WSW: Calming Carroll

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

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As you may know, one key part of the NFL combine is the night when the players are herded into a big room at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and all NFL teams get a crack at interviewing them for up to 15 minutes. Of course, that’s a pretty tight window, so teams have to get their questions in quickly and draw their conclusions almost as quickly. Usually teams hold interviews knowing that a kid can play, but they want to make sure there aren’t any off-the-field red flags they need to know about, so they focus on the usual questions about arrests, alcohol- and drug-related issues and the like.

Seattle has acquired a reputation for being very thorough not just in its scouting but in evaluating players that will go outside the top 100 players, and obviously, it’s paid great dividends. With that in mind, the Seahawks took an all-hands-on-deck approach to interviewing players, with head coach Pete Carroll himself getting out and speaking to selected players. One of them was Rob Blanchflower, a tight end from Massachusetts who despite a great career at UMass had missed the Senior Bowl with a leg injury. This created a bit more mystery surrounding the pass-catcher as teams weren’t able to do the normal level of due diligence. Within that context, Carroll stopped by for a quick chat.

“Rob, nice to meet you and talk to you,” Carroll said. “You seem like a really good guy. Tell me a little about yourself. Have you ever been in trouble? Done any drugs?”

“I drink a little,” Blanchflower replied.

Eager to make sure “a little” didn’t mean two cases and a bottle of scotch per day, Carroll followed up with another question. “What’s that mean?,” he asked.

“I drink when we celebrate,” the tight end said.

Starting to get a bit concerned, and probably thinking he might have tripped up on an area of concern, Carroll asked for clarification.

“What does that mean?” he asked again.

At that point, the Minuteman sensed a brewing storm he needed to head off, and he knew exactly how to do it.

“Coach, we were 1-11 last season,” Blanch said.

Carroll had no more concerns.

The Dead Period

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

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At ITL, we focus on the game behind the game; once you start to understand how the business of football works, it can be just as exciting as the game on the field. With that in mind, we thought we’d take a look at what’s going on behind the scenes in football this time of year, a time when most fans are working themselves into a frenzy counting down the minutes until camps start.

AFL: Arena teams are making their final pushes for the playoffs. Many teams are frantically trying to plug holes created by injuries, ineffectiveness, etc. Team officials, most of whom do their own scouting, are trying to find impact players, and more importantly, hoping to find agents or other contact info that can get them to the players they need.

NFLPA agent exam: Aspiring NFL contract advisors are gearing up to travel to Washington, D.C., next week for a two-day seminar that ends with a three-hour, open-book test covering 60 questions on the CBA and other related matters. They’ll find out at the end of September how they did. Historically, about 200-250 take the test and about 75 percent pass.

Agent days: Speaking of agents, several schools will hold meetings between the contract advisors registered with the school and the seniors who will be draft-eligible after the 2014 season. Typically, agents submit the names of players they wish to meet with in advance, and the school notifies them of the players who have expressed a mutual interest in meeting. The school usually asks agents to refrain from any other communications with players until after the season, which is problematic, but best left for discussion another time.

Training facilities: With the advent of a new CBA in 2011, much of the offseason emphasis for training switched from team facilities to training facilities all over the nation. Especially in NFL cities, you can find athletes at selected gyms, especially those that focus on combine prep, especially those in the Southeast.

Job-hunting gets tough: The desperation really sets in for NFL scouts let go in after the draft (as well as those who were dismissed in 2013). There’s a flurry of job-seeking for scouts in early June each year, but those jobs are filled quickly, and once they’re gone, opportunities are rare. Some scouts will find places with AFL teams, but not until after the season is over later this summer. Others will try to latch on with colleges in the increasingly common ‘director of player personnel’ roles, but most schools are looking to fill these jobs with young (and less expensive) coaches.

All-star games: Many groups see all-star games as a good way to bring the excitement of the gridiron to a city that doesn’t have an NFL team or direct affiliation with a major college football program. They use the summer to explore the viability of bringing 100 draft-eligible players to their local stadium in January to be studied and evaluated by NFL teams. Right now, we know of at least three games that are in exploratory stages, and I’m in preliminary discussion stages of running one of them. If I come to terms with the game’s organizers, I’ll announce it in this space.

