accomplished more in football than 10 men, winning a national championship and spending a decade scouting for America’s Team, he always treated me like I was as just as important as Bill Parcells, Tony Romo and Sean Payton, three people you might have heard of that counted Jim as a good friend and a trusted football man. Whenever I called, I didn’t have to identify myself, no matter if it had been months or even years since we had last spoken. “Hey Neil!,” he would always say as soon as he heard my voice.

Today, I and hundreds of others will say goodbye to Jim, who passed away at 87 Saturday night. As I write this, I sit in the lobby of a San Angelo hotel waiting to go to his celebration of life in a little more than an hour. Come early, I’ve been cautioned; the church is small and the crowd will be considerable. 

I hope to come across many more men of his stature, a true gentleman of the game who always made people feel comfortable and accepted even after he’d reached the heights of his profession. I hope to, but I doubt I will. 

You may already know that, for the first time ever (that we know of), NFL scouts have been asked to vote on the top 10 members of their profession in each conference. Actually, it’s we at Inside the League who are asking them, and after four weeks of voting in the first-ever BART List (named after former Rams area scout Danton Barto), we’re ready to announce the results.

OK, so you won’t find the results in this blog post — you’ll have to wait till tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET for that — but we’re going to talk about the poll and a few observations we made about the poll and what it took to make it happen.

• We only included on the ballots full-time scouts who had been with an NFL team on draft day five of the last six years, with no GMs and no one who has an operations, analytics or cap-related role. For the most part, we were looking at area scouts, not scouting assistants, and those a couple rungs above them (all the way up to Assistant GM). In other words, we didn’t get votes on the people who’ve already arrived, but on those who are the up-and-comers. By the time we sifted out all those who didn’t meet those specs, we came up with 200 scouts on the NFC side and 177 in the AFC.
• There were 21 NFC scouts and 17 AFC scouts who got no votes. It was hard to make any observations on those who polled nothing. They came from multiple teams, some good and some bad. The only commonality is that scouts in this group are on the extreme ends of the scale, i.e., very young scouts and pretty old scouts. Obviously, younger scouts have had fewer years to distinguish themselves. It’s harder to figure out why the veteran scouts — some of them former GMs — netted no votes. Maybe, like many evaluators in the profession, they studiously avoided any form of fraternization or networking all along the way, and that manifested itself in fewer votes. 
• Only 38 of 200 NFC scouts (19 percent) received at least 10 votes, while 36 of 177 (20 percent) reached the same total on the AFC side. I took this as good news. It makes it clear to me that scouts took the vote seriously, and that there is a clear consensus on who does it best. 
• About a fourth of all scouts who received the ballots voted in the poll. We found that interesting give that only about a fifth fill out our annual salary survey. I would have guessed that establishing baselines on pay would be of more interest to today’s NFL evaluator, but maybe not. On the other hand, scouts are more diverted and scattered in the January/February lead-up to the combine, so maybe the timing is just better. 
• I expected the vote to be dominated by the teams that are traditionally the best on draft day, i.e., teams like Baltimore, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Seattle, New Orleans, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Chicago, Minnesota and Seattle. However, that wasn’t the case at all, and several of those teams had no one in the top 10. That tells me that scouts recognize that evaluation is a team effort, and you can have a good scout covering a region but that’s no guarantee his team will consistently find the late-round gems and get things right on Days 1 and 2.
• Similarly, there were dozens of scouts that I know are good, yet they didn’t collect many votes. Most of these evaluators are more old-school and have worked mostly with one team. I think that makes it harder for word to spread about their work. 

Anyway, those are a few thoughts. We encourage you to check out tonight’s Friday Wrap (register here), in which we’ll roll out the entire list of 10 scouts in each conference who have won the respect of their peers, and make your own observations. We look forward to making this an annual feature and, hopefully, to give more recognition to the talented people in the industry.  

Tuesday, NFL teams made their cuts to 53 for opening week, and Wednesday, they started populating their practice squads. Though teams will continue to tweak their rosters during the run-up to next weekend, we thought it would be interesting to take a snapshot of the rosters to get a sense of how the 2021 draft class shaped up.

