A couple weeks ago, three NFL teams hired new general managers, and we talked to scouts and executives across the league to get a sense of who each of the new GMs (Ryan Poles in Chicago, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in Minnesota and Joe Schoen in New York) really are, behind the scenes.

Shortly before we departed for Mobile last week, the Raiders hired Patriots Director of Player Personnel Dave Ziegler. Now that the Senior Bowl is behind us, we reached out to several friends in the game to get their respective takes on him. Here’s what we were told.

• “Hardworking, diligent guy who earned the trust of Bill Belichick in New England.”
• “Genuinely good dude. Not a micromanager. Trusts you to get the job done and offers great constructive criticism (and) feedback. Great evaluator; mind of (Texans GM) Nick Caserio without the ego, and way more personable.”
• “Extremely intelligent. Excellent communicator/collaborator. Type of guy that brings people together. Very focused and has a plan. He’s very much his own guy and, in spite of his New England experience, he will shape things in Las Vegas from his own personal perspective.”
• “Ziegler is a good guy. Has a good reputation among scouts that know him. Very well-connected within the agent community. Has a really good feel for the pro scouting process and in-season player acquisition/trades. Doesn’t have much experience on the college side. Started to get more involved last year. He has a great working relationship with (new Raiders head coach Josh) McDaniels. They are extremely close.”
• “Smart. Very relatable guy. Easy to get to know. Gets to know people and acquaints himself with people. Will hit the ground running in Vegas. He’s been with multiple teams so it’s not straight Broncos or straight Patriots with him. He has done a lot of things and has seen a lot of ways to do things. Probably leans more pro than college, so he will have to get a strong college director in there. Overall, good evaluator. I think (Patriots head coach) Bill (Belichick) trusted him pretty quickly once he got to know him. He’s not afraid to go against the grain on a guy, which is always a good thing. He’s good dealing with agents. Confident, but not a cocky (jerk). Good, down-to-earth dude. I think he’ll do a good job there. He also has a very good relationship with (new head coach) Josh (McDaniels), and that’s the most valuable thing he brings. He knows what Josh wants and what Josh doesn’t want, and I think that was probably a big disconnect with the last regime.”
• “I’ve known Dave since he was with the Broncos, and I always found him, first of all, to be very agent-friendly, very knowledgable, very courteous at all times. One of his great strengths is, he really treats everybody the same, if it’s a 30-year agent or a rookie. I always thought that was a great quality. He always returns calls, and always listened whatever the issues we had, whether it was not enough playing time, a player needed this, whatever. He has tremendous people skills, tremendous scouting skills, and a high level of humility.”

Ziegler’s move to Las Vegas isn’t the only one we’re tracking. Not by a long shot, as the Bears, Raiders and Jaguars all made moves today that will change the respective faces of their front office. We’ll discuss all of that and more in tomorrow’s Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.

At Inside the League, we keep a pretty close eye on what happens in NFL front offices, so January is always a time of great interest as new general managers are hired and we dive into how they do things, why they were hired, and what’s ahead for each of them.

At the same time, we can’t know all of them, but fortunately, we know people who do. We reached out to several people in scouting about the new GMs in Minnesota, New York and Chicago. Here’s what they had to say.

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, Vikings (former VP of Football Operations, Browns)

• “He’s an exceptionally humble, hard-working and passionate person who just happens to be gifted with a brilliant mind. He won’t be perfect but, when it’s all said and done, I’n not betting against him.”
• “Extremely bright and impressive individual. May not have a traditional scouting upbringing, but he knows football and his blindspots. Should do a great job melding traditional and analytic viewpoints to find a consensus. Will force the staff to have strong reasoning for why they think a certain way, which should only improve their own process. Don’t have a bad word to say about him. Looking forward to watching him thrive.”
• “Kwesi’s curious by nature. Brilliant with (research and development). Always asking, ‘why?’ A humble leader and good human being who’s tremendously respected by those around him! He will be missed.”
• “Bright, articulate and surrounds people with his energy. He knows every employee. He (will be) genuinely missed by the support staff because they felt valued. Football-wise, he knows his strengths. He shares his football opinions. He knows what he doesn’t know. He (probably) got the job because he made the food servers, office staff, janitors, the suits and the billionaires feel his genuine warmth. They connect with him and they know that he is smart and that he listens. Kwesi will make the owner feel he has a voice. He will surround himself with smart people. He is a better judge of character than people realize.”

