Notes On Our Seminar Video (Pt. 2)

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Today, a few notes on Ray Farmer’s presentation at our seventh annual seminar in Indianapolis last month. It’s a continuation of Monday’s post. Today’s post covers the second half of this video.

  • One thing that rarely gets mentioned is the fine line new agents must walk as they establish relationships with NFL personnel. Stay in their lanes and they risk never making the contacts they need. Push a prospect too hard and risk destroying any credibility if the prospect turns out to be a dud.
  • When he ran Kansas City’s pro department, Ray classified every player into four categories: on the 53; one of the 46 that travels with the team and is squarely on the roster; ‘bubble plus,’ or guys who are just outside the 46; and the rest, the 3-4 players (maybe one on the ‘bubble plus’ list) that are constantly in danger of being upgraded. Everyone else who crosses his desk (street free agent, recently released player, etc.) was considered LS (long shot) or claim (as in, if he’s cut, he’s worth claiming).
  • Of the ‘LS’ and ‘claim’ list, the two subdivisions are ‘practice squad plus’ and ‘workout.’ These are the only players that might rate a look, that might actually get worked out. Everyone else doesn’t even get a rating. The only way out of the ‘everyone else’ group is if you play in another league and generate more tape, which makes a player more interesting.
  • At around the 28-minute mark, Ray talks about a player the Browns signed off the Cleveland Gladiators’ roster last season named Brandon Stephens. Here’s his story. Two interesting points Ray makes are that Stephens had his game film on his phone, so after a chance meeting with Ray, he could hand Ray his phone for a quick verification of skills. The other point is that Stephens had talent, but he got sunk when he pulled his hamstring. It’s just one more reminder that health is as important as skill level when it comes to making it in the NFL.
  • Ray effectively says that if your client is 25, and he’s never played in the NFL, it’s time for him to start looking for another job. The learning curve is just too steep. That seems to be a rather hard and fast rule, and it’s one reason why ex-baseball players that start their careers late have such poor NFL careers.
  • You can’t change what a player did on tape for four years. “That’s what he is,” Ray said. There’s nothing you can do to jump-start his prospects, plain and simple.
  • Thousands of dollars are invested in interview prep for top prospects every year, but it all comes down to, ‘can I trust you?’ Ray says a player needs to get it all out in the open right off the bat. Ray’s example: “Hi, I’m Ray Farmer, and I killed three people on the way to this interview, but I just wanted you to know so we could get it out of the way.” That line got a lot of laughs, but it’s true.
  • One of the questions I always get is, how do I build relationships with scouts? Ray says it’s all about people skills, and he illustrated this by his conduct at our seminar. Ray sat in the crowd before the program started and was never approached. Later, he walked outside, where several people were, and still no one approached him. Sure, people were intimidated, but you have to get past this if you really want to make friends with important people. I have the same struggles — it’s hard to risk messing up a relationship before it starts. But it’s a risk worth taking.
  • Ray closes this segment by emphasizing the importance of building a relationship with your client, and truly knowing him. The difficulty is that schools spend four years doing everything they can to prevent agents from building relationships with their players (and often expressing very little interest in getting to know the agents themselves). The time agents get to spend building that relationship is usually after the hire, at which point it’s January or February and almost too late to make a change. It’s the paradox of the agent world.

We’ll have more later this week as we wrap up Ray’s presentation.

 

Notes On Our Seminar Video

14 Monday Mar 2016

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This weekend, Rick Serritella from NFL Draft Bible posted the video from our seventh annual seminar held a couple weeks ago in Indianapolis. It’s here, and of course, it’s totally free.

Today I want to talk about the first half of the presentation ex-Browns GM Ray Farmer gave (Rick broke it into two parts). Here are a few notes and observations after the second listen to the video. Note: These notes are only based on the first 26 minutes of Part 1. I’ll be back with more notes to wrap Part 1 Tuesday.

