In the spring of 2011, I had a chance to sit down with former Cowboys scout Jim Hess for a lengthy interview. We talked about a number of topics related to scouting and the inner workings of NFL football, and it was a lot of fun both because Jim is a mentor to me (I call him one of my ‘uncles in the game’) and because he could discuss details of things and answer questions on issues like few can.

One of the topics we discussed was two players he had a chance to see during his days with the Cowboys, both undrafted wide receivers who went on to lengthy NFL careers: Miles Austin and Wes Welker. Jim really broke things down on how Welker slid through the draft, then bounced around before finding stardom with the Patriots.

Here’s a transcript of a portion of the interview:

“I don’t know as much about (ex-Cowboys, now-Browns WR) Miles Austin. He was also a free agent, but Miles had the measureables. He looks like a receiver, he’s gotten . . his frame’s filled out more, plus he had great speed and great explosion. He would be a guy, you would wonder, can we develop him? (Broncos WR) Wes Welker, I know a lot more about Wes because I personally scouted Wes. I had the Big 12, plus the Southwest and some overlapping areas, so I was at Wes Welker’s pro day.

“I don’t think Wes went to the combine, but I was at his pro day, and he didn’t look very good. He didn’t run very fast, and he’s not very big. Y’all have seen him on television, and he’s not very big. I didn’t really think I could sell him to Coach (Bill) Parcells, and I really didn’t try. I put a free agent grade on him . . . and in my write-up, in my summary, I said, ‘this guy could be a steal in the five, sixth or seventh round.’ Why? Well, he had produced. Totally produced everywhere he had been. Player of the Year in Oklahoma. All-American, or at least all-conference, at Texas Tech. Punt returner, kick returner, great hands and great quickness, but I knew Bill wouldn’t draft a guy like that. Not that small. And you have to admit, Welker, you didn’t hear of him in the pros until he got with the Patriots.

“Let me explain something to you there, too. Would you have ever heard of (NFL great) Brett Favre if it hadn’t been for (former Packers head coach) Mike Holmgren? Would you have ever heard of (NFL great) Joe Montana, if it hadn’t been for (former 49ers head coach) Bill Walsh? You can go on and on like that, and sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw and you get with the right team, the right system that knows how to utilize you. I believe Wes went to San Diego first, and nothing came out of that (Editor’s note: He went to camp with the Chargers, then spent two seasons with the Dolphins), but you can go on and on with players like that, and the league and just happened to be the marriage at the right time, and you can probably put Tony Romo in that category. Would it have been (quarterback) Tony Romo coming to the Cowboys without (former Cowboys QBs coach) Sean Payton being there? But you got a lot of that going on, but what you looked at with Wes, he had been successful at everything he’d done, and I didn’t have the guts to put a draftable grade on him, but I did in my write-up say, this might be a steal in the lower rounds. Now, when you get to the lower rounds, roll the dice, because I can’t tell. I’ll be honest. Maybe that’s one of my (weaknesses). . . I was a coach scouting, not a scout scouting.”

For today’s WSW, I ran down a few stories from ex-NFL defensive back (Seahawks, 1989-1993) and ex-NFL scout (Saints, 2000-2007) James Jefferson. He’s now a high school football coach in Texas. To watch my entire discussion with James, during which he talks about his experiences in scouting and the finer points of player evaluation, click here.

He said landing a job with the Saints came from his playing days in Seattle, when he’d developed a friendship with then-Seahawks Vice President of Football Operations Randy Mueller.

“Well, as it came about, I was finished playing ball, so I’d come back (to Kingsville, Texas, where James had gone to college) and wanted to get my degree and wanted to get into coaching. So I was back, and went to New Orleans to visit a buddy of mine. They had hired a new general manager at the time, and it was Randy Mueller, and I knew Randy very, very well. He was one of the reasons, as a player, that I went to Seattle, from Canada. And I just so happened to stop by the office, and didn’t get to see him but left my resume. We stayed in touch and what have you, and it got down to the last week, and they were ready to go, and he called me up and said, ‘Hey, are you really serious about doing this?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I really am, I like to learn.’ And I had kinda told him while I was playing ball that I wouldn’t mind getting in this business. I went out and interviewed and he gave me the job. It was a good deal.

“I was fortunate with Randy. Randy kinda trusted me and I really trusted him. He’s the type of guy that, he believed in what guys around him said. He really took to heart what guys around him said. He made that transition for me (from player to scout) very easy.”

I asked James if it’s different for scouts who, liked him, played in the NFL.