Joe Schoen, Giants (former Assistant GM, Bills)

• “Prepared. Hard worker. Good evaluator. Has media savvy. Can work well with others. Has a plan. Great family man.”
• “Family man with good sense of humor. Good evaluator; works well with others. Understands the game, understands the talent and how to get pieces to fit in a scheme as well as special teams. Understands the importance of what value a player brings to the team if he isn’t a starter.” 
• “Highly competitive and efficient in everything he does. Has a healthy intensity to how he approaches scouting. Understands the big picture of roster-building and the types of players that are successful in the league. No surprise he’s ascended into the GM role. Very deserving.”

Ryan Poles, Bears (former Executive Director of Player Personnel, Chiefs)

• “Ryan Poles is an extremely deserving new hire. I always thought he was the best under-the-radar candidate I’d ever met! He has learned the scouting business from the bottom to the top, as he’s worked for Scott Pioli, John Dorsey, Chris Ballard and Brett Veach! He’s extremely well-organized; has an eye for talent evaluation on the pro and college level; he’s well-versed in analytics as well as subjective talent evaluation; and he is up to date on all technology and computer analysis.”
• “Organized and mapped out. Thorough and detailed in his approach. Personable, responsive and easy to work with.”
• “He is very detailed with his process. Great person who knows football and players. Will come in and treat everyone with respect and allow people to do their jobs without micromanaging.”

We look forward to tracking the ups and downs of all three of them, as well as the next GM hired in Las Vegas. We know you will, too.

Make sure you’re reading our weekly newsletter, the Friday Wrap, if what happens in NFL front offices interests you. You can register for it here.

This week, my friend Eric Edholm of Yahoo! Sports had an interesting tweet which sparked comments from some of the bigger names in the industry such as Josh Norris, Matt Waldman and Dane Vandernat. Eric posited that, with four GM vacancies (Bears, Raiders, Vikings and Giants) and another coming after the draft in Pittsburgh, one trend to watch might be teams hiring “accountant type(s)” and stocking the staff with “strong talent evaluators.” I thought it was an interesting take.

A few thoughts:

• Since we launched the award four years ago, the teams that have won the Best Draft Award as voted on by NFL scouts and executives have been the Saints (2017), Colts (2018), 49ers (2019) and Bucs (2020). It’s a limited sample size, obviously, but two of those teams (Saints and 49ers) have a head coach who more or less sets the direction for the franchise. Then you’ve got a couple of teams that are more tradition-minded with GMs that hired the head coaches and seem to have most of the power in the franchise.
• If you look at the head coaches and GMs hired in the last few years, I’d say that putting the head coach — a solid, traditional football guy — ahead of the GM is the most pronounced hiring trend. I would argue the Raiders, Rams, Bills and Washington have all hired head coaches who largely set the culture and direction of the team, and the GM tries to find players who fit that direction. Having that person in place would, theoretically, open the GM slot up to an analytics, math-oriented person.
• However, with regard to analytics and accounting-style GMs, I would argue that most of these teams have general managers who came up through the ranks. Strong football people. Lynch in SF, Snead in LA and Mayhew in Washington especially fit this model. 
• I guess the teams with that “accountant”-style GM in place would be the Saints, Bills, Cowboys (maybe — I think of Jones as more owner than classic GM) and Eagles (though Roseman kinda straddles the football/business divide). Yes, all of those teams made the playoffs, or at least had a winning record this season. However, I’d argue that every one of those teams had a de facto “football” GM close by (Ireland in New Orleans, Schoen in Buffalo, McClay in Dallas and Weidl in Philly). What’s more, two of those four will probably emerge from this hiring cycle as GMs themselves, and McClay likely doesn’t leave because he’s got such broad powers in Dallas and seems to be very loyal (he signed an extension to stay with the Cowboys just this month). 
• I could see where maybe the accountant-as-GM model argument is gaining ground because the GMs who got sacked this round (Spielman, Pace, Gettleman and even Mayock, who came to Vegas from the booth) are all football guys. I still disagree with Eric’s thesis (respectfully, of course).
• I guess my argument is that if you don’t have a GM heavily grounded in player evaluation, you better have someone very, very close to him that is. To me, that’s a validation of the GM-as-football-guy hire, even if the head coach is the person who’s the main driver of decisions, etc. I don’t see this as a dismissal of the role of analytics. I just think you’d better know the nuts and bolts of the game first.

