Starting Saturday, 21 aspiring NFL scouts will join us in Fort Worth for the 2022 College Gridiron Showcase. Here’s a rundown of what they can expect.

SATURDAY: This is our ‘orientation’ day, and the day we hope to set the tone for the weekend and make clear our expectations for the next three days. We’ll primarily get ready for what’s ahead.

CGSU scout workshop orientation (4-5 p.m., Magnolia V room of the Fort Worth Sheraton): CGS co-Founder Jose Jefferson, CGS Director of Scouting and Personnel Mike Rittelman and myself will introduce the week and talk about expectations.

SUNDAY: It’s showtime. Sunday is the biggest day for interns given that it’s the main interview day for NFL scouts, and many of our previous interns have earned the respect of NFL personnel with their work on Sunday alone.

• CGSU breakfast (6:30-7:30 a.m. at a restaurant TBA), followed by a scouting meeting (7:30-8 a.m., Magnolia VI of the Sheraton): We will discuss the Marshals workout and roles for interns.
• Marshals scrimmage (9-10:30 a.m.) at Farrington Field: We’ll ferry interns to the field, where they’ll assist with practices and solicit opinions from scouts on which players deserve to move up to the Desperadoes roster.
• CGSU scouting seminar (11 a.m.-noon, Oak I-III): CFL scout John Bonaventura, former NFL scout and agent Marc Lillibridge and former Giants scout Chris Watts will  participate in a panel discussion with the interns moderated by myself.
• CGSU lunch (noon-1 p.m., Magnolia I-IV) and scouting workshop meeting (noon to 12:30 p.m., Oak I-III): Mike Rittelman will join us to make assignments and break down scout-player interviews and how interns will assist in bringing players to the interview room. We’ll also take volunteers to help with the NFL measurements sessions.
• Player interviews (1-9 p.m., Magnolia I-IV): Interns will work with NFL teams to facilitate interviews.
• NFL measurements (offense and defense, 9-10:30 p.m., offense in Magnolia V, defense in Magnolia VI): Once again, interns will assist in arm and hand measurements.
• CGSU scouting debrief (10:30-11 p.m., Oak I-III): We’ll review Sunday and assign roles for Monday’s weigh-ins).

MONDAY: This is another big day and it starts early with weigh-ins, another key part of the weekend, then wraps up with another night of education.

• CGSU breakfast and meeting (6:15-7 a.m., Oak I-III of the Sheraton), followed by Desperadoes (7:30-9 a.m., Magnolia I-IV of the Sheraton) and Wrangers (9:15-10:45 a.m., Magnolia I-IV) weigh-ins: After a brief meeting, interns will help as we hand out roster sheets to scouts, align players alphabetically, contact and locate players who are late arriving, and call out heights and weights.
• Desperadoes (12:15-2 p.m.) and Wranglers (2:15-4 p.m.) practices at Farrington Field: We’ll ferry interns to the field, where they’ll assist with practices.
• CGSU scouting meeting (9:30-10 p.m., Magnolia V of the Sheraton): We’ll have one or two active NFL scouts who’ll discuss how they got their jobs, what they look for in interns and potential interviewees, and what they like best about being NFL evaluators.

TUESDAY: We say goodbye to our team and convene one last time.

• CGSU breakfast, followed by scouting meeting (6-7:30 a.m. breakfast at a nearby restaurant, followed by meeting 7-9 a.m. at Oak I-III): We’ll tally up the winners of the week, present awards, discuss what we did right and what we did wrong, and say goodbye to everyone.

If you’re one of our 21 interns, I look forward to meeting and working with you this weekend. If not, please consider applying to join us in 2023.

We’ll talk more about the CGS and our scouting intern program in our Friday Wrap. Register for it here.

This time of year, I get a handful of members of the current NFL Draft Class who are referred to me, and they have questions about the entire process. It’s for this reason that I wrote my first book, but most want bullet points.

Well, today, I have six. If you or your son have questions about the process, maybe the following will help.