“Oh yeah, easily, especially with the guys who played (in the NFL). It was a brotherhood of scouts, and then inside that, you had a subculture brotherhood of scouts that played the game (on the NFL level), because you already have that anyway. Guys that played the game, there’s a select few that get that opportunity to play the game . . . and guys still respect that. When you got into that, you get in with those guys, and you had that big culture group, which is your scout group, then that subculture in the middle, that you either played (with) or played against them. It was pretty neat.”

I also asked him his thoughts on information-sharing between scouts. Where did team loyalty begin and camaraderie end?

“That was a fine line. That was a very, very fine line of how to do things. You’re told, certainly, you can’t let a lot of information out from your team, but at the same time, maybe it was a guy that could get information from a coach at the school that he knew that was in our area. We could kinda use that and work with that, without giving up any team secrets.

“It’s a very fine line and it’s really kinda hard to explain, I guess, but we’d talk, and I think there’s a line somewhere and you have to know where it is. Every team had one. Do I think that it made the some of the management guys a little nervous sometimes? Probably so, but they do the same thing. That’s just the nature of the business without giving up a lot of team secrets like who you’re drafting, or who you’re looking at. But all you have to do is pay attention. It’s kinda hard to hide anything these days. “

We’re running a little late on War Story Wednesday, considering it’s Thursday, but I think you’ll like today’s story. It’s a good look at how players slide below the radar.

Bill Schwenk had only been in player representation a month when, during the 2011 season, he noticed a cornerback at Nicholls State in Thibodaux, La., named Bobby Felder. Felder had played alongside Nicholls St. CB Lardarius Webb, who went 3/88 to the Ravens in 2009. Webb and Schwenk had a mutual friend, and this friend insisted to Schwenk that Felder was a player.

Felder had compiled big-time stats during his college career, but no interest from agents and only minimal attention from scouts. Though Felder had logged 190 tackles in three years, along with five picks, eight passes broken up, 12 passes defensed, 49 tackles, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and three blocked kicks during his senior season, he was missed.

How come? Maybe because Thibodaux is in swamp country in South Louisiana; Nicholls’ main claim to fame was that every summer it was home to Manning Passing Academy. However, it was by no means a football factory, having gone 01-10 in 2011 and 4-7 in 2010. The fact that the team went 1-10 his senior season didn’t do anything to help him create buzz. In addition, Felder wasn’t written up by either of the scouting combines, National and BLESTO, going into the season; of course, this was because the school didn’t bother to have a ‘junior day,’ the time when the combines come in to time, weigh and measure possible prospects. If a team were to find him, it would have to actually go to campus and check him out, or at least see him in a road game. It’s easy for a player to develop a rap as non-athletic when no one has a 40 time on him, and lack of speed at cornerback is the kiss of death.

It turns out that only three teams made it to Nicholls that season: Seattle, Oakland and Atlanta. Seemingly, none were all that impressed (though the Falcons met with Schwenk at the Senior Bowl to discuss Felder). Later, Bill asked a friendly scout why only three teams had made it to Thibodaux. “Honestly, they’re lazy!” was the response. The scout told Bill that because Felder played at lowly and remote Nicholls State, scouts knew few GMs would ask about the school or its players. That meant they could cut the school out of their route, and most did.

At any rate, Bill was a believer, and he continued to recruit Felder. He only got competition from one other agent, a veteran who heard of Felder very late and tried to get through to him through the cornerback’s brother-in-law. Bill staved off the older agent and signed Felder, but making believers of NFL teams wasn’t easy. That’s why he made a game film and started to send it out to teams.

One of the scouts who saw his film was Green Bay’s Alonzo Highsmith, who’s known in the business for his keen eye and excellent insights. Highsmith went directly to GM Ted Thompson and told him he had found a sleeper.

From there, word started to get out, and by the end of February, there was buzz around Felder. It reached such a fever pitch that when the school scheduled its pro day, many NFL scouts called to request that it be rescheduled to be held the day before LSU’s pro day so scouts could make both workouts. Alas, at his big day, he ran in the 4.6 range, turning most schools off. Only one team retained interest: Minnesota. The next day, Bill drove him to Baton Rouge to meet the Vikings’ scout and defensive backs coach after LSU’s pro day.

His chances mainly extinguished, the Vikings were the only team that called after the draft in April. Bill quickly signed Felder to a contract as an undrafted free agent, and the Colonel beat overwhelming odds and made the roster. Two years later, he’s still in the league with the Bills.

It’s just one more illustration that there are still sleepers, and scouts and agents who are willing to trust their instincts can find players in out-of-the-way places.

I’ve got thoughts on lots of different things, so rather than drone on and on about any one of them, I’ll touch on several topics today.

