It’s a simple question: what makes a can’t-miss player fail?

I asked five scouts the same question, and I got a variety of responses. I expected them all to be a variation of ‘you can’t measure heart, and you have to really want it, and some players don’t,’ but it turned out to be much more than that.

Here are few responses that I got back in texts:

• “GM and Coach-driven draft pick:” I think this response was intended to illustrate that sometimes GMs want a player, but a coach doesn’t, and either the player proves to be a bad fit for the team, or the coach doesn’t give the player a sufficient chance to succeed. I’ll buy that. It’s one reason.
• “Reaching for a player because of need. You pass on a great player because you think you are good at that position, (and take) a player not worthy of that slot. You are one injury away from not having a great player at that position:” I think this makes sense, too. Florida State’s E.J. Manuel comes to mind. Despite a great series of pre-draft workouts, most scouts I know saw him in the third or fourth round. The Bills, however, badly needed a passer, and three years later, he’s barely hanging onto a roster spot. “It’s not the player’s fault he was overdrafted,” my friend added.
• “There’s not a single reason. Each player — hits and misses — is unique:” I expected to get this answer from several sources, but most scouts were more specific.
• “The No. 1 thing is they can’t play at the mental speed of the pro game. The complexity of the pro game . . . they’re not able to handle the mental pressure that is applied by having to play so much faster. It’s so much more complicated. You have to watch tape. If guys are slow reactors on the field .. . if QBs hold the ball too long, and don’t see progressions, and don’t let the ball go, they’re never gonna do it in pro ball. If a lineman can’t see the blitz, and doesn’t pass off well on stunts, there’s no way he’ll do it in pro football. You get all these wonderful measurables added up, and a coach will say, “we can fix it.” Most of the time you can’t. It’s between the ears. It’s so much mental. If you can’t play strong and sharp and fast, you start to lose confidence, and then you can’t function:” I would agree with this, but it’s a little hard to measure. How do you predict who will be able to process the speed of the game, and who won’t? It’s not the kind of thing the Wonderlic can measure.

I think draft success is a function of talent and ability, mixed with system and ability for a team to adapt to a player’s talents (and vice versa), and finally, where a player is drafted. First-rounders get paid reasonably well, and for a lot of players, a switch flips and the hunger isn’t the same as it is for a fourth-rounder who thought he was going at the top of the second round.

There are probably many more theories on why players don’t make it. I hope to revisit this topic again in the near future.

I was on the phone with a longtime friend who’s an area scout last week. I was discussing with him some of my interns, and how often they are hoping to get into the business some day. I think I mentioned that I’m always trying to ‘crack the code’ for finding opportunities for young people in such a situation. His response was that it’s very simple.

“I would tell them to get G.A. jobs,” he said. “That seems to be where everyone is hiring from these days.”

Could it be that simple? Well, maybe so.

At ITL, we track these things, and do brief backgrounds on the scouts that are getting hired by NFL teams these days. I think most scouts that have been in the game more than 10 years were former coaches who moved in through their relationships. Relationships are still very important, which is just another reason to find a grad assistant job if you’re in college and hoping to be an NFL talent evaluator someday. That’s especially true if you’re a grad assistant assigned to the personnel department, a relatively new part of college staffs.

Think about it.

• You get to work around football, obviously, even though college ‘personnel’ jobs vary widely in what they actually mean.
• You meet key people around the game. This is especially true if you are able to help out with pro days, or even organize them; most college coaches see this as a chore, not an opportunity.
• You get to learn all the buzzwords, practices, habits and expectations of people around the game.
• Most importantly, you will probably meet several actual NFL scouts, and perhaps even win them over. There are no better people for bringing you into the league than those already in the league.

At the end of the day, an all-consuming work ethic is the most important thing you need to get into the business, but connections are an important part, too. If you’re a college student reading this right now, I urge you to do whatever you can to volunteer for your school’s team. Do it right now. Even if you’re already a sport management major. Even if you’ve never picked up a football in your life. It’s probably the best way to get you on track, immediately, for a job in football.

One thing that intrigues me (and a lot of people) is the scouting process, and how NFL teams evaluate players. Is there one team that seems to do a better job than others, and that most NFL teams recognize as superior in the draft process?