• Regarding NFL Combine selection, the short story is, NFS (National Football Scouting) conducts a player-by-player vote of about 1,000-2,000 players, and the top 350-odd players by vote get an invite. They are disproportionately from FBS, obviously. If a player has a record-setting bowl game, it might tilt things in his way a bit. However, for the most part, the odds of getting an invite are equal parts raw athleticism, college production, and measurables. For example, if you are a four-year 1,000-yard receiver at an FBS school, but you’re 5-8/180/4.6, the odds will be against you. To a great degree, the NFL Draft is a beauty pageant. For the most part, NFL teams are looking for difference-makers, not good football players. They are seeking freakish athletic talents they can craft into stars (perhaps). This is why so many good college football players without eye-popping athletic skills go undrafted.
• As far as all-star play, the organizers of these bowls select the players, though agents can have a major impact on who gets invited. After the Senior Bowl and, to some degree, the Shrine Bowl, the remaining games are excellent platforms which will be populated largely by fringe draft prospects who will be late-rounders or UDFAs (or who won’t go to camps). As far as how these games are populated, there is a “domino” process among the games whereby a player at the top game (SR) declines an invitation, and that player is replaced by a lower game, and that continues on down the line. In my opinion, there is a limited difference between the first player drafted in the fourth round and most UDFAs, and a good all-star game can move a player up in that Day 3 crop. At the same time, an all-star game won’t get a player from the seventh to the first round. No way, no how.
• When it comes to selecting an agent, the most important factor should be (a) a player’s personal relationship with the agent and (b) the agent’s experience level. During the vetting process, players should ask in-depth questions about how the agent has handled players, when he was fired and why, how he can make a difference for the player, what the agent’s plan is for the next four months, etc. The player should ask if he’s ever represented anyone like himself and how that player turned out. The player should ask the agent why he wants to represent him. Money should be a low-level consideration, though if a player asks his agent to cover training, etc., he should pay three percent. Fee cuts are for first-rounders. Also, Day 3 prospects (especially) should forget about marketing. They need someone who will clear away all obstacles for them to make a 53-man roster.
• When choosing a trainer, players should make sure they choose a place that cares about them and that will comprehensively train them for speed, but also drills.
• The post-pro day period will be the longest time of a draft prospect’s life. Players should discuss the post-draft plan with their agents as part of your selection process.
• I know draft prospects are desperate to hear what scouts think about them, and I know it’s hard to resist the pull of the Internet, but a player only knows how all 32 teams feel about him if he goes undrafted. If a player is drafted, he really only knows how the team that drafted him thinks. Unless you continually see your name in first-round mock drafts, it’s best to presume that you are somewhere in that Day 3 mix, and every day you train, you’re trying to move up that list just a little bit. 

Still have questions? Sign up for our Friday Wrap newsletter, in which we talk about all things NFL draft and the business of the game each week. Merry Christmas!

Wednesday night, Trevor Swenson of Dynamic Talent joined about 30 NFL agents on Zoom to talk about his area of expertise: name, image and likeness (NIL). Trevor’s company represents more than 400 bands, entertainers and influencers, and he’s seen the rise of social media and figured out how to exploit it for his clients’ benefit.

Here are just a few tips I picked up from listening to him Wednesday.

• Even though football is our sole focus at Inside the League, it doesn’t mean it has to be an NIL agent’s sole focus. In fact, Trevor said track athletes “always sell,” partially because track is more individual in nature and therefore athletes are easier to identify with for potential customers.
• Social media is very visual, so you’re going to have to identify clients that are pleasing to the camera. “Turn them into models,” Trevor recommends.
• Facebook is one of the greatest commerce engines our nation has ever known, but it’s almost completely irrelevant to today’s athlete. Instead, get used to Google Ads as well as every vagary of each of the different platforms (especially Instagram).
• If you’re going to get active representing players on NIL matters, get familiar with Shopify. Trevor calls Shopify “a huge tool” when it comes to marketing merchandise for his clients. 
• If your client has a YouTube account, and hopes to make a few bucks with goofy videos or instructions on how to throw the ‘out’ route, he’s going to have to log 10,000 hours and gather 1,000 subscribers before his channel is monetized. 
  
