If you’re in pro football, and especially personnel, there is no time for hot dogs and relaxing by the pool this weekend. In fact, Labor Day weekend is one of the busiest weekends of the year in the NFL from every side.

• If you’re a college scout, this was the first big weekend of college football. All 32 teams took their college scouts, who had spent camp evaluating their own players as well as taking a peek at other teams’ personnel for practice squad purposes, and sent them to schools to do what they’re paid (mostly) to do.
• If you’re a pro scout, you spent this weekend sifting through the 600-plus cuts in the league, figuring out who might work for your team’s 53 (for example, the Saints cut both placekickers they had in camp) and racing to contact their agents. You’re also working with the coaches to assemble your practice squad.
• If you’re an agent, you’ve probably got at least one client (and maybe several) who got cut Friday or Saturday, and is looking for a new opportunity. Unfortunately, those opportunities are few and far between after a summer of evaluating talent. Most teams are playing a pat hand as they roll into Week 1.
• If you work with the upstart FXFL, a first-year football league with four teams, you’re poring over the cuts list. As you do, you’re taking phone calls from agents marketing their players to you, while you’re trying to figure out which players are deserving of a tryout invite. It’s head-spinning work.
• If you’re a CFL team, you’re working with the scouts you sent to NFL camps this summer to review players that may be able to help immediately. It’s a little trickier for CFL scouts, as they have to make sure the players don’t have any outstanding legal issues that may prevent them from going north. They also have to make sure the player has a passport, which isn’t a given.

This is a very cursory look at things, but for people who are considering a life in the football profession, it’s food for thought. People in the world of football don’t just work weekends; they work holidays, nights, and every other time most people are just sitting back and enjoying the game.

I wanted to wrap the week with a few last thoughts from former Jets West Coast area scout Joe Bommarito that didn’t fit neatly into one topic.

• We all know height, weight and 40 are critical for players seeking NFL careers, and of course, production on the field. However, three things (in order) that scouts also look for are “good character people, good work habits, and smart guys who can learn.”

I think not enough is said about a player’s ability to process the volume of information that goes into a modern NFL playbook, but it’s a thing former Dolphins scout Mike Murphy also referenced last week. I remember a SWAC running back that a client represented a couple years ago. This player had led the SWAC, no slouch among FBS conferences, in rushing, and could catch the ball, as well. However, he was snubbed in the draft as well as after the draft, and had to settle for a tryout. Once he arrived with the team, he was immediately intimidated by the playbook and didn’t last long. The ability to turn diagrams and terminology into instant comprehension is critical.

• Even in today’s hyper-media era, Joe said that doesn’t see the media as having a major impact on the draft process, simply because teams spend so much money and time on evaluation. “Scouts are focused every day on evaluating players at school visits, watching tape, going to practice, talking to coaches and staff, and interviewing players,” he said. “The scout is paid to form his own opinion on players.”

Interesting take. Scouts I’ve talked to are all over the map on this question. Some say their bosses are so sensitive to criticism that media influence creeps into the process. Others, like Joe, claim it’s much easier for decision-makers to focus on what a team’s evaluators have provided.

• Speaking of the media, Joe said that nothing that happens from January to April has as much impact on a player’s draft value as what he did in-season. “Each game that he plays is like an interview,” Joe said. “He has ten of them, plus any bowl games. The all-star games, combine, and pro days are all additional parts to a puzzle that at the end will show you what a player really is.”

This is something I’ve always wrestled with as draft gurus constantly claim that players have improved their ‘stock’ at an all-star game, the combine or his pro day. Fortunes definitely improve for some in the spring, but probably not as drastically as fans are led to believe.

We’ll depart from our conversation with former Jets scout Joe Bommarito today to tell a story from longtime 49ers scout Oscar Lofton, who covered the West Coast for the team from the mid-90s until 2007.

In 2002, the Niners were coming off a 12-4 season that ended in the wildcard round against Green Bay. The team was stocked with offensive stars, including WO Terrell Owens, QB Jeff Garcia and RB Garrison Hearst. The team also had a solid offensive line as well, and started Eric Johnson, primarily a pass-catcher, at tight end.