  • Ray’s a pretty selfless individual and not a ‘me’ guy, and I think that comes through here. He’s a real person, very approachable.
  • Ray mentions that he doesn’t have any real hobbies. He just watches football. That’s pretty cool. I find myself looking for escapes when it comes to my free time, and I think most people in the game are similar, but not Ray. It shows what kind of a passion he has for the game and everything around it.
  • The first question he handles involves game tape. When he’s answering this question, keep in mind that he’s looking at it from the standpoint of a pro scout, not a college scout (Ray got the Browns job because he excelled at running the pro department in KC). Everything he says here involves players who are not draft-eligible; they’re players who are looking for an in-season tryout.
  • He discusses how the pro scouting intern is the first person who looks at film that comes in, be it game film or a YouTube clip. If you’re looking to be an NFL intern, maybe it’s smarter to go the pro scouting route rather than another college scouting assistant. Pro scouting involves fewer people, meaning more opportunities.
  • Ray was the only man in the pro department when Scott Pioli came to Kansas City to take over as GM in January ’09. For two years, he was the only guy in the pro department. If you’re looking to intern with a team, keep that in mind. There are just more opportunities on the pro side.
  • This is pretty basic, but Ray points out that agents who think they’re buddies with a scout or director are only truly connected to them if they have their cell number. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you that secret . . . but that’s the reality,” Ray said.
  • All NFL teams carry emergency lists by position. If you have a client who’s a street free agent, and he’s not at least on a team’s emergency list the September after he was draft-eligible, his NFL chances are nil, at least to me.
  • Ray said that sometimes practice squad players are cut simply to prove a point. They don’t want PS players getting comfortable. He also said it’s important not to look at the practice squad as a developmental position. Show promise or you’re gone.
  • There’s a constant push and pull among a player’s ‘champions’ on the team. There’s always someone who pushed hard to bring in a player, and he hears it from others if that player doesn’t perform. Hey, it’s human nature.
  • Ray pointed out that Steelers OB James Harrison was cut 11 times before he made the team once and for all. This is why a player has to stay in shape and keep charging.

WSW: Two Years, Two Scouts’ Projections

09 Wednesday Mar 2016

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I heard a story in Indianapolis that I’ve hesitated to run, not because it’s controversial, but because I can’t figure out what to make of it. It was told to me by Andy Ross, a top agent with a top firm, Houston-based Select Sports Group (though Andy is based in Virginia).

Andy recruited Wake Forest OB Aaron Curry in late ’07 and January of ’08 when he was considering entering the draft as a junior. As most top prospects do, Curry put in for his draft projection with the NFL’s College Advisory Committee, and he received a third-round grade. Maybe that would have proven to be true; maybe it wouldn’t have.

For perspective, the top five picks in the draft were Michigan OT Jake Long (Dolphins), Virginia DE Chris Long (Rams), Boston College QB Matt Ryan (Falcons), Arkansas OH Darren McFadden (Raiders) and LSU DT Glenn Dorsey (Chiefs). Two linebackers went in the first round that year, Southern Cal’s Keith Rivers (No. 9 to Cincinnati) and Tennessee’s Jerod Mayo (No. 10 to New England), while Oklahoma’s Curtis Lofton (more of a pure inside linebacker) went No. 37 overall to the Falcons. Maybe he would have proven to be a third-rounder; maybe he wouldn’t have.

Anyway, Curry chose to stay in school. The draft came and went, and then a couple weeks later, National Football Scouting, one of the two services that grades players for subscribing NFL teams, had him as the No. 1-rated player for the ’09 draft. National usually meets with teams around the Memorial Day weekend, so this was literally weeks after the ’08 draft. It’s possible he was rated No. 1 overall by BLESTO, the other scouting service used by NFL teams, as well. Either way, at the end of the day, he was seen as a truly elite player by two highly respected scouting services just a few months after he’d been rated as a third-rounder by NFL teams’ scouts.

Now, if you believe Cara Luterek (and we do — read our interview with her here), all 32 NFL teams are represented on the CAC, as well as National and BLESTO. Luterek used to work on the College Advisory Committee (CAC) for the NFL. Though only a handful of teams contributed to the report on Curry, clearly, several NFL evaluators must have graded Curry down quite a bit to counter BLESTO and National, which clearly liked him.