I know this kind of information isn’t necessarily the kind that gets your blood pumping and your heart racing, but if your aim is to be part of the game — and this blog is designed for just such people — it helps to start thinking of the football biz as a 12-month proposition. Knowing what’s going on all around the game will help you find your niche.

Finding sleepers

14 Monday Jul 2014

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If there’s one question I always get, especially from my newer agent clients but also from my more seasoned ones, it’s ‘how do you find a sleeper?’ Where are the seniors who come out of nowhere, climb the charts over the last weeks of the season, test well, and wind up on NFL rosters?

I can’t say I have the answer to that. In fact, at last year’s combine, I had lunch with one of the more seasoned scouts in the game, a great guy and a great friend. I asked him this question, and he didn’t really have an answer, either. In discussing it with him, my takeaway was that most teams spend about two-thirds of their time on the guys who’ll be taken in the top third of the draft roughly, i.e., rounds 1-3. Most teams see these guys as the real difference-makers, the players that will make or break their rosters, so they want to spend an inordinate amount of time on these particular players. The ones who go in rounds 4-7 — most typically the players we’d characterize as sleepers — aren’t seen as players who will help you win titles. They may be solid starters in time, and might even develop into stars, but the risk isn’t worth the reward, generally. Teams get busy, they can’t apply the resources to evaluating everybody, and players fall through the cracks.

So what’s the best way to find guys that are ‘under the radar’ or ‘off the grid?’ Here’s my take on it.

  • One way is to find players who were jucos that don’t have a lengthy body of work at the four-year college level and bloom late. I know there is very little evaluation done at the JC level, mostly because players don’t go from a juco to the draft very often.
  • A second way is to find a college basketball player who just switched to football (i.e., the Saints’ Jimmy Graham or Chargers’ Antonio Gates). There’s a tight end at Indianapolis, Erik Swoope, whom we’ve mentioned previously that fits this profile for the 2014 draft class.
  • Another way is to find players who didn’t play football until college, or very little high school ball, especially if they came from other countries (a la Detroit’s Zeke Ansah or Indy’s Bjoern Woerner or Oakland’s Menelik Watson, all from the ‘13 draft class).
  • A fourth way is to find guys who switched to impact positions late (usually before their senior seasons, but maybe even mid-season). These are typically tight ends who move to OT, or maybe DTs who move to OG, or whatever. Less frequently, you find RBs or WRs that move to CB, or even QBs who move to WO. But all of these qualify.
  • The fifth way is to find a good player at an un-sexy position – he’s good, but not high-impact – who plays either in the far Northeast (Maine/New Hampshire/Rhode Island, etc.) or the Southwest/Mountain West (West Texas/Utah/Nevada/New Mexico/Idaho/Montana/Dakotas). A good example for the ’14 draft class is New Mexico C Dillon Farrell, who signed with the 49ers as an undrafted free agent this spring. They’re trying him at tackle.
  • A sixth way is to find pure track stars that will ‘test out of the gym’ but who aren’t really ‘football players’ yet (but want to give it a try). Florida WR Jeff Demps is an example of this from the ’13 draft class; he’s a guy that’s got great tools that is still developing as a player.

There may be other ways. I know no one has the ‘patent’ on this, but these seem to be the patterns for most players who come out of nowhere, figuratively speaking, and enjoy NFL success.

The SIF Interview: Don Mewhort (Pt. 2)

11 Friday Jul 2014

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Today, we continue our conversation with Don Mewhort, whose son, Jack, was drafted 2/59 by the Colts in May.

As you read Jack’s answers, there are a few things I find noteworthy. First, he cautions that a good agent doesn’t over-promise, and in fact is adamant that the only person who can improve a player’s ‘draft stock’ is the player himself. Second, though contact with agents was (rightly) restricted by Don and his attorney father, the limited contacts that several agents had with Jack before the season seemed to factor into the Buckeye’s final decision. He also has an interesting idea on what the NFLPA might provide to NFL draft prospects that he would have found helpful.

When did you conduct meetings with agents?

People would come into Toledo and meet with my father (an attorney) and I and that happened from right now through Thanksgiving, maybe the Michigan game (Nov. 30). We met with a number of people, then narrowed the list down after the regular season, after the Big Ten Championship Game (Dec. 7), and we narrowed the list down, and after that, coordinated that, narrowed it more. After the Big Ten Championship Game we had it down to four. Jack was not that involved in that process. It was more my father and I who did it, and he left it up to us. He was more focused on football at that point. And really the reason for that was that the people we had spoken to, everybody emphasized that the most important thing for Jack to do was having a good senior season.