That year, they chose No. 27 in the first round, selecting cornerback Mike Rumph. However, in an effort to vet all the players in the draft, they interviewed Miami (Fla.) TE Jeremy Shockey at the combine. Oscar was part of the team that talked to him. He said Shockey didn’t pull any punches during his interview session.

“I did the Shockey kid when he was coming out, and I said, he came in and he said, ‘I’m gonna be the best in the league, and I’m gonna dominate,’ and all this stuff, and I’m saying to myself, he’s a little too cocky for me. I need to get our tight ends coach to talk to him.

“He was really kind of full of himself, and kind of rubbed me the wrong way, so I knew that we needed to get probably (49ers team psychiatrist Dr. Harry) Edwards to talk to him, too, and find out psychologically. Doc would sit in on our interviews and everything, and he was pretty good about drawing conclusions. And I said, we need to spend some more time with him, and we did.”

That’s Oscar’s polite way of saying he was a real jerk.

I find it interesting that Shockey didn’t try to take anything off his fastball for the purposes of making an impression with what was, at the time, one of the most successful franchises in the league. For what it’s worth, Shockey was who he was, if nothing else.

One of the themes of this week’s conversation with ex-Dolphins scout Mike Murphy has been the inexactness of the business, and the fact that it’s an art, not a science (though many are trying to change that perception).

With that in mind, I asked Mike if any teams he had worked for, or any he had heard of, had metrics for measuring the effectiveness of its various scouts. Many/most feel that scouting is the ultimate ‘old boy’ network, and that may be true. It’s also a place of great nepotism. So, does anyone ever evaluate the scouts themselves in a coldly logical way?

Mike said the area a scout covers is, in its own way, a way to evaluate them.

“Regions are (a) difficult (way) to say (that) one scout is better than another because the quality of players are different from each region. Some conferences are known for their offensive linemen, while others are known for their skills positions.  Traditionally, one of your better scouts is placed in the Southeast, but that does not mean he is the best scout. Scouts are looked at in different ways; how they fit in with other scouts, how he does gathering information, (how he) presents that information, and does he get his work done in a timely manner? Some places are known for having their scouts more as information-gatherers than evaluators, and place a high importance on the information-gathering. Others are known to lean on their scouts as evaluators, not just information-gatherers. This is not an exact science; otherwise scouts would not be needed. You want to get more right than you get wrong, or you won’t be in the NFL long.

“I don’t know any team that has a set of guidelines to evaluate scouts. You do have some individuals who are IE’s (Instant Evaluators) and look at where players are drafted compared to a scout’s grade. The issue with being an IE is that your team or another may have made a mistake on a player but may not know for three years.

“The best way I know to evaluate a scout is the same as a player. Give them three years. Players will wash out somewhere around the three-year mark. Scouts are the same way (to see if they are any good). There typically will be a good year, a down year, and hopefully by the third year they have evened out and settled into their role.”

This is an interesting insight. There does seem to be a three-year window on staying in the league for most new scouts. You’ve got three drafts to prove you know what you’re doing, for the most part.

Given Mike’s insights along with Ari Nissim’s thoughts on the advance of sports metrics in the game, it will be interesting if teams start to apply such measures to figuring out whether their scouts are doing the job they’re paid for.

For today’s War Story Wednesday, we’re turning things over to this week’s interview subject, former Dolphins scout Mike Murphy. He goes into depth, with some interesting specifics, on what an NFL scout’s day looks like.

“You set your schedule in camp before you leave, and for the most part, you are gone 10 days to two weeks at a time. This can get drawn out but here goes.

“If you are a morning person and like to work out, this is the best time to do it, so you are usually up around 5-5:30 a.m. to get an hour in(, followed by eating) breakfast and (be) at your school somewhere around 7-8 a.m. depending on what time the school allows you in. You sit in a dark room by yourself or with other scouts and grind out the game tape.

“The game tape is not what you see on TV. There is no sound, and it is a sideline and end-zone view, and you watch a minimum of three games plus special teams. The biggest issue is to stay focused when it is quiet and you are in a dark room. At some point during the day, the pro liaison will come and talk to you regarding the players. He will either get into an in-depth conversation on players, or he will be vague. That will depend on the policy of the program set by the head coach.