As a postscript, National and BLESTO both were right. Curry went No. 4 in ’09 to the Seahawks (and Andy signed him, doing quite well on his contract, by the way, getting him $34 million guaranteed, a tremendous sum). I guess that says a lot about the effectiveness of the two scouting services that year vs. the quality of evaluation for the handful of teams that graded Curry before the ’08 draft.

Increasing A Player’s Interested NFL Teams

08 Tuesday Mar 2016

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Here’s another way to look at the race to get a player drafted, or at least signed after the draft. It’s kind of got an analytics feel to it. Hear me out. It involves creating a market for a player, and how you do that. Today, I’m speaking directly to agents who are new and/or have limited client lists, and have lower-rated players they hope to get onto a team.

I think there’s a perception (and this is reinforced by the draft media) that all teams see players about the same way. I think there’s also a perception that every team rates about 250 players, one through 250, in a similar form to the draft itself. Also not true. Most teams start by evaluating 2,000 players heading into the season and reduce that number to about 150-180 draftable players on draft day. Whittling that number down is done differently by different teams.

For example, some teams (Cincinnati, Dallas, maybe New England) have higher risk tolerance. These teams are more likely to keep a Randy Gregory, for example, on their board even though he’s got a roomful of red flags related to this drug issues. We’re now seeing why so many teams pulled Gregory off their boards. On the other hand, I was talking to one GM who interviewed him before last year’s draft, and he applauded him for “getting naked” about his drug issues and what he’d done at Nebraska. The GM still took him off his team’s board.

Then there’s injury issues. If your client has had surgeries on his knees, ankles, hamstring, or anything from the waist down, he’s in trouble, especially if he’s a ballcarrier who’s going to take a lot of punishment. I don’t have a rule of thumb for when such injuries are fatal, draft-wise, but injuries are a real factor in the draft process. I’ve often heard that hospital day is the most important day of the week for a player, at least in the eyes of teams.

Now let’s look at performance. If a player was on a team with a player rated as draft-worthy, then his film is in the NFL’s Dub Center. That means there’s a better chance someone has seen him and, perhaps, taken an interest in him.

If you can make sure your client (a) doesn’t have any character red flags, (b) hasn’t suffered a series of major injuries, and (c) has been seen by NFL teams, plus he comes from an FBS school and he’s at least 6-feet tall, you’ve improved your chances of having the most number of teams liking him. In turn, this improves his chances of being on a 90-man roster in a couple months.

Phase 4

04 Friday Mar 2016

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Like most football fans, I’m always trying to crack the NFL code and think the way scouts and evaluators think. That’s why this time of year — NFL combine and pro day evaluation — has always been a bit of a puzzle to me.

Obviously, the NFL wants to beat the drum for its new class of prospects in March and April as it builds the draft to a fever pitch. Hype sells ads, right? But are pro days where teams really go to ‘discover’ players that somehow slid past them until the last 60 days before the draft?

More than a week after our seventh annual ITL Seminar featuring former Browns GM Ray Farmer, I’m still sifting through all the things he said. One of my takeaways is that in the passel of information he got from the various stops along the pre-draft calendar (from January until the draft) during his time with the Falcons, Chiefs and Browns, he always valued what he got back from the all-star games as the most valuable of all. After that, it’s the combine, followed by pro days.

To recap, when you consider that game tape is always No. 1 — former Redskins and Texans GM Charley Casserly says that what a player did on the field is an unchangeable 80 percent of his grade — you can break each segment of evaluation into four phases. These are, in order of importance (and chronologically), playing career, all-star competition, NFL combine, and pro days.