The complete list of drafted and undrafted players who made rosters or practice squads in some form or fashion is here (sorry, pay link). As for analysis, here’s what we came up with.

• We counted a total of 715 players who signed standard representation agreements with agents in the ’21 class. Of that total, 517 were either drafted or signed to UDFA deals (an unheard-of 72 percent of signees; usually, that number is closer to a third, at best). It’s important to note that there were no three-day mini-camp invitees this year; if there had been, and we would have included them in the total, the number of players who received some level of NFL engagement would have been near 90 percent. In other words, players who opted to stick around this year — especially fringe prospects — made a big mistake.
• Eighty-one undrafted free agents made practice squads, while 42 made the 53, injured reserve, the non-football injury (NFI) or Covid lists.
• The practice squad is usually the repository of a team’s draft picks and UDFAs that didn’t make the 53, but other teams look elsewhere to fill their slots. The Giants were the most aggressive about looking outside the team to stock its roster this year, with one player on its 53 (Ohio State OB Justin Hilliard, who signed post-draft with the Niners) and two on its practice squad (Auburn FS Jordyn Peters, who originally signed with the Jets, and Ohio State TE Jake Hausmann, late of the Lions).
• For what it’s worth, the Falcons cast the widest net post-draft. They are the only team with more than 10 UDFAs (12, to be exact) now on the street. On the other hand, three teams saw all of their UDFAs make a roster of some sort: the Giants (who signed only three UDFAs, with one making their 53 and two making their PS), Washington (both their UDFAs made the 53) and New England (one UDFA, PK Quinn Nordin, and he made the 53).
• Only three draftees are not on NFL rosters in some form or fashion, as of early afternoon today: Michigan FB Ben Mason (Ravens, 5/184); Georgia Tech WO Jalen Camp (Jaguars, 6/209); and Penn State OC Michal Menet (7/247, Cardinals).
• Six cornerbacks made NFL rosters (active, IR, NFI or Covid list) after going undrafted (one is on IR). Also, six undrafted tight ends made it (two are on IR). This isn’t surprising news, given that every team is looking for an impact cornerback it can “coach up”, and tight end has become one of the sexiest positions in the league. Next most common was offensive tackle (5), which is again not surprising. If you’re an NFL agent or scout, you’re pretty much always looking for developmental players at these positions.
• As for practice squad, oddly enough, the numbers were very different. Teams carried 14 wide receivers, far and away the most at any position, with 11 running backs next-most. Maybe this is a reaction to the success of undrafted 1,000-yard rushers like Jacksonville’s James Robinson and Houston’s Phillip Lindsay. At any rate, no other position had as many as 10 on practice squad.

If you like digging into the numbers and discussion of NFL scouts, how NFL agents work, how the NIL era is shaping up and anything else associated with what happens “backstage” in the NFL, consider signing up for our Friday Wrap, which will be out tomorrow evening. You can sign up for it here.

If you’re as fascinated by the NFL Draft as I am, you’re always looking for war stories about the process and what goes on inside the war room. That was the thinking behind my last podcast (first five episodes here) and it’s the thinking about my next podcast, which I’m calling the My Favorite Draft Podcast.

In the last series, we interviewed nine former scouts and executives about the 2017 draft. It was a lot of fun, and very informative and a learning experience for me and, hopefully, all our listeners. This time, I’ve asked 10 former executives to join me to discuss one particular draft that really stands out to them. These drafts don’t necessarily have to been particularly successful for their respective teams (though I expect they were), but hopefully, they’ll include recognizable names, both that they drafted and that they passed up.

Here are three executives who’ve committed so far and the drafts I’d recommend to them to discuss.

