You might have already participated in the poll we posted on Twitter Wednesday comparing the jobs of NFL agent and NFL scout, and asking which one is tougher. You might even feel convicted on your choice. However — and especially if you chose the scout as having it tougher — you might consider what actual NFL evaluators say.

Here’s the question I posed several NFL scouts: All things considered, based on your experience, do you think scouts or agents have it better? Which job is harder and offers more uncertainty, in your opinion?

Here are their responses.

• “Agents do. They lack the ground work intel and the experience to appraise the value of the player, unless it is a big firm with large resources.”
• “Agents have it better these days. Scouts make less and have less input than they have had on who gets selected. More information-gatherers now. Scouts also have to deal with job security issues more then they did in the past because teams overpay directors and want cheap road scouts, and with the league rules of hiring minorities and getting draft pick compensation, this will further decrease veteran scouts. Independent agents will struggle to compete against bigger agencies, but have a chance if they can identify players and build relationships and create their own niche.”
• “I would say agents have it harder. Kids now want everything given to them and expect to have training, housing, etc., and then, in the middle of the process, can fire the agent if they aren’t happy.”
• “Good question. I think the agent business is more uncertain. Harder to get established in it. Have to get so much money up front to even get started. Once you’re established and get some players in the league, then I think scouting is probably harder. If that makes sense. Feel like there’s a lot of entry level scouting jobs. But to get started as an agent, you need to have a family connection or some sort of backing.  I feel for those young agents that are constantly trying to recruit players then get beat out late by the big firms.”
• “I would say scouts have it better. The recruiting agents have to do would be terrible I think. If you’re an agent that has some just average guys who knows if they even make rosters. At least scouts get guaranteed wages from salary.”
• “There is at least a path for new/young scouts to grow in the business. Getting into the agent game without being attached to a big firm is darn near impossible. Even long shot prospects are so entitled and so unrealistic about their ability that agents have to invest resources that will take until the player almost hits their 2nd contract for them to really turn a profit. That’s before you start talking about babysitting and dealing with the personalities.”  
• “I would say maybe agents now because as the game has evolved, it’s almost like, with everything slotted, is there really a necessity for agents the first go-round? . . . Then the nature of the game with agents, I could say, ‘I represent Neil Stratton,’ but you get one of these other agents, and they could steal you from me, you know what I mean? So from that standpoint, even when your work is done and you think you have your guys, you constantly have to be on top of that relationship to prevent another agent from stealing him.”

Of course, it wasn’t all one-sided. Some scouts felt their job is more challenging:

“Agents have it better. There’re both hard to get started. Agents have to shell out money to get started (but) scouts don’t make much and the opportunity for advancement has a lot to do with things out of your control. Agents control their own destiny based on how hard they hustle to get clients.”

What do you think? Make sure to make your voice heard on our Twitter feed and by participating in our poll. Coming Friday, agents tell us whose job they think is tougher. Don’t miss it; you can register for it here.

Wednesday night, about 20 people — some of them aspiring scouts, some of them active and former NFL scouts — gathered for a little more than an hour with former Bills GM Doug Whaley. The topic was team-building, both on and off the field. Doug discussed how he approached building the Bills’ roster after spending a decade with the Steelers, as well as how he went about populating and managing his team’s scouting department.

Here are three (of several) takeaways from Doug’s discussion.

• Steelers scouts/administrators are rarely approached by other teams despite their great success: Pittsburgh is a model franchise, yet Doug is one of the team’s few former executives who got a shot to run another team. “Everybody (in the league) believes none of them will leave, so no one gets approached . . . If you talked to (Steelers scouts and executives), you could ask them. They would entertain it. Do (the Steelers) pay? They’re not the top-paying club in the industry. Now, they treat you well, but I remember Mr. Rooney always saying, ‘we’re not the highest, we’re not the lowest, but we’re on the high side of fair.’ But again, you know, you’re going to win. They treat you right. But I’m telling you, nobody. And I talked to some of the scouts and was like, ‘what is it out there in the league that people don’t come and ask us?’ No one knocks on the door. The only other thing that I could say is maybe the owners are like, ‘hey, we respect the Rooneys so much that we won’t raid their staff.'” 
• You can’t force a first-round QB: Then-Bills GM Buddy Nix wanted to have the team’s franchise QB in place before retiring and handing the reins to Doug, which is why he reached for Florida State’s E.J. Manuel at No. 16 in 2013. “At the time, I was Assistant GM, and the GM there was Buddy Nix, and he had talked to me before about, ‘hey, before I get out of here, I’m going to make sure that we have a quarterback’ . . .  And unbeknownst to me after the draft, he was going to retire. So I gave you the backdrop of that to say this: don’t ever back yourself into a corner by saying, ‘I want to get a specific position,’ because then you overdraft, which leads to some mistakes. So, E.J. Manuel, that was (Nix’s) favorite quarterback out of that draft. He wanted to get him and he didn’t want to lose him. Now I know why. So he got him in the first round. He removed all doubt. If we would have drafted him in the third round — which that’s probably where he should have gone, maybe third or fourth round — he may have still been in the league today as a backup. But don’t back yourself in a corner or of overdraft because of need.”
• In the minds of some scouts and executives, center has eclipsed left tackle as the most important position on the offensive line: It’s due to today’s complex defenses and the center’s need to make the right line calls. “It was always offensive tackle, but the last two coaching searches, a lot of them switched to center, and it was because of the mental part of the game and (identifying) the (middle linebacker) and being able to make the line calls. And that’s so important now because of the intricacies of the defense. (Today’s coaches are) saying we need that center; it’s more important than the right or left tackle, which was interesting. . . I struggle with that, but I also understand where they’re coming from, especially if you have a young quarterback. If you can have that center take a lot of that mental part of the game off your young quarterback (you can) help him be able to function at a higher level with a lot less mental taxation on him.”

We’ll have another GM on next month to discuss the finer points of running a franchise. Stay tuned to our Twitter if that’s something you’d like to tune in for next time. In the meantime, if the business of football is your bag, make sure to sign up for our Friday Wrap.