• Before a company is willing to spend money on your client, the industry standard is an expected return of three dollars returned on investment (ROI) for every dollar pledged in sponsorship.
• If your client is a little low on followers, he can probably gain about 1,000 new ones per month if he’s aggressive about engaging with his followers and providing fresh content.
• Before he can expect to have any sponsors, he’s going to need at least 10,000 followers on at least one social media platform.  
• Trevor does not believe in deleting controversial posts. One reason is that no publicity is bad publicity. Another reason is that he believes his clients should own their posts and not run from them. 
• He said the only reason he’d dump a client is not because of poor performance, but because of no performance. For example, if he represents a band that doesn’t tour for a year or more, he goes in another direction. Though they aren’t musicians, you should encourage your clients to have the same mindset. 

If you want even more, consider joining us at 8 p.m. ET next Wednesday, Nov. 17. For $100 plus tax, Trevor will present a case study on how to turn a garden variety college football into an NIL machine on a step-by-step basis. He’ll also provide the basic documents you’ll need to sign an agreement, to pitch a client to a vendor, and more. 

We’ll discuss it further in today’s Friday Wrap, which you can register for here. Ready to sign up now? Here’s the link. 

Today, we conducted our third review of the most recent mock drafts of seven top draft services at ITL, and later today, we’ll analyze the results in the Friday Wrap (you can register for it here). While it’s fun to see what mock drafters are thinking, it’s hard to compare it to what NFL scouts actually think and/or know.

We can’t know what the draft boards of all 32 NFL teams looked like leading up to the most recent drafts, but we can look at the reports our own Blake Beddingfield (former Director of College Scouting for the Titans) wrote on many of the players who got acclaim by the draftniks. We did that this week, and found several instances where Blake, who writes long-form scouting reports for agents ($100 plus tax) as part of the ITL Scouting Department, was right when the media was wrong. Here are a few of them.

Gregory Rousseau, DE, Miami (proj. 1) — 1/30, Bills, 2021 — Blake projected Rousseau as a future first-rounder in Fall 2019, and all seven draft services agreed immediately following the ’20 draft. However, by the week before the ’21 draft, none of them had him in the first round. Buffalo (and Blake) disagreed, however, and today, he’s a member of PFF’s Midseason All-Rookie Team. “Rousseau has the length and get-off to be a genuine pocket-collapser at the NFL level,” PFF’s Michael Renner writes.

Daniel Faalele, OT, Minnesota (proj. 2-3) — TBA — Though he was seen as an oversized tackle with potential as a sophomore in Fall 2019, no one was pitching Faalele as a lock for Day 2 and potential first-rounder. Blake, however, saw him as a second- or third-rounder, and today, three of the seven services we monitor have him in the first round next spring.

Chase Claypool, WO, Notre Dame (proj. 2-3) — 2/49, Steelers, 2020 — Claypool never showed up on any of the first-round mocks of any of the seven services we track in any of the six reviews leading to the ’20 draft, but Blake had him in the 33-100 range in the fall of 2019, long before he began his climb up boards. Today, he’s a rising star in Pittsburgh’s receiving corps.

Jevon Holland, FS, Oregon (proj. 2-3) — 2/36, Dolphins, 2021 — Blake saw Holland as a second- or third-rounder in Fall 2019, but draft services had him in the first round immediately following the 2020 draft (four services had him in the 20s for ’21) before he began slipping during Fall 2020. Sure enough, he went in the second round in ’21.

Trey Smith, OG, Tennessee (proj. 1-2) — 6/226, Chiefs, 2021 — In the fall of 2019, people didn’t know (or, at least, the media didn’t) about the medical issues that would drop Smith into the sixth round. Smith is playing much more like the Day 1/Day 2 projection that Blake predicted than the sixth-round pick Smith turned out to be.