• Seahawks, 1997: Randy Mueller was Seattle’s Vice President of Football Operations that year, and I hope he’ll go into detail about the team’s selection of two future Pro Bowlers in the top 10, Ohio State DC Shawn Springs (at No. 3) and Florida State OT Walter Jones (at No. 6). Randy has already discussed this draft in his excellent blog and as a guest on my first podcast series. Now, you may say, “big deal! You’re always going to get future stars in the top 10.” Well, first of all, Randy had to make a trade to get that second pick (with limited draft capital), and second, here are some of the other players drafted in the top 10 that year: USC DT Darrell Russell (No. 2), Texas SS Bryant Westbrook (No. 5) and Iowa DC Tom Knight (No. 9) also went in that draft, none of them hanging around past 2003 or playing more than 83 NFL games.
• Titans, 2016: Having already discussed the Titans’ 2017 draft with former Titans exec Blake Beddingfield extensively in my last podcast series, I think 2016 would make a lot of sense. Not only did the team come up with Alabama’s Derrick Henry, but the team also landed Middle Tennessee State’s Kevin Byard in the third round. There’s also the issue of the team drafting Michigan State OT Jack Conklin the year Ole Miss’ Laremy Tunsil was sliding due to his infamous video, and that might make for an interesting story. If Blake wants to go in a different direction, other drafts with interesting stories I’d love to explore would be 2015 (Marcus Mariota, Dorial Green-Beckham), 2008 (Chris Johnson, William Hayes), 2009 (Kenny Britt, Jared Cook, Jason McCourty) or 2006 (Vince Young, LenDale White, Cortland Finnegan).
• Raiders, 2007: I doubt my friend Jon Kingdon, formerly the Raiders Director of College Scouting, would consider 2007 his “favorite” draft, per se, but it was sure an interesting one due to the team’s selection of LSU QB JaMarcus Russell with the first overall pick (over Georgia Tech’s Calvin Johnson at No. 2, Wisconsin’s Joe Thomas at No. 3 and Adrian Peterson at No. 7). Did the team try to trade down? How close did the team come to taking another player? Was the Russell pick mandated by colorful and controversial owner Al Davis? Jon already discussed Russell in the excellent book he co-wrote with another former Raiders exec, Bruce Kebric — even devoting a full chapter to the Russell pick (entitled “JaMarcus Russell: The Bust”) — so hopefully we can dig into that a bit. But if not, 2009 (Maryland’s Darrius Heyward-Bay and Ohio’s Mike Mitchell were interesting picks inside the first 47), 1998 (Michigan’s Charles Woodson went to the HOF, No. 23 pick Mo Collins, a guard from Florida, flamed out quickly, and second-round DT Leon Bender died tragically before he could play a game).

Remember, all of these are just my idea of an interesting draft class for them to discuss. They’ve got insights and stories I don’t even know about, so I can’t wait to hear which classes they want to discuss. And keep in mind that this is just three of the former executives we’ll be talking to, so we’re barely scratching the surface.

Stay tuned. It’s gonna be a blast. In the meantime, review my last podcast series here and make sure you’re registered for the Friday Wrap here.

Now that the 2021 NFLPA Exam is behind us, we’re turning our attention to the NFL scouting industry. In this week’s Friday Wrap, we’ve got an exciting announcement aimed at recognizing the best evaluators in the game. Today, however, we wanted to get the ball rolling with a question we posed to several former GMs and NFL administrators. 

Here’s the question we asked about a dozen trusted and experienced scouting professionals: Who is the best evaluator you ever worked with? 

Here are some of the responses:

“I remember the bad evaluators more, I would say the best one was (former Bills GM) John Butler. All of us can see the obvious things you can measure, (but) John had a great knack for picking guys with the intangibles. He had a feel for players that fit team needs.” — Buddy Nix, former executive with the Bills and Chargers

“That’s easy, (former Chargers and Redskins executive) Dick Daniels. He challenged you to (look at) how the player fit . . . not only on the field but also in the locker room and in the position room. He always knew what the big picture was while planning ahead.” — Don Gregory, former Panthers Director of Player Personnel and evaluator with Chiefs and Chargers

“Can I say it this way? The best evaluator who worked for me is (Colts GM) Chris Ballard. We hired him in June 2001 and that was his first NFL job. From the start, he got it. Was especially good with DBs, and I have never seen a scout before or after be able to present a player like Chris did. I knew after 2-3 years he was going to be a future GM.” — Greg Gabriel, former Bears Director of College Scouting and evaluator with the Giants and Bills

