A Great Trainer’s Take On Great Players

03 Tuesday Nov 2015

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What separates good players from great players? What gives NFL players the chance to be longtime veterans instead of guys that bust, that never make it?

That’s a question many teams have devoted endless hours to answering. In an attempt to find the answer myself, I asked Tony Villani, who runs XPE Sports, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based combine prep facility that is one of the 3-4 best in the nation.

Not only is Tony an incredible trainer, he’s a great guy, too. So many people in the football business, and especially in the trainer space, have incredibly big egos. However, Tony has almost no ego. He’s always got time for everyone and never blows his own horn. And though he gets frustrated and even angry at times, he’s always upbeat and positive.

I asked him about the best players he trains and what makes them great. There were a couple takeaways:

They train every chance they get, even while everyone else is relaxing, or spending their by week in Las Vegas, or even the weekend after a Thursday night game: “(Saints OH Mark) Ingram came down after a Thursday night game this year. Ingram bucks the system. When he first came into the league, he tried to do it his own way. It wasn’t until he got humbled that he decided to do it right. I went to Flint(, Mich., Ingram’s hometown) to meet him personally before the combine, and he chose somewhere else (Sonic Boom in New Orleans). He performed awful. (Wisconsin OG) John Moffitt had a better broad jump and shuttle run! Ingram ran a 4.6 (40), his vertical was bad, it was awful.

“He still didn’t come here after his first year, but then after his second year in the NFL, that’s when he came and he started listening, and became a believer, and bought a Shredmill (a treadmill-like device that Tony patented), and then he bought a house down here, and I think it’s shown. That’s how (49ers WO) Anquan Boldin and (Bucs OB) Lavonte David and the Pounceys (Dolphins OC Mike and Steelers OC Maurkice) and (Redskins WO) Pierre Garcon all do it. They build their offseason around their offseason training. Not where their girl is, not anything else. They can party, do what they want, but they gotta build it around their offseason.”

They turn their weaknesses into strengths, or at least make their weaknesses adequate. Tony sees it in veterans training in the offseason, especially those who exercise the ’75 percent rule:’ “We call it our 75 percent rule. Everybody works out together in the morning for about two hours. The extra 25 percent is what everyone figures out they’re gonna do on their own. For the Pounceys, it might be more lifting. For Eric Berry, it might be more speed. For Byron Maxwell, it might be more flexibility in his hips. Maybe for linemen, it’s more boxing. We call them the 75 percenters, and they give you 75 percent in the morning, and the ‘lifers’ figure out what they’re weak on.

“Everyone thought (former Eagles and Vikings WO) Cris Carter caught a lot of balls in the offseason. They all say, he must catch a thousand, 500 balls a day. Well, I never saw him practice catching balls. He was really slow, and he worked on his weakness. Everybody wants to work on what they’re great at. (Their weakness) is what we try to focus on. They work out together in the morning, then in the afternoon they work on their weaknesses.”

Reminders On A Good QB’s Value

02 Monday Nov 2015

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As a Houston resident, I’ve gotten a pretty close-up look at the value of a quarterback. After going 9-7 last season with a serviceable passer that seemingly no one here liked, Ryan Fitzpatrick, the team settled for a couple of castoffs from other teams. The results have been dismal.

Quarterbacks get more blame in bad times and more glory in good times than they deserve, but they’re still very important. Now that we’re at the halfway mark of the season, here are a few observations, facts and figures that illustrate this point.

  • Saints fans (like me) were up in arms when the Saints traded their only real red-zone threat, TE Jimmy Graham, in the offseason. At the halfway mark of the season, Graham has 38 catches for 450 yards and two TDs. Through eight games, Ben Watson, the player who replaced him, has 38 catches for 472 yards and 3 TDs.
  • By the way, not only is Watson surpassing Graham, but he’s already totaled more catches and yards than he did in eight of his 12 seasons. Obviously, Saints head coach Sean Payton recognized that as long as he had Drew Brees, he could score touchdowns and move the football.
  • Packers receiver James Jones bolted for Oakland last year after seven seasons in Green Bay and looked pretty much spent, averaging only 9.1 yards per catch (ypc). After returning to the Pack, he’s connected with Aaron Rodgers for a 19.1 ypc average, his best average ever, in his 10th season.
  • Tom Brady has won multiple Super Bowls with players that were either mostly overlooked in the draft (Julian Edelman, Troy Brown, Wes Welker) or cast off by other teams (Randy Moss, Brandon LaFell).
  • The Cowboys, obviously, were expecting a lot different results this season from the ones they’ve gotten since Tony Romo went on IR Sept. 22. With five straight losses, there won’t be much for Romo to come back to this year.