If this is the kind of thing that interests you, you should try out our newsletter, the Friday Wrap. We talk to a retired or former scout every week, and we talk about the things scouts think about and do. You can register for it here.

The week spent by our 20 CGSU interns was remarkable in many ways, but one was was in the stories they got to hear. One theme was taking risks. All who shared their stories had left nothing to chance, including taking risks that could backfire on them in order to get the job.

Among our speakers were former Browns and 49ers scout Bob Morris (now with the USFL), former Chiefs scout John Bonaventura (now with Winnipeg in the CFL) and Marc Lillibridge (who coaches and runs a training facility in St. Louis). Here are a few stories from the week.

• Winnipeg Blue Bombers Western Regional Scout John Bonaventura said he was teaching at a middle school and helping out wherever he could when he got an opportunity to work with a member of the Chiefs scouting staff at a combine in California. After helping out over several days and proving himself, he was offered a job with the team — if he could do organizational and administrative tasks to include extensive work with Power Point. When he was asked specifically if he had experience with the program, he made it clear: “Yeah, I know Power Point.” He then drove directly back to his high school job, found the audio/visual guy, and told him, “I need a favor. You got a week to teach me Power Point.” It must have worked because he was hired and spent four-and-a-half years with the Chiefs.
• Former NFL linebacker and agent Marc Lillibridge spent six years with the Packers and Chiefs, but it almost didn’t happen. He was given a chance to interview with the Packers, and though he had a lucrative offer to join a media franchise and head its draft coverage, the allure of working for Green Bay was strong. After meeting with team officials and making a good impression, he was offered the job — at about half of what he would have made providing draft content. “Let me go outside and talk to my wife about it,” he said, but he’d already made up his mind he was going to take it (he didn’t even call his wife).
• Bob Morris was a lifelong defensive backs coach when he was approached to join the Cleveland Browns under new head coach Butch Davis in the Spring of 2002. Had he opted to play it safe and stay on the coaching side, he might have wound up out of the game, but instead, he decided to give it a try. It led to two decades in NFL scouting (eight with the Browns and almost 12 with the 49ers) as well as jobs in the AAF, XFL and, now, the USFL.

There’s so much more to say about our inaugural CGSU intern class, and we say plenty in this week’s Friday Wrap, which comes out later today. You can register for it here.

We’re almost at January, and if you aspire to be an NFL scout someday, it’s an invaluable month given the multiple opportunities to get out and make contacts among NFL scouts. Here’s what I’ll be telling the interns at the College Gridiron Showcase next month who are dying to be the next generation of NFL evaluators.

Make sure you have a business card: I know business cards are so 80s, but the fact is, you can impart a lot of info in a highly mobile format if you’ve got ’em. Don’t be ashamed of using both sides if you need to. Also don’t be ashamed of making your own if aren’t with a school or organization right now.

Set a goal of 50 business cards collected in the first quarter of 2022: This could just as easily be contacts, i.e., people who work in your field whose cell and email you’ve gathered somehow, hopefully by standing in front of them and spending at least a few seconds in conversation.

Update your resume, then email it to yourself: If someone asks for your resume, you don’t want to delay. If you have it in your inbox on your phone, you don’t have to worry about forgetting to send it.