• I know this is 2014, and we’re not supposed to be shocked by anything anymore, but did you know there is a service that ranks national youth football teams as young as fourth grade? Here are the sixth-grade rankings; my son, who weighs 90 pounds and played his second-ever football game on Saturday, faced the No. 2 team on this list on Saturday. He’s one of 14 players on the team; five others are in their first year on the gridiron. On Saturday, due to injuries and illness, we dressed 12 for the game. The results were pretty much predictable. By the way, when we shook hands after the game, I was able to look their biggest player (No. 50, pictured in the above link) in the eye. Actually, I looked up to him a bit, and I’m more than 6-3. He probably had me by about 30 pounds and I weigh 230. Crazy on a lot of levels.
• LSU OT La’el Collins strongly considered leaving for the NFL after last season; in fact, it was a major surprise that he didn’t exit for pro football glory last January, as so many Tigers do every year. As always, it’s smartest to strike while the iron is hot. I texted with two scouts today and they both say he’s gone from a left OT prospect to more of a right tackle or even a guard prospect. No way he’s in the first-round conversation anymore based on the first third of the season.
• Interesting comments from Shannon Sharpe here. Probably the closest I’ve heard to how I feel about it. There are limits to what even the NFL can do to control its players.
• I told you in this space that I would be doing Leigh Steinberg’s new radio show on Yahoo! Sports radio tonight, but I’ve been moved to Oct. 6. I hope you can join us, especially if you’re interested in the football business and how you can get started, get established, and eventually build success in the game.

Barrett Wiley spent seven years (2001-2008) as a scout with the New Orleans Saints. Now a successful entrepreneur, I had a chance to interview him about his experiences in the game. One question I always ask is, how did you become a scout?

His answer: a big break and hard work.

“I became a scout after having an internship with the Saints, and we had all the changeover between (former head coach Mike) Ditka and (then-Saints GM) Randy Mueller at the time, and the acting general manager, interim general manager Charles Bailey, he looked in-house for some help on the football side to watch tape. He knew I was a guy who played football, who had football in my blood, and he said, ‘Well, just watch this tape,’ and I want to say it was the defensive lineman from Florida State, Corey . . . he was with Philadelphia, Corey Simon, and he said, ‘Barrett, watch this tape and tell me what you think of it,’ and I was watching tape, and I was saying, ‘he’s explosive, he’s powerful, he can run, he can do XYZ.’ I was saying things in crude elementary terms because I didn’t have the terminology down, but he saw that I could evaluate guys, you know, I don’t want to say instantly, but I had an eye for that. Then he just let me, after hours, after I did my duties with the media relations department, because that was what my internship was, I would go there after hours and help out. After Randy Mueller came in, everyone that was in place, he just left them in place because of the time constraints, because he came on either right before or right after the Senior Bowl of 2000, so with that said, I just did whatever they needed.

“I used to joke with our football assistant that I was the special man, whether that was driving players to medical, to physicals, picking players up at the airport, babysitting them, getting cell phones for the coaches, whatever they needed, I did it, so then, by me not being afraid of work, they said well, we have a position open, and he’s earned a shot at it, and I was given the job of West Coast scout for the 2001 season. I did that for two years, then I transitioned to combine scout, which goes to colleges in a specific area and evaluates guys going from junior to a rising senior.”

I asked Barrett how he initially got his foot in the door. He said it was through a relationship with his father and a Saints legend.

“I got the internship through a family friend. My father was real good friends with (Hall of Fame former Saints linebacker) Rickey Jackson, and he saw . . . I had just graduated from college, and he was like, he asked my dad, what’s Barret doing, and he said, he’s working, looking or a job, and he said, well, since he’s doing that, I’m going to attempt to get him an internship. After that, I went to interview, and fortunately got the internship and it just grew from there. I was, you hear the stories, I was the kid who was always around, whether it was 6 o’clock in the morning or 2 o’clock in the morning. Whenever they needed me, I was there, whenever they needed me.”

For today’s War Story Wednesday, we turn to longtime scout and coach (and my mentor) John Paul Young for a story about the drafting of a legendary linebacker.

Young was the Southwest area scout for the Chicago Bears in 1999, Brian Urlacher’s senior season at the University of New Mexico. Given the remoteness of Albuquerque, scouts didn’t come in droves to see the oversized box safety who looked like a ‘tweener.’ However, John Paul, who had coached such legendary linebackers as Robert Brazile (Oilers) and Rickey Jackson (Saints), knew Urlacher had what it takes to be the next great ‘monster of the midway’ in the Windy City.

“If it hadn’t had been for (Bears Vice President of Player Personnel) Mark Hatley, (the Bears wouldn’t have taken him). Nobody else wanted him. I had to get up on the table for them to draft him. Of course, now they all say they wanted him (chuckles), but they didn’t at the time, I tell you that. In fact, several (members of the personnel staff) were highly pissed at me until he got to camp.