Jacob Eason, QB, Washington (proj. 4-7) — 4/122, Colts, 2020 — As of October 2019, three draft services had Eason as a late first-rounder, but Blake never fell for the hype, pegging him as a Day 3 pick. Sure enough, by next spring, he was right.

Zach Baun, OB, Wisconsin (proj. 4-7) — 3/74, Saints, 2020 — These days, Baun is a special-teamer and backup in the Saints’ linebacker corps, though by February 2020, three draft services were calling him a late first-rounder. However, Blake had him as a Day 3 type in Fall 2019, predicting that he’d be pretty much what he is for New Orleans today.

Want to get Blake’s take on a member of the ’22 draft class (or any other draft class, for that matter)? We can turn around a report in 1-2 days for any player in college football, no matter the conference, no matter the level (yes, even NAIA). It’s just $100 plus tax, and you won’t be disappointed by Blake’s depth and draft projection. Don’t rely on Draft Twitter. Email us and let’s get started.

As you know, the people who took the 2021 NFL Agent Exam in August got their results this week. It was an emotional time, for a lot of reasons, as some people got the news that they’d been waiting years to hear, while others found out they’d have to wait another year (or in some cases, five) to realize their dreams.

I wanted to get a feel for how test-takers felt about not just the test, but the industry, so I asked hundreds of them to take part in a brief survey this week. No surprise that most of those who responded (about 70 percent) passed the exam. Here are the questions and answers that I found interesting.

Whether or not you passed or failed, did the results surprise you?: After spending the week hearing from would-be agents shocked that they failed, I was surprised that the majority (55%) answered, ‘no.’ A little more than a fifth (22 %) said, ‘yes.’ I think this had to do with so many people who did well taking the survey.

What was your take on the exam?: Again, the survey answers didn’t match up with  my one-on-one conversations this week. There really wasn’t much separating the top three responses: pretty straightforward/not especially difficult (38.6%); tough but fair (31.6%); and tough and confusing (28.1). I heard quite often this week that some of the topics on the exam weren’t in the pre-exam seminar, but the response, ‘the subjects tested weren’t what I expected’ got only 1.8% of the responses.  

the next two questions dealt with our exam prep materials, and I was happy with the feedback. On the question, how helpful were ITL’s study materials, about half (46.6%) called them a “true difference-maker” and the other half (48.3%) said they were “more helpful than not.” Only about five percent total said they either “neither helped or hurt” or “minimal or no help.” On the question, which one of our study materials was most helpful, most (51.7%) said our study guide, edging out our practice exams (46.6%). 

Where the responses were more in line with what I expected was in the two NIL questions.

Whether or not you passed, how do you feel about the name, image and likeness era?:  The majority (50.9%) said “it’s definitely going to be impactful in the area of football representation,” while “it will be impactful to some players and schools, but not across the board” garnered 43.9%. Next, we asked the question, how prepared are you to operate in the NIL field? About a third (36.2%) said “I feel very confident I can make money with NIL outside of traditional player representation,” while almost half (46.5%) said, “not sure, but I see NIL as a real opportunity and a potential advantage, and I would like to learn more.” I agree.

We’ll talk more about the exam and the reaction to it in the Friday Wrap. Make sure to register for it here.

As you may know, Ric Serritella hosts a daily show on the business of the game called The State of Football on Sports Illustrated’s Twitch channel. Well, except for July. He took this month off, which gave my friend Bo Marchionte and myself a chance to co-host this week.

We had an incredible lineup of guest this week and they each had incredible contributions. Here are some of the highlights from the first three days of this week’s shows.

MONDAY

NEC Assistant Commissioner Ralph Ventre on the lack of national leadership on NIL: “I’m not a huge fan, on a personal level, of a huge central government, but in this case I actually think the federal government could do us all a favor if they passed some kind of national legislation for NIL.” 

Evan Brennan of UA Sports on parents’ expectations regarding NIL and how lucrative it could be. “It probably coalesces with how many agents are talking to them. The more agents that are blowing them up and making giant promises, the more ridiculous they get, but if they haven’t been (popular with agents), they’re actually quite reasonable.”