Did any agents ever offer anything illegal or make any untoward advances?

No, no one.

From what you saw, what tipped the scales to Priority Sports for Jack?

I think there was a personal connection between Mike (McCartney) and Jack that they developed, and I’ll tell you, the final four were very, very close. It was a very difficult decision. I think the client base that Priority Sports had was helpful, because they had (ex-Buckeye and former NFL first-rounder) A.J. Hawk as a client, so the other type of clients they had we thought fit with the kind of player and person Jack was. We felt the agent selected would be accessible for Jack, and we felt that way for the others as well, but (we felt that) once he made that decision, the agent wasn’t going to disappear for four years. We felt any of the final four were going to be real advisors to him. One of the things I think Mike did a good job of doing, and one of the things Priority did well, was that they were very straight from the very beginning that there’s not a lot of things that an agent can do to improve your draft slot. It’s really how well you do in your senior year. I would warn people that go through the process that if (an agent) tells you they’re going to make you a first-round draft pick, ask them how they’re going to do that. It’s really flattering (for agents) to tell (potential clients) how good they are, but if they can’t tell you how they’re going to take you from a fourth-round draft pick to a first-round pick . . . ask them how it’s going to happen. One thing that was consistent among all the finalists was that they were very straightforward with us, and what they were telling us was true and not what we wanted to hear.

Did you have a lot of people who told you they could really move Jack up in the draft?

Some people would tout their relationships in the league and stuff like that; they know this guy or they’re tied in with this person, or, well, you know. But we were pretty careful. Of the 10-15 people we met with, we were pretty careful with who we met with. The ones we met with were all pretty professional. We were pleased. They were all very competent people. You have to make a decision, and one personality might fit a little better with your son.

So Jack made his decision based solely off the presentations the four finalists made on that day after the season when you conducted interviews?

 

Well, he had had conversations with most of the guys, on and off, and had talked to them before, before we had asked people to hold off on calling, or maybe traded some texts or had some interaction with them. Maybe he had seen them after a game. But (the day when we conducted interviews is) when the harder questions were asked about how it was going to work. We couldn’t have even brought them in if they hadn’t had some interaction with Jack before then.

Did the school try to limit your contact with agents or put any other restraints on you?

The compliance department at Ohio State is ‘on it.’ They do an excellent job of trying to educate the kids and parents about the pitfalls if you don’t handle it properly. They didn’t put any restrictions on us but they did educate us on it, and if you have a question, you better go to compliance and talk to them. That comes straight from Coach Meyer. He doesn’t want anyone to say they didn’t know. (Athletic Director) Gene Smith and the compliance people do a really good job.

What is the one thing – resource, advisor, whatever – you wished you’d had at this time last summer?

What would be helpful for parents is if the Players Association would put out the contracts from players from the previous draft. Like, ‘here’s what the second pick in the fourth round got in ’12, and this was their agent,’ because everyone brought in their own interpretation of the contracts. If the (NFLPA) could put out a consistent document that said, ‘this is what everyone got, and this was their agent,’ that would be helpful. Because you can go online, but you can’t tell what’s guaranteed and what’s not guaranteed, and I think it would be helpful for agents as well.

We’re probably a little different, but you got to find someone you can trust. You feel someone else can do it better, or a coach, or a lawyer, or an accountant, somebody at church, but somebody who doesn’t care and that can help you with it. As a parent, you get a little biased, and you’re probably not as objective as you should be. You should find that person who only cares about your kid, that can be helpful, and obviously the service (ITL provides) is helpful.

The SIF Interview: Don Mewhort (Pt. 1)

10 Thursday Jul 2014

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Though we usually reserve Fridays for our interview series, we wanted to get a head start on things this week for our conversation with Don Mewhort. Like Marion Graves, whom we interviewed last week, Don and his wife, Gail, received our newsletter aimed at parents of draft-eligible seniors. It helped him as he led the vetting process for his son, Jack, who was selected 2/59 by the Colts in May after a sterling career on the offensive line at Ohio State.