In Fall 2014, during a presentation for sport management majors at Rice University, I asked former Texans, Redskins and Lions scout Miller McCalmon if there was one team known around the league as the best at finding college talent. If you’d rather watch him respond than read his response, click here.

“Without question, the Green Bay Packers probably do as good a job as anybody in the league. Somebody did a statistical analysis, and they listed the amount of players, I think at the start of the year (in 2014) that were drafted players. Green Bay had the most percentage of drafted players of any other team in the league. I would think Baltimore would be up there pretty high, too; they do a good job of drafting.

“It was interesting. Along with my duties as a pro scout in Detroit, I did the advanced scouting, so I never watched us play. I was always at our next opponent’s game. I had to write a report, and I’d get that prepared during the week, then after the game I would finish it up and send it to the intern, and he would run it off and hand it to the coaches so they’d have my report from the game. But we would have a section in there of the free agent signings and that sort of thing. A couple of years, Green Bay didn’t have any. Most teams would have four or five guys that they signed as free agents; well, Green Bay wouldn’t have any at times. Now, later on in the season, it would be more because they’d have to pick up somebody because of injuries or that sort of thing. But I think statistically, if you go down and you look at their roster, they have more drafted players on their roster than probably any other team, and I’d be surprised if there was anybody that didn’t have that.”

If you’re an aspiring football professional, tonight’s a great place for insights into the business side of the game. Here are three things to watch for in Episode 5 of The Agent (10E/9C, Esquire Network):

• The show opens in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the Shrine Game is played. You’ll notice that the field where practices are held is ringed by scouts, coaches, agents, financial planners and others who work in the game. What you probably can’t tell is that the group is very loosely regulated. Almost anyone can walk in there, and as long as they don’t make a spectacle of themselves, have pretty much unfettered access to hundreds of potential NFL employers. I’ve always wondered why more eager young job-seekers don’t take advantage of these games. Not a year goes by that I don’t see dozens of young people hoping to work in football at the combine, because it gets all the press, but rarely at all-star games. Access is way better at all-star games than it is at the combine, which is like a party for invitees only. If you want to win a job in football, you’re going to have to irritate a whole lot of people before you get that one champion who’s willing to take a risk on you. There’s no better place to ‘irritate’ lots of people in one setting than at these games.
• Speaking of jobs, there are three elite training facilities portrayed in tonight’s episode. They are the Pensacola, Fla., location of Exos; Miami-based Bommarito Performance Systems; and Weston, Fla.-based Fit Speed. All are excellent, and all are pretty work-intensive. I’m always hearing from young people who want to find a profession in football, and the default job is always scout or agent. Why not consider the combine prep business? It requires lots of people and has several facets to it, and is still taking shape, with lots of permutations and new applications. A young person who volunteered with a top combine prep facility could very quickly learn the business, identify trends, and quickly make himself very useful/valuable to key people. In fact, I bet one could make the contacts to do almost anything in the business from a combine prep service. Lots of paths cross in the training field, and there are dozens of good training programs that work with players all over the country.
• One more thing to notice: this week’s show takes place in the January/February time frame, two key months in the draft process. Almost the whole show is shot at an all-star game and training facilities, all in Florida. If you are looking for NFL opportunities, you have to go where the football business is, and the Sunshine State is essential to the draft process, for various reasons. If you’re already in the state, you’re in great position to succeed. If you’re not, but you have easy access to the state, take advantage of that. Florida is not only one of the top 2-3 states for football talent, but it’s also got a warm-weather climate that really helps in the months leading up to the draft.

Enjoy the show, and don’t forget to join in during our live-tweet tonight. I’ve got four pages of notes to churn out tonight during the broadcast. Don’t miss it!

A week ago, I discussed 10 questions that an aspiring NFL player might ask himself that could give him a better idea of if he’d be drafted by the NFL. It was pretty well-received, so this week, I thought I’d look at the other side of the coin.

As always, the disclaimer — you can’t determine whether or not a player will be drafted or not drafted on paper. This is just a guide, a series of questions that might be indicators. Nothing more.

Here  goes.