Nick Underhill of New Orleans Football on an offseason change one of the Saints’ QBs made: “For Taysom’s part, he thinks (his tendency to hold the football too long) was something mechanical with his feet. He didn’t have his feet pointed the right way, and then it would take an extra hitch to get set up to throw the ball, once he saw it, so that’s what he’s been working on this offseason.” 

TUESDAY

Vanguard Sports Group’s Eugene Lee on the firm’s cautious approach to NIL generally and to their first NIL client, Texas A&M’s Jalen Wydermyer, specifically: “We’re being very cognizant not to give away long-term leverage on deals. We’re being very careful not to dilute a player’s brand. We don’t want players to be billboards.” 

Former NFL offensive lineman and prospective NFL agent Jeremiah Sirles on why people who played his position are different (in a good way): “As a former offensive lineman, we’re all kinda similar. I’ve said it for a long time: you can pick up an offensive lineman from pretty much any team and plug them into an o-line room and they’re probably going to, eventually, like, within the first five days, fit in.” 

Former NFL executive Blake Beddingfield on NFL vaccination protocols: “I know of people who can’t take vaccines because it harms them physically. The NFL needs to be able to hear that and take each individual situation on its own merit. . . You’re separating the players and the league even more than it has to be.”

WEDNESDAY

Octagon Football’s Murphy McGuire on taking the NFLPA exam in 2015, when it got tremendously harder: “When I went in there, I was like, ‘this is a little more difficult than they said it was gonna be.’ Little did we know that they changed the format for that year and our pass rate was like . . . wasn’t that the lowest pass rate it’s ever been, because nobody knew it was coming? It was like 40 percent or something. It was crazy.”

Former NFL executive Randy Mueller on how he headed off Michael Thomas situations during his days as a GM: “It’s a vital part of being a GM and running a franchise . . .  One of my first meetings is always, when one season ends, I want to sit down with the medical people, first and foremost, and assess our whole roster and come up with pros and cons and come up with a plan for each guy because injuries are a giant factor with every player on your team, and they’re a giant factor with team-building, itself.”

Catapult Leadership’s Jason Montanez on the biggest mistake people make when interviewing for NFL, college, or any other job: “I think the most common mistake that people make is they don’t prepare enough. They don’t really get to know the job that they’re going for. I think you need to put in a substantial amount of research to get to know the job, to get to know who you’re interviewing with, who the hiring manager is, and really get a sense of what the job entails that you’re interviewing for.”

To check out the best of Thursday’s and Friday’s shows, check out the Friday Wrap, which comes out at 7:30 p.m. ET. Register for it here.

You might have caught me on Ric Serritella’s daily morning show, The State of Football (TSOF), on my regular Thursday morning segment (9:40 a.m. ET). If you enjoy them, or find them at all informative, you may be interested in watching all week starting Monday.

Next week, Inside the League takes over TSOF. I’ll host each show along with my co-host, Bo Marchionte of College2Pro.com. Bo is not only a talented journalist, a CFL scout (Winnipeg Blue Bombers) and a serial podcaster, but he’s also one of the funniest people I know, which is why I was really excited when he agreed to join me this week. 

We’ve brought together 15 awesome guests this week, and they will all bring something different to the table. Will the TSOF be a football show this week? Of course it will, but it’s not going to be your standard debate show about who’s the greatest QB of all, whether or not Aaron Rodgers will report to camp, or which team will win the Super Bowl this year.

Of course, we’ll talk about the game in a fun way.

• Former Titans executive Blake Beddingfield will talk about which teams he expects to be contenders for the Super Bowl, the rookies he expects to make the biggest impact, and the trends in the game that no one is discussing.
• Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football will talk about the Winston vs. Hill battle, how the Saints will juggle the various pending free agents in their secondary, whether OT Terron Armstead will be back in 2022 and other topics related to the Who Dats.
• Longtime NFL executive and three-time former GM Randy Mueller will also give his unique take on the game, similar to what he discusses in his blog.
• Neal McCready of RebelGrove.com will talk about what an SEC lineup with the two best teams from the Big 12 would look like and lots of other good stuff. 