I could go on and on, obviously, but you get the point. That’s why it’s so important to watch the Paxton Lynches and the Jared Goffs as we wind down the season. NFL teams certainly will be.

Which Schools Give Scouts the Most Headaches?

29 Thursday Oct 2015

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One might think that all schools want to see their players drafted, right? It brings press and prestige to the program, and helps a team land the next big recruits, one would think.

Well, one would be wrong, at least in some cases. We polled several scouts to get their opinions on what schools give them the most problems. Some were diplomatic, some less so. The one school that came through more than once was Auburn, but I’ll let the scouts do the talking.

Here are five responses we got from different scouts. Auburn was the only school named more than once, and it was named three times.

  • “All schools are different. Some (are) certainly “easier” than others based on a lot of factors. But in the end, it’s a long evaluation process and teams generally get what they need (even if it’s not as easily accessible as they would like).”
  • “So many bad ones and so many very good ones. Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, UCLA, Arizona, Florida, Oregon, Stanford, would be at the top of the lists before this year. Worst visits would be K-State, Louisville (and) used to be Texas, but not sure now with (head coach Charlie) Strong. (Former Texas head coach) Mack Brown was a really good guy, but you had to work really hard to get information. It should be better (now). Basically there are some difficult coaches who make your job difficult.”
  • “TCU, Georgia Tech and Auburn come to mind. They just restrict viewing practice and when you can visit. (Auburn has) actually gotten better. Georgia Tech is possibly the worst in the South. They only let you watch practice for 12 minutes. (Head coach Paul Johnson) doesn’t care.”
  • “Most of the colleges out west are pretty good. Sometimes, some of the SEC schools can be difficult. But it’s different with different steps. Sometimes you can go to Alabama or Georgia and you’re great to deal with, but under a different staff there, (it’s) tougher to deal with. Same thing with any other college. . . Obviously all the big schools have high-end equipment and some of the lower-end schools (Division II, Division III) and some of the traditionally African-American schools sometimes don’t have as good equipment. . .  .”
  • “Auburn, Michigan and Michigan State to name a few. (Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn) is odd but his assistants are good people.”
  • “Auburn and Oklahoma State.”

WSW: All-Star Antics

28 Wednesday Oct 2015

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The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl and the Shrine Game have both sent out their first round of invitations, and with the Senior Bowl slated to do the same on Monday, it’s about that time when conversation turns to the showcases where scouts get to evaluate top players from the ’16 draft class.

It got me thinking about a question I get at times, which is: were the players at the games you ran ever a problem? I can think of two good examples.

The first instance was in the first game I ever worked. It was called the Inta Juice North-South All-Star Classic in Houston in 2007. I was Personnel Director for the game, and still trying to figure out exactly where I fit into the football landscape.

It was played the second week in January ’07, and after spending the fall cobbling together a roster from scratch with the game’s president, my friend, Dave Ippoliti, we got through game week with a feeling of exhaustion and accomplishment. Though it was the first time any of us had done anything like this, we had arrived at game day, and we were feeling pretty satisfied. Except for a few late buses and a full week of chicken wings meals at every lunch (we had found a vendor who would trade us meals for advertising), I was pretty satisfied. However, I remember an event that took a bit of shine off the experience.

The players had just gotten off the bus and were filing into the lockers to get dressed when someone remarked about a missing piece of gear — a mouthpiece, or an ear pad, or something along those lines. I said something along the lines of, ‘I’ll take care of it,’ but before I could get going, I heard something along the lines of, “You better, because y’all haven’t given us anything all week.”

It was Lane College WR Jacoby Jones. Though he had come from a tiny school, we had given him a chance in our game, and he performed, parlaying his appearance into a Shrine Game slot the following week and, in the draft, a third-round selection by the Texans. Though we felt we’d been quite charitable in getting him a look with scouts, he was frustrated because we hadn’t loaded him up with swag such as free hoodies, track suits and shoes with fancy game logos. This was a bit of an omen; Jones showed his petulance on more than one occasion in the league and had his share of off-field incidents, including a celebrated party bus fight with a stripper and a DWI arrest.

The only other incident came in 2008, the following year, when I was running the Hula Bowl as its Executive Director. Though most of our players were on their best behavior (including Fresno State DT Jason Shirley, who wore a suit everywhere he went — in Hawaii — to try to dispel a few character issues), there was one player who was always on our case. If we had to change the schedule, or a meeting was cancelled, or a practice ran late, there was Western Michigan OG James Blair, showing up at our game headquarters with a big frown, there to express his dissatisfaction with this latest injustice. It got to where every time we saw him, we wanted to run the other way, because he was never happy. I remember the week after the game a Bucs scout called me to ask if we’d had any problems with any players. I gave him one name, and I remember that after I told him, I got the sense that that was the name he was expecting.