• Did your school hold a ‘junior day?’
• Did you play below the FBS level?
• Were you a regular starter for your team less than one full season?
• Do you play offensive guard, center, inside linebacker, fullback, punter or kicker?
• Did you change positions immediately before your senior year?
• Have you ever been arrested for any offenses related to sexual or domestic assault?
• Are you more than 20 percent below the average NFL height, weight or speed for your position?
• Did you suffer a season-ending injury as a senior?
• Did you experience more than one surgery to any one organ/joint/muscular group during your college career?
• Did you play for a college west of the Mississippi?

The first two questions are related. Most FBS schools do hold junior days, whereas most small schools do not. What’s a junior day? Briefly, it’s the day in the spring (usually March or April) that the two big scouting combines come through and collect height, weight and 40 time for as many rising seniors as possible. Also, no more than 15-20 players from non-FBS schools get drafted each year, and usually late. That’s less than 10 percent.

Question 3 is pretty common sense. Question 4 is also pretty straightforward — these are the non-sexy positions most teams see as a commodity.

Question 5 is a bit of a feast-or-famine question. Many teams actually find good athletes at new positions as very enticing, so it’s possible this could be a benefit. But more often, it’s a negative.

Question 6 is a little tricky. Players get arrested all the time, but all such offenses are not created equal. Any kind of sexual offense is a big no-no, and obviously, we’re in an era where teams are not at all forgiving when it comes to domestic assaults. It’s important to note, however, that if a player is supremely talented, some team will roll the dice.

Question 7 is a basic are-you-right-physically-for-the-league question.

Question 8 is not hard and fast, but usually, teams want to be absolutely sure a player is healthy when he comes to camp so they can properly evaluate him. If not, he’s damaged goods and no-go. Question 9 is also health-related, and usually this area is cleared up during ‘medical day’ at the combine.

Question 10 is an illustration of the fact that all teams do not visit all schools equally. Remote schools, especially smaller and less successful ones, don’t get the same exposure.

As always, these are not in any way the final measure for players hoping to make it to the league. Still, I feel it’s a pretty good overview of the negatives that are foremost in the minds of most scouts.

When I read a piece like this one, it confirms my belief that the league is moving in a baseball direction when it comes to analytics.

More and more, the human element is being taken out of the scouting equation. We’re seeing this as the New England model takes root across the league. In other words, young scouts are hired to measure, weigh and time anyone and everyone who’s draft-eligible, while the directors back at the team headquarters make the real decisions. In other words, low-level employees go get measurables and facts, and evaluation is done by the senior-level minds.

This is probably one reason I’ve toyed for years with putting together a kind of flow chart that college players and their parents could use to give them a reasonable idea of their appeal to NFL scouts.

I’d start with these questions.

• Would others consider you one of the top 4-5 players on your team?
• Did you play for a team in a BCS conference?
• Did your team have a winning overall record the last three seasons?
• Did you play QB in high school?
• Did you play basketball in high school?
• Did you play any other sports in college?
• Did you start more than one season in college?
• Do you meet the size/speed minimums for your position (I’d devise a position-by-position grid to reference to answer this question)?
• Did you play college football east of the Mississippi?
• Do you play a position other than offensive guard, center, nose tackle, fullback, or inside linebacker?

Question 1 is a basic quality question — the NFL is only for the very best. I’ve seen players that don’t even start on their college teams that expect to play in the NFL. Though it happens very rarely, it’s just not realistic.

Questions 2 and 3 deal more with the competition level a team faced, and how the team fared. Though it’s exciting to talk about small-school sleepers, the facts are that the vast majority of NFL players competed at the FBS level. What’s more, I believe scouts have an unintended bias against losing programs.

Questions 4-6 deal with athleticism. I believe that today, the NFL is looking for explosive athletes first, and football players second. My observation has been that most teams feel they can ‘coach up’ almost anyone, or are at least willing to try.

Questions 7-8 deal with general individual success at the college level. Gauging this is incredibly subjective, but this is at least a start toward measuring ability.

Finally, questions 9-10 measure a player’s ability to be ‘noticed.’ There are simply fewer scouts working what I call the Far West Corridor, which consists mainly of the schools in the West that aren’t on the coast. These are mostly remote areas. Also, players at ‘non-sexy’ positions are often overlooked.

Obviously, you can’t truly determine a player’s NFL chances by simply asking him questions. Too many variables. However, as I try to refine this list, I think it’s at least a good starting point for gauging a player’s NFL chances.