“He was playing strong safety (in college) and (New Mexico) would bring him down in the box anytime it was a run situation, which made him like a ‘monster’ back (a free-lancer who moves to the strong side of the offensive formation), and even when he was in the secondary he was making plays at the line of scrimmage. On a lot of plays, (New Mexico) wasted his ability. He should have been in a positon at free safety because he had a better opportunity to get to more plays. Anyway, as you watched him, you would probably draft him in the middle of the draft as a defensive back. But after I watched him, I got fascinated by him, because I met him the first time I was there, and . . . we just connected. I probably spent a lot more time looking at him than anybody else did, and I just felt like he had a lot of the same characteristics that I looked for in linebackers. You can’t put it on paper what it is. It’s just a feeling that you get from watching hours and hours and games and games of film.”

“The big question was whether to go offense or defense, and we needed to draft a quarterback sometime, during that draft. Just like most clubs, offense is a lot dearer to them than defense, so there’s always that. If you’re going to draft a defensive player in the first round, there’s going to be some opposition. You’ve got those guys that are ‘take the best athlete available’ guys, they’re height/weight/speed, and then you have those guys that are position-oriented, and it’s good if you have a spread to cover all those areas. Myself, I’m a guy that looks for a player that can make a difference, a player you can build something around, whether it’s a running back or a tight end or a quarterback or a free safety or a linebacker. Remember, (former Chiefs linebacker) Dino Hackett out of Appalachian State, that was a similar (draft) situation, and there was a lot of opposition between second and third round (Hackett was drafted 35^th overall). And you know, Rickey Jackson was another one. But Urlacher, he just was a guy that the Good Lord blessed him with the ability to get to the football and diagnose plays, and that showed up when he was playing free safety.

“After we drafted (Urlacher), the coaches, when he came to camp, put him at Will linebacker, which is like safety, a hybrid safety position, and Mark Hatley called me and said, ‘You’d better get up here,’ so I went up there and we had a knockdown, drag-out fight, this time with the coaches. Me and Mark had to get film out and show them, and anyway, they said they’d try him there for a little while. He made Rookie of the Year and Pro Bowl the first year in the league. I’ve made plenty of bad choices, and had plenty that didn’t work out, just like anybody, but this is a team sport, and a guy’s got to fit in to the team, and has to bring something to the team, and has to enhance the team around him. You don’t hire a quarterback to win the ballgame, you hire him to help the other 22 win the ballgame. I don’t have all the answers but (I believe that).”

Here are several random thoughts rattling through my head after the first big weekend of the NFL and college season.

• If the scouts I talk to are right, Stanford will be hit hard by early exits in January. I’m told Cardinal WR Devon Carjuste, CB Alex Carter and OT Andrus Peat are all locks to join the draft early. Of course, if the team can’t get off the mat after last weekend’s setback and Coach David Shaw’s troops have a disappointing season, maybe some of them reconsider. It’s early, of course. To check out the others we listed, check out today’s report on ITL.
• So I watched the Saints’ upset loss to Atlanta yesterday, and after seeing QB Matt Ryan play without any interruptions by the vaunted Saints DL, I wondered how do you project a player’s success at handling a big contract? I ask this because the Saints’ last week before the Falcons game was almost a days-long party for DE Junior Galette, who came from very humble beginnings before being compensated quite nicely by the Saints. He had a great 2013 season, but will a young man who entered the league as an undrafted free agent be able to focus on getting better after having so many financial dreams come true? The NFL does all manner of psychological tests on players as they enter the league via the draft, but I’m not aware of such a battery for players as they weigh a star’s ability to deal with success. It was just one game, but Galette, DE Cameron Jordan and the rest of the team’s DL were supposed to zoom into the backfield like a hot knife through butter. It didn’t happen. Oh by the way: Jordan’s contract is up after this season.
• I’m always interested in looking at the makeup of the league after rosters are set (including practice squads, but kickers and punters omitted). Here’s the breakdown by position:

• Maybe there aren’t many conclusions you can draw from such a grid, but here’s what it means to me:

1. Teams aren’t doing as much development of passers on practice squads, maybe because QBs are so expensive that they can only afford to carry two.
2. Even though offensive linemen aren’t the guys you normally carry for special teams purposes, there are still more than 100 more OL than any other position. And even though teams use 5-6 defensive linemen in goal line packages, there are still 60 more OL than DL (499 vs. 439) in the league. So if you’re a big, heavy guy with potential, you’ve got an excellent chance to make a practice squad.
3. Tight end has become a glamor position, but that doesn’t mean there are just stacks and stacks of big, strong men that can also run. Teams may WANT a Graham/Gates/Gronkowski, but they aren’t necessarily finding them.