This jibes with what I’ve most often gotten back from scouts and evaluators. Pro days are used as a screen or a net. When a scout goes to an out-of-the-way school and a player surprises him with his 40 time, the scout immediately goes to the tape to see if his physical ability matches what was on film. On draft day, according to former Jags and Browns scout Ken Moll (shown here at our 2014 seminar), teams put all the outstanding workout performances on a wall and use this list when they want to roll the dice on late-round flyers or post-draft signings. However, what they don’t do is move pro day all-stars into the top 3-4 rounds, which is kind of the ‘real draft’ when it comes to the players NFL teams genuinely expect to make the team. With combine prep having become a standard part of almost all prospects’ January and February, teams have learned their lessons from the Mike Mamulas of the world.

We’re in the midst of Phase 4 of the evaluation process. While’s it’s an important part of evaluations, it’s still fourth in importance by a rather wide margin. With the NFL combine in the books and pro days just kicking off, I thought I’d pass this reminder along to help you put the hype from the next 4-6 weeks in perspective.

WSW: You Just Never Know

03 Thursday Mar 2016

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As I’ve discussed previously in this space, I was on a panel last month at the Fowler School of Law at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. It was a fascinating time, to say the least, and a pleasure to hear some great minds talk about the business in a real, factual basis. So many times you wind up on a panel with people who think they know the business, but don’t. These folks did.

One of the stories that was told there I wanted to use for today’s Thursday edition of War Story Wednesday. The story is told by Sean Kiernan, a seasoned agent who’s based in the Los Angeles area. Though he’s with Select Sports Group now, the story he tells is from his time with Impact Sports, which is based in Boca Raton, Fla.

For what it’s worth, the five players he discussed below are taken from Impact’s draft class of Tennessee OG Arron Sears (2/35), Notre Dame DE Victor Abiamiri (2/57), Georgia DE Quentin Moses (3/65), California DC Daymeion Hughes (3/95), Oklahoma St. OG Corey Hilliard (6/209), Florida IB Brandon Siler (7/240). Apparently Sean didn’t recruit one of the players from this group.

“You look at it from a draft perspective, the best year we ever had as a company (at Impact Sports was in 2007. Erik and I were talking about it this morning. (All year) I was on the road between Atlanta and Phoenix, watching five guys, and I thought we had the best draft class ever. We ended up with two seconds, two thirds and a seventh, and I was at a company where we were consistently in the first round with at least one pick every year. None of those guys got second deals. None of them. One had concussion issues, was out of the league. One had a bad knee. Out of the league. One couldn’t run and played corner. Not a good thing. One, the top pick of the third round, got cut at the end of training camp. He was the highest guy to ever get cut in like four years, and he was the highest player on the BLESTO report and the third-highest player on the National report, eight months ago. And he got cut. Now, he survived four years in the league and he made it. We found the right place for him, but he never got a second deal. The seventh-round pick tore his Achilles going into his second deal. Five guys. And if you would have asked me, any year in my career, if I was to bet on any year of guys, that was the group of guys I would have bet on all day. All five of them, nothing. Then there’s guys I sign off of practice squad who get a four-year, $16 million deal. You just never know.”

I agree. This class looked like a lock going into the draft and even beyond, but it didn’t work out that way. If you get into this business, understand that it’s very fickle. There are no guarantees.

Fairness and Change

29 Monday Feb 2016

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If you read my account of the NFLPA’s annual seminar in Indianapolis Thursday, you know things turned pretty ugly, pretty fast.

The root of the problem is that the bigger agencies, which have deep pockets, can do things that the smaller agencies simply cannot do. What’s more, there’s a perception (probably warranted) that the bigger firms have the ear of the NFLPA, while the mid-sized and smaller firms are mostly dismissed. As a result, the smaller firms, which would like to be able to bill players on practice squads and that are very concerned that fees are about to be cut from 3 percent to 2 percent, are incredibly frustrated. They feel they have no voice.

The solution that I most often hear is that agents themselves need to unionize. Many agents see it as the only way to have leverage against the players association. They view it as a way to demand accountability. But there are three problems.

Number one, the big firms would never join.

Number two, it’s the players association, not the agents association, and their certification could be pulled at any time. The union’s one and only concern is satisfying its bosses, i.e., the players.