“If you have watched the tape and spoken with the pro liaison, the next thing is (to) speak with the athletic trainer, strength coach and academic advisor. If you can get to a position coach, coordinator or head coach, (talk to them, too). All of these interviews help you build a bio/background on an individual player. This background can, and will, have a big bearing on the individual’s draft status. You want to dig and see if the individual can learn, and if he struggles, is it terminal, or is there a certain way he learns, and can he retain the information given to him? This will help also when you talk to your coaches about an individual player letting them know that there might be some issues with the player’s ability to learn. What we find are a lot of players that have reading comprehension issues. This causes a problem because of the volume of information given to players each and every day during training camp and the installation of an offense or defense.

“After you finish with your interviews, you head out to practice to get body types and watch the players move around. The body typing is helpful in many ways to see growth potential, for example. Are they a small-boned individual or big-boned? Large-boned players are usually naturally big and not self-made, allowing them to put on more weight, as opposed to a small-boned individual who is self-made, not naturally big, and who is susceptible to injury.  Is a lineman narrow-hipped, knock-kneed, high-cut (long legs)?  This will affect his ability to create power or anchor and play with good consistent leverage.

“Once you have gotten all your information and watched practice, you head to the car to drive to your next town.  It could be a hop, skip and a jump down the road or a four- to five-hour drive, sometimes more. Most times, you are done with practice between 4-5 in the afternoon.  Once you get to your next destination, you may have grabbed dinner on the road, or you get dinner and start typing your reports.  In any event you do not start typing reports until after dinner (time frame). I have been up until 1 a.m. typing reports, but most evenings will be somewhere around 11p.m., and you are up and back at it all over again the next day.

“The job has its perks, and where else do they pay you to watch football? The thing is, it isn’t as glamorous as people think, and it is a grind.  Most times, come November, there are a bunch of grumpy scouts, and that will affect how you view a player. You do find yourself coming out of camp being more lenient, but come November, you become much less lenient.”

We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from last week’s series with former Jets Director of Football Administration Ari Nissim, so we thought we’d try a similar tack this week with Mike Murphy. Mike served almost two decades as an NFL scout before getting let go in Miami when the team made a chance at general manager. As a scout, your life rises and falls with the fate of your GM; when a team brings in someone new at that position, he regularly cleans house and hires his own ‘team,’ similar to when a new head coach comes in and builds out his staff.

In his 18 years evaluating talent for NFL teams, Mike worked for the Chiefs, Seahawks and Cowboys before his most recent stint with the Dolphins. He’s also got a CFL background, having coached for Ottawa and worked in personnel for Winnipeg. Here’s his full bio.

Mike has CFL bloodlines; his father, Cal, was a legendary coach and GM up north, and is even a member of the league’s Hall of Fame. However, there are plenty of people who never translate their Canadian roots to the NFL, and Mike was able to make that jump, to his credit.

Here’s how it happened, in his own words:

“I was coaching in the CFL (Canadian Football League) and there were issues with the ownership at the time, with them bouncing checks to name a few things. I got to know an individual that worked with Kansas City who used to come to Canada and scout. We struck up a conversation about scouting, and they happened to have an opening. It took a little doing, by having people call on my behalf to the individual that was doing the hiring in the personnel department. As you would have guessed, it isn’t always what you know, but who you know. Once I got in, my boss told me that it was now my job to stay in, and that was 18 years ago.”

The thing I like about Mike is that I explained him the purpose and audience of this blog, and he ‘got it’ immediately. He sent me some very long, very nuanced answers to the 10 questions I sent him. It’s always a measure of the success of an interview with a scout when I find myself reading and re-reading the answers, soaking it in and finding plenty of information I hadn’t heard before. That’s true of Mike’s interview.

Maybe the best part of Mike’s interview is that when I asked him what advice he’d give someone looking to become an NFL scout, he gave me a 10-item, point-by-point breakdown of the things he’d do (and has done). I found it really illuminating.

Stick around this week. I think you’ll find it to be very educational.