After wrapping up a whirlwind trip through four towns and four bowls in four weeks, it’s good to be home, sleeping in my bed for a while before heading to Indy for the combine.

It’s always great to get out on the road and see ‘my peeps,’ but this year I used the time to pose a question to all my experienced agent clients, the ones that are consistently signing draftable players and have an active player list of 10-20. I felt this question would be perfect for this space as well as an interesting marker to review in the future.

The question: You’re signing a player who will be drafted, you’re certain, most likely in the seventh round. What do you offer him? What’s it gonna take?

The thought process behind this question was that most players who go into December looking like seventh-rounders wind up — after juniors declare/combine/pro day/etc. — as good, solid camp guys after the draft. So what I was really asking was, what does it cost just to get a guy into camp on the 90-man roster? What’s the financial ‘floor’ if you want to get a player signed and into camp?

The answer I got was full combine training for eight weeks plus a weekly stipend starting the day the player signs the SRA (standard representation agreement). A training package includes residence, of course, along with food (not McDonald’s — usually meals prepared specifically for the player by someone at his training facility or a third-party provider hired by the trainer) and usually a rental car. Training alone, provided the young man isn’t living at home and isn’t providing his own means and supplements, is probably $6,000-$7,000 if you use our turn-key training offer, maybe more depending on the location of the training and if it’s a big-name trainer. There are a number of variables here. All trainers offer a number of a la carte features (NFL interview training, deep tissue massage and position-specific training are all good examples) that can bump that number up considerably. Also keep in mind that training at a top-level, brand name facility is at least double this total.

The weekly stipend/per diem you’re looking at is anywhere from $200-$250 per week. The variable there is, when does it end? Some agents said the deal they work is that they pay the player through his pro day. Some go all the way to the draft. Some pay only through March.

So let’s do the math. If we take the midpoint on a comprehensive training package at a solid-but-not-big-name training facility, let’s say the total is $7,000. Then let’s say the player signs on Jan. 1, which isn’t unreasonable. We’ll take the high side on weekly stipend, just to make the math easy, and we’ll pay the player through the end of March. That means you’re looking at $10,000 for every player you sign, and again, that’s the floor.

Most mid-size agencies sign 3-5 players for the draft, hoping half of them stick or get drafted late. Let’s go high side on this. That means you’re probably spending in the neighborhood of $50,000 to get 1-3 players into camp with no guarantees.

The deadline for registering to be part of the 2015 NFLPA contract advisor class is about a week away. If you’re considering taking the CBA exam, consider these numbers this weekend.

These days, when I’m having one conversation after another with agents, combine trainers, parents, media members, some scouts, coaches and others around the game, I hear a lot of things. A lot of it is code, so I thought I’d pass along some of it here, partly because it amuses me, and partly because, if you’re going to be in the business, you need to know what it means.

Today’s lesson is on the statement: ‘We haven’t even spoken to that kid.’

A big part of what our Rep Rumblings reports is credible information on who’s signing with whom, who’s recruiting whom, who’s firing whom, who’s hiring whom, and other such buzz. Not all of it is proven, black-and-white, cut-and-dried stuff. That means I have to trust the sources that have shown themselves to be reliable after 10-plus years of doing this. Sometimes I’m wrong, I’ll admit, but most of the time, I’m right.

This time of year, especially, we are constantly rolling out info about players who are near signing with certain agents. Sometimes the info is hazy, and we can only report the progress of the vetting process, but sometimes we name the agency. That almost always earns us a phone call from the agency. Sometimes, they freely admit that they are talking to the kid, but deny that they are the favorite. Sometimes they admit they are the favorite, but they’re upset (based on our relationship) that we reported it. But sometimes, they categorically deny that they’ve even spoken to the kid. In fact, that’s exactly what they say: “We haven’t even spoken to the kid.”

In these instances, I’ve learned, it’s important to parse words. Last week, I posted sensitive info about an agency that I was told had the inside track on a mid-round talent in the ’15 draft. Sometime later that day, I got the inevitable call, with an agent (who’s become one of my better friends and is with one of the more honorable firms in the business) claiming there had been no communications with the player in question. I expressed my regret for information he claimed was misguided. I was to learn later, however, that no actual verbal communication did not mean no interest. To his credit, later the same agent expressed that he and his agency had tried to get in through the player’s coach, but had not actually spoken to the young man. What he had originally said was untrue is still untrue, and I had been wrong, but it was also true that I hadn’t been completely off-base.

Here’s another, better example. Probably four or five years ago, I got a tip from a reliable source that a major firm would sign a big-time player in draft that was still more than a year away. My source had been reliable and he was adamant, so I ran with the info. I got no response from the agency right away. However, a year later, shortly after the draft, one of the firm’s agents contacted me. “We never even talked to that kid until a couple of months ago,” he said. Well, maybe not, but obviously, someone had been talking to him. You don’t sign a highly touted player with a casual phone call a couple months before the draft.

You almost need a Rosetta Stone to interpret some of the things you hear in this business. More translations to come.

Last Thursday for our weekly war story, I talked about a difficult situation I’d encountered in my days running the Hula Bowl that was handled with class and respect by an agent I’ve had a long-running relationship with. Today, the other side of the coin.

In those days, though the Hula Bowl was the No. 3 game, it was a hard sell to established agents and top players. Though the game was being played in America’s paradise, East Coast-based players faced a 7-10 hour flight to get to Honolulu on a commercial airline flying in an economy class seat. We were also the first game in the cycle, meaning players would have to miss the first week of combine prep and/or they’d be playing a bowl game almost right up to departure time for Hawaii. There were also concerns about how many scouts would make it to the game and other considerations that are a normal part of the process. Bottom line, I had to be in ‘sell’ mode 24-7, always recruiting, always trying to keep invitees and their agents happy.

Sometime late in December, I got a call from an agent who had signed one of our better receivers and one of our few invitees from the SEC. Obviously, a touchdown-scorer from the nation’s most glamorous conference was a key part of our roster, and would help draw scouts, so I was pretty angry when he called to tell us the young man was withdrawing. But my anger doubled when the agent casually reassured me with this: ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ve got you another guy.’

Well, I was younger then, and maybe I would handle things better today, but that really made me blow my top. I tried to control my anger on the phone with the guy, but I’m sure I was tempted to throw something as soon as we were done. Why? Because not only was he pulling one of our ‘A’ players, but he wanted me to do him a favor by substituting in a ‘B’ player. I felt, and still feel, that getting an agent’s player into a postseason all-star game does the agent and his client a tremendous service (though most agents feel they’re the ones doing the favor). So when he dismissed me, then expected me to happily take his lesser client, well, that was tough to take.

The football business is a rather small one, so you see the same faces every year. At the time, I didn’t know this agent especially well, but I’ve continued to move in the same circles as he does, and I’ve since found other reasons to believe my trust in him would be misplaced. It is what it is.

If you’re aspiring to work in this business, let me just say that you’ll come across many people who are self-serving and disrespectful. That’s life, but maybe people like that are more common in the gridiron game. Never repay disrespect with your own rancor, but also trust your gut and your instincts. Those who burn you once are probably going to be inclined to try to burn you twice. Avoid that if you can.