If you’re a player who gets a game invite, or the parent or agent of a young man hoping to get one, make sure you urge him not to be a malcontent during game week. His unhappiness might not mean anything to scouts (as with Jones), but it might wind up having an impact (Blair, despite getting invited to the combine, went undrafted and bounced around briefly with three teams before leaving the league).

Previewing An ITL Presentation

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

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Next week, I’ll be part of a conference for sports financial advisors and athletes in Scottsdale, Ariz. I’m giving a preview of what I’ll be addressing this weekend in my hometown outside Houston. Today, I’m going to organize my thoughts a bit in this space. I hope you don’t mind.

I’ll be talking about how to build or expand a practice with NFL clients. There are really three rules you have to go by, four if you count ‘you have to be a good financial advisor.’

Here’s an overview.

  • You have to be able to make contact: Lots of well-meaning financial professionals register with the NFLPA’s program, thinking it will give them secret passage to a thriving NFL practice. They find out that the NFLPA only wants to vet them (and not always that well), license them, and cash their checks. Another common misconception is that financial planners can knock on a few agents’ doors, shake their hands, impress them with how earnest and honest they are, and expect agents to hand over their clients’ phone numbers. That’s another misconception. Most times, agents don’t want any part of their clients’ financial hires. Too many bad things can happen.
  • You have to know when to make contact: Veteran financial professionals know that players want to save their offseason for non-football ventures. Most of them don’t want to deal with boring things they don’t understand, like investments and saving, on their own time. That’s why they tend to focus on these things during the season. Of course, that’s veterans. To get veterans, often it’s best to set the table before they become veterans. To do that, it’s best to go where draft prospects are, which is all-star games. Most years, there are five to six of them. This year, there are only three. It’s important to know when they are, where they are, and when, specifically, to go to these games.
  • You have to know what to say: I talk to a lot of financial advisors that want to get into the game, and when I ask them why, they start off with how much money they have under management. I get it – that’s important. Point is, most players will presume that you have lots of big clients and know exactly what you’re doing, money-wise. You’ll be hired based on your ability to connect with the player and his family. And by the way, a player’s family plays a much bigger role in his financial planner decision than in his agent decision (which he often makes on his own).

This is the 30-second version of the 60-minute presentation I’ll be giving this weekend. Want more? Interested in hearing the souped-up version, either this weekend or next week? Email me here.

 

More Cap Insights From J.I.

26 Monday Oct 2015

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We’ve been using this space to share the insights of former Redskins cap guru J.I. Halsell, who’s worked for the league as well as for one of the biggest agencies in the business, Priority Sports, as a contract advisor. I think he does a good job of making the cap understandable for the layman (like me). You must agree, because his posts have been pretty popular.

Here are a couple more questions and answers from J.I.

Former Jets GM John Idzik was criticized by some and hailed by others for creating several million dollars in cap space, then sitting on it during the final year he ran the team, contending that there weren’t quality players available and that he’d rather spend the money the next year. In general, is this a wise strategy?

In personal finance, it is normally ill-advised to spend money just because you have it. However, if there is need in your household that must be addressed, then spending the money is most likely prudent.  Some would argue that the Jets under Idzik had many needs in their proverbial household; Idzik obviously differed in his opinion.  Clubs like the Packers eschew veteran free agency and instead prefer to build through the draft and reward those home-grown players with cap dollars on their second contracts. In my opinion, given the various uncertainties (scheme, comfort, et al) with signing a pricey veteran free agent, the most prudent use of cap dollars is on your own because you know what you’re getting.  The key to this philosophy, however, is that you have to draft and develop players.  If you unsuccessfully develop players, then you have to go into the uncertainty that is free agency to address your needs.

For a healthy team that enjoys success over the long run, what does the team’s cap picture look like? Where is the money spent? What percent of the cap is usually bundled up in how many players? Is most of the cap space devoted to defense or offense? On average, how much of a team’s cap space is devoted to the starting QB?

Sustained organizational success in the league is often correlated to the presence of an established franchise QB.  Accordingly, a club’s biggest cap allocation is (usually) at the QB position, where the average allocation per player is 3.1%, compared to an average of 1.3%-1.8% for all other positions per player.  The split between offense and defense in terms of cap allocation is fairly even at 44.8% and 42.9%, with the balance of cap allocations consisting of specialists and players no longer on the roster.