Going into his senior season, what was your perception of what round Jack would be drafted, and where did you get that information from?

“We thought he’d be drafted, but we didn’t have any idea where, maybe in the first five rounds, and where we got that information, we got it from various websites and media outlets. Ohio State didn’t provide any resources for that. Ohio State stayed out of it pretty much. That being said, I didn’t think it was appropriate to work through Ohio State on that. Given the history with agents and universities, I didn’t think it was appropriate to rely on them for that. Coach Meyer and I have a great relationship and I think he would have helped me but I didn’t think it was appropriate.

“Ohio State’s coaches never offered advice on agent selection. However, (former Ohio State assistant coach) Mike Vrabel talked to parents on his experience before Jack’s junior year, in the summer between his sophomore and junior year, and that was an Ohio State-sponsored thing with the parents group.”

What resource or person did you use in the agent vetting process? The school? A friend who played in the NFL? A former OSU teammate? Parents of a former teammate?

“We had a friend who was in the business who was formerly in player representation that I spoke to. He has been out of the business for a long time. We talked to him. We also talked to (ITL’s Neil Stratton) briefly, and I think that was the extent of it.”

How much anxiety or apprehension did you have about the agent selection process going into Jack’s senior year? Was the process intimidating?

“I don’t’ think (Gail and I) felt any anxiety about the process. We only felt anxiety about the phone calls and texts that Jack was receiving.”

When did those start?

“(Mid-July), I guess. The way we handled it, when I got calls, or we got calls at home, we asked (Jack) to refer all the calls to me, and there was a process that we were going to go through, and we asked that they respect Jack’s privacy and commitment to his senior season. We didn’t really want him to be distracted. It can be overwhelming for the (players). It’s flattering, and kind of like going through the recruiting process again, but I’m not sure it’s in the best interest of the kids to be getting recruiting calls from agents during their season.”

How did you go about deciding how you would handle the selection process?

“It’s something we came up with, my wife and I and my father who’s an attorney; he’s semi-retired and had some time to spend on it. We tried to gather as much info as we could from the various agents, and (my father) and I met with a number of people and tried to narrow the list as much as we could. We probably actually met with 10, and then narrowed the list to five, and then picked a day in Columbus, and his mother and I met with the final group, between the regular season and the bowl game. We wanted to have everybody on the same day, so we had the same context for everybody. We met with each of them for about an hour, hour and a half, and then at that point it was really Jack’s decision.”

Did any agents offer illegal inducements to sign Jack? How did agents pitch Jack and the Mewhort family in an attempt to sway them to their side? What’s Don’s advice to other parents? It will all be in Friday’s edition. See you then.

WSW: Pursuing a passer

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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We’ve kind of danced around over the past couple weeks, touching on agent topics one day and scout topics the next, and rarely keeping a steady narrative. Once again, we’ll step away from our recent path for a story about agent recruiting.

I remember in the Fall of 2007 or 2008 watching a mid-week college game pitting Nevada and another mid-major team from out West, and the Wolfpack’s quarterback was sensational. His name was Colin Kaepernick, and he was tall and rangy (the new draft buzzword is “length”) and could really run. In fact, he left the pocket for several long gainers during the game. He also had a rocket for an arm; the broadcasters said he had an extensive baseball background with a fastball in the 90s, and I believed it. Though he ran an offense some considered gimmicky (the Pistol) and was still pretty raw, he had undeniable tools and was very productive. I filed him away mentally as a player to watch.

Sometime in late 2010, I remember speaking to Scott Smith of XAM Sports, and he let slip that he’d been recruiting Kaepernick. I was really enthusiastic about Kaep and I let him know, and pretty soon we were recounting how each of us had seen that same mid-week game some years ago and really become excited about his potential. As we continued our discussion, it became pretty clear that XAM had made recruiting Kaep the centerpiece of its efforts for the 2011 NFL draft, and though several mid-sized firms had reached out to the family, Scott liked his chances, having developed an excellent rapport with his parents. That turned out to be a real winning formula, as Kaep was leaning on his mom and dad to handle the vetting process for him.