“(Former Bears GM) Jerry Angelo. He has been a great mentor for myself and a host of other GMs. We all learned our evaluation chops from Jerry. He helped build the Cowboys of the late 70s and early 80s, the Giants of the early 80s, the Bucs of the late 90s and early 2000s and the Bears of the mid 2000s. All these teams went to Super Bowls. People don’t realize this about Jerry Angelo because he does not toot his own horn. He is as good and humble a man as you’ll ever meet. He is also as talented an evaluator as anyone in this profession has ever been.” — Tim Ruskell, former Seahawks GM and evaluator with the Bucs, Bears, Falcons and Titans

“Best for me was Russ Bolinger, longtime NFL scout (Jaguars, Lions, Redskins, Rams and Falcons). I was with him in St. Louis and Atlanta. He was detailed, had great contacts, not afraid to go with his instincts, held his convictions on a player, yet was never dogmatic. On top of that, Boli was NEVER dull!” — Billy Devaney, former Rams GM and evaluator with the Falcons, Niners and Chargers 

“Easy. Hall of Famer (and former Steelers executive) Bill Nunn because he knew how to investigate things not seen on tape, at a game or a particular workout that help clarify a guy’s ability. Shoe size (OL and DL base), can he dance? (DB’s hips), was he a basketball player? (overall athletic ability), did he play baseball? (WR and DB’s ball skills) and long or triple jump (explosion).” — Doug Whaley, former Bills GM and Steelers executive Doug Whaley 

“(Former Redskins and Chargers GM) Bobby Beathard had a good eye. (Former Bucs, Redskins and Texans scout) George Saimes was quirky and could spot a diamond. And (former Colts scout) Don Joyce had a nuanced good eye. — Former Browns, Redskins and Panthers executive Joe Mack

For more on the best scouts in the game, check out the Friday Wrap at 7:30 p.m. ET tomorrow.

Name, image and likeness has been in the news virtually since a week before July 1, when college players could preserve their eligibility while signing marketing and endorsement deals. However, while we’ve discussed the topic from a player standpoint and even passed along a top tax expert’s thoughts on how to prepare for NIL, we haven’t looked at it from a scout’s perspective until today.

We asked several director-level executives to take time out from their vacations to answer this question: “Do you see the NIL issue becoming part of your background sweep? Will you be asking if players have deals, and how they handled them? Will you ask schools if their NIL stuff has become a problem?”

Here were their responses:

• “Big picture, it’s not positive or negative. I’m all for the players’ ability to make money off their name, their likeness, their image, but in reality, it’s gonna change the landscape of college football. As many things happen, it will shape and shift things differently. I don’t think any of us know how. . . Everything is just data to us. In the end, hopefully, you have the full puzzle.”
• “For us, I don’t think it’ll be more than another point of character background to follow up on. How did the kid handle it . . . work with school, agent, company, all parties involved etc. There’s NO doubt this will be a headache for schools, compliance (helping kids understand tax ramifications and such). Could even cause issues among teammates vying for same deals? It’ll take some time to settle into.”
• “Absolutely will be asking, but not in a punitive way. More to add another piece of the puzzle that we haven’t been able to assess before. If a player handles it well, (if) his NIL deals don’t hinder performance or being a good teammate, that would speak to a degree of maturity that we haven’t been able to evaluate.”
• “Absolutely. It’s a part of who they are now. It will give you a bit of a tell on how they handle money, off-field stuff, can they juggle that while maintaining their ability as a football player, etc. There will absolutely be cautionary tales.”
• “I definitely think there are questions to ask from it. I think asking about how it was handled as well as doing some further digging can tell you a little about the player.   I think in most cases the player will say it was never a problem, so there may need to be some digging. . . On a side note, I think this will further the talent gap between the top and bottom schools as those with a huge alumni base will basically pay more and more players to play at the bigger schools.”

That’s not all they said. We have more responses from college directors and national scouts in this week’s Friday Wrap, which comes out (duh) Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET. It’s jam-packed every week with news of the football business world that you can’t find anywhere else. You can register for it here.