As always, don’t forget to follow J.I. on Twitter, and if you’re serious about finding a niche in the game that few people pursue, give serious consideration to joining his site, NFL Contract Metrics.

WSW: A Little Help From His Coach

21 Wednesday Oct 2015

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Players get to the NFL in different ways. Some are obvious talents that are highly regarded by ‘Internet scouts’ as well as league evaluators, and some take less direct routes. Last week, we chronicled the story of a Saints OH Khiry Robinson, who had to wait for an all-star invite, then wait for an NFL camp tryout invite, and finally beat the odds by making the team in New Orleans.

This week, we illustrate the ‘who you know’ aspect of evaluation with another former Saints rusher, Pierre Thomas, who is the team’s all-time leader in catches by a running back. Though Thomas was never a headline-grabber during his time in the Crescent City, he was a reliable part of an explosive offense and a versatile back.

He came in through the back door with the Saints, however, with the help of a former coach. Ex-Saints scout Barrett Wiley tells the story of how the team wound up signing him as an undrafted free agent. Here’s the full interview, if you want to check it out.

“(Assistant special teams coach Greg McMahon), the position coach who coached Pierre (at Illinois had recently been hired to the Saints’ staff). . . and he knew what Pierre would bring to the table. So he knew that every day, Pierre was going to show up, (and) he was going to work as hard as he could. He was going to give his all, everything he could, and he . . . informed us that, you know, Pierre may not be the prettiest, the biggest, the fastest, but he’s going to work. At worst, if he makes the roster, he’s going to be able to contribute on special teams, because everyone has a role on the NFL team. Whether you’re a starter or a backup, you have to contribute on special teams. So with that said, Pierre came in — Pierre was a need position – an (undrafted free agent) after the draft and he became that running back who just blossomed into a solid borderline starter and a contributor for the Saints. He was a guy who showed up every day, did everything, you know, just whatever his deficiencies were, he overcame them. That’s the best way to describe Pierre. I can’t say anything negative about him. He can’t break an 80-yard run; that’s his only negative if you think about it. But everything else he does, he does well and you can live with it.

“The coach would start to talk him up a lot . . . leading into the draft . . . like that Thursday, Friday (before draft weekend). He would come down (to talk to the scouts), and say, ‘I got a guy.’ He would come to the draft room and say, ‘I got a guy, (and) wherever he may be on the board, when we need a running back, I got a guy.’ One of those situations. The coach, he’s putting his neck on the line for that guy in terms of, from his evaluation standpoint, not his true livelihood, but just his evaluation standpoint. So the coach said, ‘hey, I got a guy,’ and we went with that. The area scout watched him, and said, ‘well, it depends on what you want, but I wouldn’t have a problem with that, I wouldn’t fight against that.’ (It was) one of those situations.”

A Cap Question for the Guru

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

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By now, if you read this blog regularly, you already know who J.I. Halsell is and how highly I hold him in respect and regard. J.I. is The Guy when it comes to making the salary cap easily understandable by layman, and we’ve had him on to answer a few questions I’ve submitted in the last couple weeks.

However, today he’s answering a question that was submitted by Troy Chapman of TexansCap.com.

I’ve seen a few former GMs on Twitter speak about keeping cash spending in line with cap spending.  With the 140-character limitation on Twitter there is not much follow-up on this statement.  Could you explain?  Would you include dead money in the cap spending as part of this statement?  I follow the Houston Texans and there is a good $15 million difference in cap spending versus cash spending for 2015 (excluding the $12.9m dead money).

J.I.: “During the Mark Dominik regime in Tampa, the Bucs became the poster child for matching cap dollars with cash dollars.  This approach to contract structuring and cap management is aimed at reducing – if not, eliminating – the risk of incurring “dead money” (dollars counting on your cap for players no longer on the roster) from traded or terminated contracts. Eliminating dead money ensures that your cap space is maximized through utilization on players currently on your roster.”

“For example, Ndamukong Suh currently takes up 6.7% of the Lions’ 2015 salary cap though he’s no longer a member of the club; this dead money on the Lions’ cap reduces the salary cap resources the club can use for players currently on their roster.  The 9.7M of cap accounting dollars left by Suh with the Lions (which perhaps would be better utilized on offensive line help) are a result of signing bonus and option bonus cash dollars that have already been paid to Suh by the Lions but were allocated into future years from a salary cap accounting standpoint, as mandated by the CBA.