As his senior season progressed and it became obvious that he was a special player, some of the big firms moved in. I remember finding out that CAA’s Ken Kremer entered the recruiting process very late and made a strong push because the agency had (and has) so much juice, but eventually, Scott called me to tell me XAM was getting Kaepernick. He signed, was drafted early in the second round by the 49ers in 2011, and remains a player who’s not ‘there’ yet, but whose needle is certainly pointing up. You could certainly argue that he’s the best quarterback in his draft class.

It’s truly a rarity for a mid-sized firm to ‘steal’ a big player, but it was a bit of a perfect storm of conditions surrounding Kaep. They were:

His head coach, Chris Ault, is old-school, with no agent ties: Many big-school head coaches make little or no secret of their relationships to agents and regularly make referrals. There are absolutely no rules restricting this practice. However, Nevada’s head coach at the time is not that way. Not at all.

Parents played a key role: Sometimes, a player’s parents make no effort to get educated or assist in the process. Even when they do, many prospects make their agent choices without consulting their parents. Neither was the case with Kaep. His parents were an essential part of the process.

He played at remote school: Even in the age of air travel and the Internet, prospects who play at schools in the less populous states in the Southwest and ‘Mountain West’ — Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, etc. — are more prone to getting overlooked, both by NFL scouts and agents.

He was rated as barely draftable: Agents lean heavily on the ratings services the NFL uses to gauge players’ ability going into their senior seasons, and he was registering as a seventh-rounder who was firmly on the draft bubble going into his senior season.

Other QBs were getting all the press: Remember, in ’11, Cam Newton was the clear ‘it’ player and went No. 1 overall, and three other signal-callers went in the first round (Locker, Gabbert and Ponder), all from BCS schools with strong pedigrees. It’s been my experience that the media, and even NFL teams in some cases, get more excited about junior prospects as there’s some measure of ‘senior fatigue.’ Kaepernick was perceived as far less safe than the five signal-callers (Newton, Locker, Gabbert, Ponder and Dalton) who went before him.

We’ll have more about the game inside the game Thursday.

Does an agent really matter?

08 Tuesday Jul 2014

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I was being interviewed by the Texas Tribune’s Terri Langford for this story in late June, and in the course of our conversation, she asked a question that I often hear: “What difference does all of this make? Does an agent really matter?” That question has been turning over in my mind for weeks now. I think I finally have an answer, so let’s s leave the topic of training fees today to discuss it.

I have to admit that when Terri asked me this question, I stumbled a bit. I should have had a ready answer, because the very question gets at the legitimacy of the entire sports representation industry. I don’t take the question personally; after all, I’m no agent, have never been an agent, and have no plans to be one. Still, many of my closest friends in the business are the most established contract advisors in the business, and others are trying to get there.

I guess the thing that irks me most is that whenever someone in the business — often a coach, a school official or a compliance professional — asks that question, their real agenda is to dismiss agents, though that wasn’t Terri’s intention.  So, next time I get this question, I’ll have an answer in two parts.

Here’s the first part. Let’s say you were accused of murder. Your life is on the line, and obviously, you need a lawyer. How would you go about finding one? Would you just settle for whoever the court appointed for you? Would you Google ‘defense lawyer’ and then just take the first guy that popped up in your browser? Would you just call a buddy who’d had legal trouble and take whoever he recommended? Of course not. You’d gather as much information as you possibly could, get educated on the charges you face, and try to find the most experienced and successful attorney you could afford.

Finding the right agent is very comparable for a young man aspiring to play in the NFL. The only difference is that his professional life, not his actual life, is what’s on the line. When a coach, school official, or other person forbids any contact between agents and players or their parents, he’s essentially taking away that research process.

Here’s the second part. The Colts signed a tight end named Erik Swoope as an undrafted free agent this spring. Ever heard of him? Unless you are a fan of Miami (Fla.) basketball, probably not. However, I bet you’ve heard of Saints TE Jimmy Graham. Their stories are similar: played hoops for the ‘Canes, had limited football experience (no football experience, in Swoope’s case), and wanted to give tight end a try. They also have one other thing in common: their agent, CAA’s Jimmy Sexton. Now, if Swoope wasn’t a Sexton client, maybe he’d have gotten a shot with an NFL team. But having a powerful agent going to bat for you, and having that agent tell his NFL contacts that he’s got a guy who reminds him of another of his ultra-successful clients, is more than a little advantageous.

These reasons may seem intuitive, but I’ve never had them at the ready when I got the ‘what are agents for’ question. Now I do, and so do you.