Number three, the players association sees the agents as largely disposable. There are more than 800 agents, and every summer, about 200 new agents pony up $2,500 for the right to take the test. There’s always another crop ready to take over for the agents that exit the game. What’s more, only about 150-250 agents represent the veterans in the business. The union doesn’t really feel that the other 600 or so agents are necessary beyond being an easy revenue stream.

As a result of last week’s ugliness, Executive Director DeMaurice Smith made a ‘if it’s such a big deal, why doesn’t someone volunteer to be a spokesman’ kind of statement, and one agent did — Hot Springs, Ark.-based Chris Turnage of United Athlete Agents, a solid, mid-sized firm that’s gaining momentum. Chris is serious about this, and wants to be part of the solution. One of the best things about Chris is that he’s not a cynical, hard-edged kind of guy. He’s certainly no pushover, but he’s not a guy that’s naturally angry all the time (there are plenty of those folks in the business) and he’s not a guy with a huge ego.

I’m hopeful Chris will be able to affect change, or at least move things in the right direction. Of course, he’s not going to be able to do it alone. It will take cooperation from a lot of people to move the needle at all, but at least there’s reason for hope.

A Taste of Tonight’s ITL Seminar

24 Wednesday Feb 2016

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This morning, I had breakfast with former Browns GM Ray Farmer, who’ll be speaking at our seventh annual ITL Seminar tonight. What I expected to be a 30-minute meeting turned into about two hours. It’s always fascinating to talk to someone who’s (a) been on the inside of the NFL and (b) is articulate, intelligent and insightful, as Ray is.

In the course of our conversation, we got to talking about how teams gauge character during the evaluation process. He said some things that I thought were very interesting, and that give you a good preview on the kind of things he’ll be talking about tonight (Room 144, Indiana Convention Center, and free for ITL clients).

Ray said that if you’re dealing with a player who’s a major character risk, there are two things you must do. No. 1, you must have someone who can be his confidante/manager. You have to find someone, either on the team or from his family or from his hometown or already on the team, who takes responsibility for him getting to meetings on time, or keeping him out of the headlines, or otherwise keeping his nose clean. The model for this is Randy Moss and his brother, Eric, whom the Vikings kept on the roster during Moss’ early days just to make sure he stayed on course.

No. 2, if you’re going to take a character risk, you have to do it with a player from another ‘strata’ of the team. In other words, if he’s a cornerback, you only take him if your other DBs are good citizens. If he’s a QB, you make sure your other passers are strait-laced. If he’s a rookie, make sure he’s the only rookie in that situation. If he’s from Ohio State, make sure your other Buckeyes are good guys. In other words, don’t take a chance on making waves that could rock the team.

He closed with this thought. If you’re an NFL team, you’ve got dozens of players on the team who are questionable, character-wise. Every single team is standing on the edge, blindfolded, hoping they don’t take a false step. One false move, and the could be headed into the abyss. It’s just the reality of the game. No team is safe.

Anyway, I thought this was good stuff, and a good indication of what to expect tonight. Are you in town? Interested in hearing info you won’t hear anywhere else? Come on down. But make sure you’re an ITL client first.

Straight Talk Vs. Smoke and Mirrors

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

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It’s not often you get to hear what a GM really thinks. You usually get it cloaked in politics and tact.

Here’s a good example. Redskins President Bruce Allen basically called out OH Alfred Morris and his agent, Sean Stellato of SES LLC, earlier this month when he said he’d “applaud” Morris if he landed a great contract in free agency. It sounded like he was being magnanimous, but he was actually saying Morris and his agent were living on another planet if they thought the ex-‘Skin was going to be in demand on the market.

What’s more, you never hear a GM call out a high-powered agent in this manner. He doesn’t want to risk poisoning the well with a contract advisor he’s going to have to work with soon. In this case, Allen was basically tossing Stellato on the scrap heap.

That’s why I’m looking forward to Wednesday night (7 p.m., Room 144 of the Indiana Convention Center), when former Browns GM Ray Farmer will be speaking at Inside the League‘s seventh annual seminar. It’s going to be a prime chance to hear a guy who was once one of the 32 decision-makers in the league speaking candidly without holding anything back. Ray will not be politically correct on Wednesday. He’s doing this for free because he feels so passionately about speaking truth to the agents, financial advisors and other league professionals that will be there.