Want to discuss agent life and the issues facing player representatives? Got you covered.

• Four of the NFLPA-licensed contract advisors that I respect the most in the business — Evan Brennan of UA Sports, Eugene Lee of Vanguard Sports Group, Murphy McGuire of Octagon Football and Aston Wilson of Agency1 Sports Group — will give their takes on how the transfer portal, Covid and NIL have affected their profession.
• In addition, guests this week include two former agents, wealth manager Noel Lamontagne, a former NFL offensive lineman and one of the smartest people I know in football; and Mike Sullivan, the winner of the 2021 Eugene Parker Award for distinguished service to the agent industry and a former “super agent” as well as NFL executive.
• We’ll also talk to aspiring agents Don Williams and Jeremiah Sirles (the former NFL lineman and current member of the Huskers broadcast team), who are taking the NFL agent exam in August. 

But there’s even more. Ole Miss GM Matt Lindsay, a former NFL scout, will talk about how college football offices are changing and where recruiting and personnel are going. And for good measure, on Wednesday, we’ll have Jason Montanez of Catapult Leadership. A former University of Buffalo fullback, he’ll give tips on how to interview and how to build a network that will help you get the job you want.

For the full day-by-day schedule with all time slots, check out last week’s Friday Wrap. Please join us! I’ll see you here at 9 a.m. ET Monday.

It’s now been two weeks since name, image and likeness (NIL) became something college athletes could benefit from financially. Though we don’t follow NIL in a comprehensive way, we do watch it pretty carefully as it relates to football. We’ve had notes about NIL signings in our Rep Rumblings reports, and we’ve got the deals, partnerships and endorsers for almost 200 plays in our NIL Grid, which we try to update multiple times weekly.

Here are a few initial thoughts.

• Agents are clearly using NIL as a gateway to recruiting top players long-term (Steinberg Sports, CAA, Rosenhaus Sports have all signed players to NIL deals). Kudos to the NFLPA for making it crystal clear that contract advisors can get involved in these deals; very often, the NFLPA chooses to stay out of the big issues, which does nothing to help make things clearer and easier to understand.
• Major sports entities (Barstool Sports, Outkick the Coverage, others) are trying to sign masses of unknown players on merch-only deals; local restaurants are doing the same, trading food for social media hits. It’s a fairly cost-effective way to get into the game without a major commitment while the market sorts itself out.
• Of course, it’s also worth noting that these relationships are not necessarily forever. About 10 percent of active NFL players fire their agents annually, so it’s logical to presume the same will take place on the NIL side. Right now, many of these players eagerly signed exclusive-rights deals with companies expecting a financial bonanza, but if that’s not in the cards, will they look elsewhere? It seems like a good bet.
• Schools’ boosters have clearly started using this a legal recruiting tool (Miami, Fla., and Oregon boosters, for instance, have made big moves to enhance their programs with the help of boosters).
• Also, schools are clearly already using NIL in recruiting (dozens of incoming high-schoolers are already on Cameo and other platforms).
• Major combine trainers are expressing concern that players will require concessions in costs if they market that the players are working out there. Putting players’ likenesses on social media has always been a major thrust of top training facilities. Nothing attracts tomorrow’s stars like today’s stars.

There have been three main eras dictated by two inflection points in the agent industry in the 20 years since ITL has been around. The eras, as I see it, were the Age of Big Negotiators; the Age of Big Recruiting; and whatever this one turns out to be.

The transition from the first to second era took place with the passage of the 2011 CBA, which dumped the big signing bonuses and led to big fee reductions and big training-plus packages, all as an inducement to sign players that would get to second deals. Now that we’re in the Era of NIL, I’m not smart enough to know where things are going, but I do feel smart enough to know the ground is moving quickly under everyone’s feet.

If these topics and this kind of analysis interests you, make sure you register for our weekly newsletter for the industry, the Friday Wrap. Do that here.

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.