War Story Wednesday tomorrow. We’ll have something good. Check us out then.

 

 

NFL Agent ABCs (re: training fees)

07 Monday Jul 2014

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The escalating costs of training draft prospects, along with even the lowest-ratest players’ expectations of training, has made the business of being an NFL agent an expensive proposition. There are a few ways of handling this without writing big checks.

The first way is to refuse to pay for training. There’s one big agent from the Midwest who represents several head coaches at big FBS schools, and he continually gets his coaching clients to (a) recommend him for representation and (b) encourage the players to train at the school, not at a combine prep facility. This works very well for the agent, but 99 percent of agents don’t have that kind of a coaching clientele. For the rest of the business, having a ‘no training’ strategy pretty much relegates an agent to the lowest of the lowest-rated clients, the longest of the long shots. Constantly going to bat for such players can be trying and can kill your credibility with the scouts and team officials.

A second way to deal with this is to offer to pay a set fee. You can call this a ‘stipend’ or a ‘signing bonus’ or an ‘allotment’ or whatever you want to call it. Your client can then apply it to his training, or to a place to live, or to nutrition, or whatever. What you often find in the business is that players take the cost of training for granted, and give their contract advisors very little credit for covering this. What they really want is something in their pockets. If you go this route, you’ve fixed your costs while also asking the player to take part in managing finances. Like the first strategy, this one is going to limit the prospects you can sign, but it’s also going to keep you from blowing through an unlimited wad of cash.

A third approach is to offer to split the training with the player’s family. This can be an awkward conversation, but if a player is truly looking for good representation and not just a free ride through the spring, it can work. More and more, parents are starting to get involved in the costs of training, but it can be hard to figure out what families have such resources. In this case, you’ll probably need to have a good trainer at the ready who’s nearby the player’s family so the living expenses can be reduced.

In all these strategies, you’ll need to find the right player to pursue this. Probably not one who’s being highly recruited, and one who has taken his studies rather seriously. We’ll talk more about finding players this week.

The SIF Interview: Marion Graves

04 Friday Jul 2014

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We were fortunate enough to have Marion Graves receive our first-ever newsletter aimed at parents of draft-eligible seniors last fall. With ‘agent days’ under way across the country and contract advisors reaching out aggressively to acquaint themselves with the top ’15 draft prospects, we thought today might be a good day to share her insights on the interview process, the help she got from her son’s school, and other topics.

Marion is the mother Redskins OT Morgan Moses, who was selected 3/66 out of the University of Virginia last spring. She has a unique perspective on things because (a) she was intimately involved in the vetting and education process — which we highly recommend for parents of potential draftees — and (b) her son essentially went through the vetting process twice as he strongly considered entering the NFL draft after his junior season with the Cavs.

When did you first start hearing from agents? “Well, this was our second time around, so we were a little more knowledgeable because Morgan had a chance to go to the NFL in his junior year, and we were approached then by a lot of different agents, and had our information together. We have a very strong family and that was a really good benefit for Morgan. A lot of us are very business-minded, and when we had a meeting we went collectively as a family. That made it a lot easier this time around, and we knew pretty much what we were looking for.”

How close did he come to coming out before his senior year? “He was very close. It was just days before his information had to be submitted to the draft that he decided to stay. We selected finalists, and of the group that we talked to his junior year, there were at least three of them that moved with us into his senior year. So we checked with the ones we were interested in, and charted it out and did our own diligence, and when we got to the final three, we prepared notes and talked to Morgan, and the majority of the conversations regarded information we had gathered for him. We saw at least 20-30 different agents that we actually met with (during the vetting process).”

Did any make offers or do anything that seemed untoward or illegal? “There were some that I felt were crossing the border or on the edge of the border legally, and the way they handled themselves, we pretty much deiced we were not going to follow through with them. We didn’t get a lot of that from agents because I guess for me and for my family, it was all about what we needed for Morgan, and not my personal needs or anybody else’s personal needs. That’s one thing. I know many parents don’t exactly have a silver spoon in their mouth, but if they don’t (put the focus) on what (their son) really needs, they hurt the person they’re trying to represent.”