“Therefore, clubs who seek to keep cash equal to cap do so by not having cash dollars allocated into the future (this is achieved by not using signing bonus and option bonus mechanisms in contracts), as it is these future allocations that become dead money when a contract is terminated.  By keeping cash as close as possible to cap, clubs maximize the amount of their cap space allocated to players who are currently on the roster and currently addressing the club’s needs.”

Make sure you check J.I. out on Twitter and at his excellent website, NFL Contract Metrics. It’s highly affordable and the gold standard for use by NFL types and sports media across the country.

What a Difference A Year Makes

19 Monday Oct 2015

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The emergence of Cardale Jones, from Ohio State’s third-string QB to its savior during the Buckeyes’ title run, was a fascinating story to me, and many others, last season.

However, what was even more fascinating was that some indicated that he was a near-certain first-rounder (maybe even a top-10 pick), and there was plenty of buzz that Jones mulled entering the ’15 draft following his three-game ‘career’ (Big Ten Championship plus two games in the 2015 College Football Playoff National Championship) at the end of last season.

It looks like such speculation was premature. After a series of mediocre performances, OSU head coach Urban Meyer is weighing a change at quarterback. Now that Jones has shown he’s human, I reached out to several scouts on where they saw him going last fall. I got five responses. They were pretty much in line with what I thought — that no matter what he’d done in three games, it was just three games. Of course, one of the scouts expressed his belief that Jones had done enough to get him drafted well above where he belonged, based on the ‘wow’ factor.

The responses:

  • “I have no idea because it was pretty much a moot point last year. Talk is one thing, but it’s hard to justify taking anybody in the first round with only three starts. Obviously, he ended last year better than he’s begun this year. With all that being said, I think that at the end of the day, he is what he is with a whole lot of speculation to write about.”
  • “Anybody that suggests they knew where he would have gone last year is crazy. The games are obviously the biggest piece of the evaluation and he had just three games. No medical. No time with the kid. So much unknown – on all players until they go thru the full evaluation process.”
  • “4th-5th. I wasn’t that impressed with him last year.”
  • “3rd QB taken in the draft (presumably after Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston), based on three-game resume. (You have to) come out when you are HOT.”
  • “I don’t know enough about him to say. I guess that most of the people who were talking last year were doing it off TV scouting, whether they were (draft) analysts or scouts.”

Based on what my friends in evaluation say, Jones would most likely have been very disappointed if he had left expecting to go in the first 32 picks.

To me, the biggest takeaway is that actual scouts’ views of a player’s prospects differ greatly from what you can find on the Web. But by now, if you read this blog regularly, you probably already knew that.

More Cap Gold from J.I.

15 Thursday Oct 2015

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Last week, former NFL agent and Redskins cap guru J.I. Halsell answered a few questions about how NFL teams spend money and how cap decisions often lead to personnel decisions. It was very well-received, so I wanted to bring him back to answer a few more questions. Got something for J.I. to answer here? Drop me a line at nstratton@insidetheleague.com.

On to the questions.

We’ve seen successful teams constantly work around player contracts, pushing against the cap due to a couple of big contracts paid to key players. Is this wise? How long can a team generally pursue this strategy before it strangles them?

What once use to be the hallmark of the Redskins’ cap management tool kit has now become the hallmark of the Steelers cap management approach.  The risk with pushing cap allocations into the future is that a club increases the amount of dead money that they can be on the hook for if they terminate the player whose contract they have continually pushed cap dollars out on.  With the Steelers, a player like Antonio Brown, who shows no signs of decreased productivity, while having his cap dollars pushed out in each of the last three seasons, is the perfect candidate for pushing cap dollars, but a veteran player with diminishing skill level and multiple years left on his deal is a risky candidate due to the likelihood of the club having to part ways with him sooner rather than later.  The obvious reward in pushing cap dollars out is the immediate cap relief garnered by this move, and presuming significant increases in the salary cap in future years provides comfort that the money pushed out into the future will not reduce the club’s cap flexibility as it continues to build its roster.

Which teams have the most cap space tied up in 2-3 players?

The Lions lead the league in percentage of cap allocated to 3 players, with WO Calvin Johnson, QB Matt Stafford and, interestingly, DT Ndamukong Suh’s dead money hit all accounting for 33.3% of the Lions’ 144.3M salary cap.  Following the Lions are the Panthers with 30.0% of their cap tied up in DE Charles Johnson, QB Cam Newton and OC Ryan Kalil.

Make sure to visit J.I.’s website, NFLContractMetrics.com, and follow him on Twitter. You won’t find a more insightful, easier-to-understand breakdown of the money behind the game than you’ll find in J.I.’s work.