Reach out to every person whose contact you get: This has to be prompt. If you meet someone at the Senior Bowl, for example, make sure you reach out to them with a brief text or email by the middle of February. You want them to remember who the message is coming from. Even after 20 years in the business, I meet dozens of people in January as I travel from game to game, and I can’t always remember the faces of the people whose numbers and emails I collect. Make sure you don’t give anyone a chance to forget who you are.

Realize the job search is already under way: Every April, I get questions from some of my friends saying, should I start sending out my resume now? By April, most teams have already decided who they are going to interview. When we had NFL scouting directors on earlier this month, and they were asked when they started looking at possible hires, most of them said they never stop. I realize July and August are bad times to be sending out your resume, but now, in late December, isn’t a bad time.

Don’t be a pest: I know this is a fine line, and I know you have to be persistent, but if you are constantly bombing people with your info, you’re going to make them pretty numb to your constant entreaties. Map out a schedule of when you send, when you plan to follow up and how many times, and when enough is enough.

Good luck! I hope everyone who reads this winds up in the league, and I look forward to working with you. For more tips and information of this sort, make sure to check our our weekly newsletter, the Friday Wrap. You can register for it here.

If you’re like me, you love talking football with people who are fully engaged and highly evolved students of the game, and that’s why this was an incredibly enriching (and even fun) week for me as we welcomed four guests to Zoom sessions Tuesday, Wednesday (two) and Thursday.

Here are the guests who joined 30-40 aspiring scouts and football professionals and what I learned from each.

Ethan Waugh, Vice President of Player Personnel, 49ers: From Ethan, I took away that the 49ers are very analytical and measured in their evaluation of scouting assistant candidates. You better know players and evaluation if you come in for an interview. I was also shocked to learn that everyone who comes in to interview for a scouting job takes the Wonderlic, the same exam scouts have administered to prospects for decades. It is clear to me that the Niners are looking for lifers, and focus on true evaluators, not fact-gatherers, as so many modern teams have come to seek.

Mike Sholiton, Director of College Scouting, Vikings: From Mike, I learned that the Vikings are looking for someone who will be a seamless member of the team. Mike related a story about Scott Studwell, who once ran the draft for the team. When he’d solicit opinions from scouts on a player, if he disagreed with their assessment, he would never challenge or belittle them. Instead, he’d allow that the scout might have a different opinion, but that didn’t make him wrong. To be a Vikings scout, you must be poised, professional and able to handle adversity smoothly, never losing sight of your respect for your fellow scouts. I don’t know all of Minnesota’s scouts, but my sense is that the Vikings have a tight-knit group.

Kevin Kelly, Director of College Scouting, Chargers: From Kevin, I got the impression that Los Angeles is looking for competitors. He wants scouts who are willing to stay after practice to get the extra interview from a coach, or watch the extra game film, or seek out one more doctor’s opinion on a player’s injury before making a final evaluation. Like the Vikings, the Chargers aren’t looking for a polished evaluator, per se. They’re looking for someone with the heart of a champion who has a burning passion to win and to get things right. And in case you didn’t think Kevin was giving, he gave out his email address — and cell number — when he got done.

Brian Woods, President of Football Operations, USFL: Though Brian isn’t a scout, he is no less engaged in team-building or, in his case, league-building. I went into the session believing the USFL would just be The Spring League 2.0, a bigger and better version of Brian’s previous project. What I learned was that he has much bigger plans for the league, and while it won’t compete with the NFL, obviously, it will compete with college teams, especially G5 teams. The USFL will grow to become a contender for players who enter the transfer portal and others who are at least three years removed from high school graduation. The USFL will not be the place for six- and seven-year veterans looking to cash a few last checks before cycling out of pro football.

If you saw any of our numerous tweets about this week and you considered joining us, but didn’t, you missed out. Everyone who participated got relevant, critical insights on how to get a job in the game. If we do this again next year, I hope you’ll give us a shot. In the meantime, make sure to register for our Friday Wrap for more information on how to get into the game.