How helpful was UVa? “The school did a good job, but because we started this as juniors, we didn’t take advantage of all the information they made available to us. They had a meeting with everybody (seniors on the team) that was interested in moving forward (to the NFL), and it was not convenient to us so we didn’t go, but I did review their information and it was helpful. They really did a good job preparing us for the disability insurance (prior to Morgan’s senior season). Based on what I’ve heard from other parents, we got a lot more information than other schools. They were very helpful when determining the different types of disability policies (before his senior year). They didn’t point us in any direction in particular, but they informed us and forwarded mail to us, and any time we had questions, we just had to ask and the coaching staff gave us their opinions. They also pushed us to do our own due diligence. They didn’t want to sway us in one way or another, but they did want us to be informed.”

Advice: “As a family, sit down with the player and find out what they want. They’re excited and they’re moving to the next level, but they don’t have a full understanding of their needs. Get a full understanding of . . . what they think their needs are. Then also, go through the school. They’ve been with our child for four years, and they’re not going to sway him in the wrong direction.”

On the ITL newsletter for parents of draft-eligible seniors: “The information I saw in your newsletter was helpful. We had to understand what we wanted to do and what we needed to do before getting tied into a lot of other people who really wanted (to be paid) as well. It’s not just about the agents, but everything, from the financial planning aspect to business managers, and anyone who’s going to cover any needs for the player. When they’re coming at you, you have no money to manage (yet)! The good thing about it is that when you admonish us to do our due diligence (in the newsletter), it’s not just on the level of the agent.”

NFL Agent ABCs (Pt. 3)

03 Thursday Jul 2014

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So far, we’ve discussed the costs of registering with the NFLPA and the costs associated with recruiting. Today, let’s talk about training fees.

I always say that the business of football representation turns over about every 3-4 years. If there’s been one major change in the last half-decade, it’s combine prep. The specialized training that football prospects receive has gone from something that nobody did (15 years ago) to something that the biggest firms offered to players rated as certified first-rounders (10 years ago) to something that most draftable players got (five years ago) to something that every player that aspires to be drafted expects from his agent.

How much does training cost? For the truly established programs that have been training first-rounders for years and have proven track records, you’re looking at a total training cost that approaches $25,000-$30,000. That cost usually includes 6-8 weeks of training plus lodging, supplements and food designed to enhance muscle-building and take weight off (or put it on). Some facilities also offer options. For example, most top prospects will expect a car, so facilities might roll this into the price. Some prospects will want individual rooms rather than roommates. There are also out-of-pocket expenses like deep tissue massage or interview prep; some trainers roll this into the total price, and some make them options. The problem is, when one athlete sees his training brethren getting these perks, it’s hard for an agent to tell him he’s not inclined to pay for such add-ons. Of course, this doesn’t address the cost of flying the prospect home to see his girlfriend, or celebrate a parent’s birthday weekend, or any other special request an elite client might have.

As one might expect, this has had a major impact on the people seeking to represent young athletes. The cost of training has truly separated the men from the boys when it comes to agencies, with some flatly refusing to pay exorbitant training fees and some seeing them as the cost of doing business. It’s a major risk that comes with no guarantees. Probably every other year I get a new agent who subscribes who spent more than $20,000 on combine prep for a player who’s not on an NFL roster the week after the draft.

Often, an agent comes to the business completely oblivious about training fees and what they represent in the recruiting process. I guess the upside is that contract advisors with unlimited resources can often land late-round prospects with tip-top training offers. Of course, the odds of late-round draftees making it to a second contract are not good, so chances of recovering by assessing an annual three percent on the player’s contract are remote. Ineffective play, injuries, or abundance at a position might conspire to keep a player off a team’s roster, and unless he makes the active 53, he owes his agent nothing.

We’ll talk about how agents deal with exorbitant training fees in Monday’s edition.

In today’s newsletter, we’ve got a sample question for the NFLPA exam. Here’s the answer: (C) $885,000.00.

The explanation: First you must determine signing bonus proration, in this case $800K/4 years = $200K/yr. Then add that number to the first year paragraph 5 salary. $420K + $200K = $620K. Then apply the 25% Rule – multiply the $620K by 0.25 (25%) = $155K. That is the max yearly increase. Then just add the numbers for each year:

Year 1 – $420K
Year 2 – $420K + $155K = $575K
Year 3 – $575K + $155K = $730K
Year 4 – $730K + $155K = $885K