Ray has his critics, OK? I get it. His time with the Browns wasn’t all sunshine and roses. But I challenge you to find anyone at the executive or coaching level with the Browns during the Haslam era who hasn’t looked a lot smarter post-Browns that during his time with the team. I don’t mean to pick on Haslam or anyone else associated with the team, but the facts are that it’s been a rocky last few years.

You have to respect Ray because, like last year’s speaker Phil Emery, he came up through the ranks. Ray was an area scout — a road guy who was spending every moment on the road 11 months out of the year — with Atlanta, then on the pro side with the Chiefs before ascending to the GM level with the Browns. And oh by the way, he’s a Duke grad who once served as the Blue Devils’ academic coordinator. Those aren’t the kinds of things that academic lightweights do.

No agenda, actual league credibility and basic smarts on and off the field make for a pretty powerful combination in a speaker. If you’re an ITL client, I sure hope you make time to join us Wednesday. If not, fix that here and get on down to our seminar (Wednesday, 7 p.m., Room 144 of the Indiana Convention Center).

Author Eugene Lee on the Agent Biz (Part 2)

19 Friday Feb 2016

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This week, we’ve been talking to New York City-based Eugene T. Lee of MBK Sports, a veteran NFLPA contract advisor who’s been in the league since 1997. Eugene recently wrote a book about his experiences in the business, My Brother’s Keeper: Above and Beyond “The Dotted Line” with the NFL’s Most Ethical Agent. Today we’ve got the second half of our interview with Eugene. For the first half, click here, and for a war story from my history with Eugene, click here.

What was Brian Warner, AKA Marilyn Manson, like in high school?

“He was older than me. When he was a senior I was in eight grade, but one of my best friends from high school, his older brother was friends with him, and he said (Warner) would wear the polo shirts with the collars turned up and the denim jacket. He was kind of a preppy burnout.” (laughs)

Many agents, like you, recruit their alma mater heavily. Why do you choose to do that?

“There’s a connection. A lot of times (while recruiting from other schools), it’s buyer beware, but when you have a connection with the school, you know the kind of player that will get in, the program philosophy and the type of young man that goes to Notre Dame, and that graduates. Ninety-nine percent of the time that’s the kind of man we like to represent, in terms of the values we carry.”

How has your appearance on the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary The Dotted Line affected recruiting?

“I thought going into it it would help a lot more than it has. At the end of the day, if you have this huge client list of retired guys, it doesn’t really help you. You have to stand on your own two feet. It piques (potential clients’) interest but you gotta come with something behind it. Maybe going in I thought it would have much more of a compelling effect, but at the end of the day you really have to recruit a player based on what you can offer him, as far as services and experience, and I would have it no other way. If they signed with me just (because I was on The Dotted Line), I’d have questions about him.”

The book title claims that you are the game’s “Most Ethical Agent.” Interesting title. How did you decide on it?

“Well, I came up with the name, “My Brother’s Keeper,” and I loved that reference. It’s a biblical reference, and speaks about my faith, and being a Christian, and the mentality that I have when I represent a young man. “Above and Beyond The Dotted Line” and “By the NFL’s Most Ethical Agent” came form my publisher. They said, ‘it has to be superlative,’ and I said, ‘I know I’m ethical, but I don’t want to brag,’ and they said, ‘just go with it.’” (chuckles)

You’re aggressive about getting film into the hands of scouts, whereas most agents see it as unnecessary in the modern cyber age. Do scouts really take your DVDs and watch them? How do you know?

“We haven’t done DVDs in a few years. We’ve gone digital. The NFL’s Dub Center (the league’s film bank) has the games, but the reason we do that is to make sure they watch the best film on our guys. . . If you have a small-school player, like a Brian Witherspoon, teams might not have all his games in the Dub Center, so it’s valuable especially for smaller-school players. Now we send out MP4 files and links via email.”