Jan. 22-28

Today, NFLPA-licensed agents may contact National Football Scouting to find out if their clients have been invited to the NFL Combine (and if they are on any kind of “short list” if others bow out). The deadline for underclassmen application for the draft passed last weekend. This week, the NFLPA released a new signings list, and already, more than 1,300 players are on it (we counted a total of 717 total players who signed with agents for the ’21 draft), and the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, Shrine Bowl and Senior Bowl are either under way or just around the corner.

In other words, we’re well into the process for the ’22 NFL Draft.

Let’s take a look at the way the draft is shaping up, especially as it relates to the players expected to be selected on Days 1 and 2.

  • The 16 players rated as first-rounders by all seven services we track in our most recent review (Dec. 24) are represented by a range of top agencies. WME Sports leads with three (Purdue DE George Karlaftis, Pitt QB Kenny Pickett and Michigan DE David Ojabo). Athletes First, Rosenhaus Sports, Klutch Sports Group, Priority Sports and The Ballengee Group all tie with two each. Seven other firms have one of the 16, and one of the players – Mississippi St. OT Charles Cross – is reportedly not signing with a certified NFLPA contract advisor. By way of comparison, Athletes First represented five of the top 12 picks in last year’s draft, and CAA repped six of the first nine picks in the 2018 draft. 


  • Despite the mega-agencies’ lead over the rest the last several years, as we tweeted on New Year’s Day, there’s been tremendous diversity when it comes to the last eight No. 1 picks. Barring a surprise, we expect more of the same this year. The two players who, at this point, are duking it out for top-pick honors -- Michigan DE Aidan Hutchinson and Oregon DE Kayvon Thibodeaux -- are represented by firms (Priority Sports and Klutch Sports Group, respectively) that have not repped a No. 1 overall in at least a decade. What’s more, Klutch’s football division only traces to the 2020 draft, when the firm boasted the Nos. 2 (Ohio State DE Chase Young) and 3 (Ohio State DC Jeffrey Okudah) picks. 

  • As noted earlier, the pace of signings has been fast. If you go back to the last “normal” pre-Covid year, 2019, there were about 1,400 players signed with agents through Feb. 25, according to NFLPA rolls. That means it took almost a month longer to get to a comparable number of signings. Hold onto your hats at pro days this year; it may take a while to get through all the players. 

The shape of things could change drastically due to standout combine or pro day performances, significant character issues surfacing, major free agency losses or even terminations by top prospects. Still, we see a much tighter race for dominance in draft points in April, though it will take several years before anyone can surmount CAA’s lead in value points (almost 70,000 points). We’ll be watching closely along the way to the last weekend in April.

In the meantime, here’s a look at what else we saw, heard, read and said in the business of college and pro football this week.

Welcome to the Big Chair: The first Monday after the end of the season, known as Black Monday, is always a time of mourning for people in the industry as coaches and executives of struggling franchises are shown the door. Brighter days returns when those seats are filled by new faces and people around the league begin getting to know the new hires. We try to play our part with today’s blog at Succeed in Football. In it, we ask scouts and executives that know new Giants GM Joe Schoen, new Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and new Bears GM Ryan Poles what makes them tick and why they’ve been able to successfully climb to a place of prominence with three proud franchises. We felt the responses give insights into each of the three. Check out today’s post here.

Catching Up: Pat Perles, 58, scouted for six years, all with the Bucs. We caught up with him earlier this month. 

  • Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I moved to Kansas City with my family in 2009 because I took a job with Kansas City coaching, and since then, I’ve had six jobs but have stayed here because I have three kids all relatively close in age, within five years of each other, and I wanted to keep them in the same school system. I didn’t want to be a coaching and scouting gypsy. We’ve stayed centralized. I’ve moved, but they haven’t. You walk that tightrope. I think it’s harder on me than on them. You come home from a day of work, and you come home to an empty room. That’s tough when you love your family as much as I do. But by and large, big picture, I think it’s helped.”

  • Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “I absolutely miss scouting. I mean, I’ve still (scouted) some in some ways this past year, as I’ve been in-between successes. The thing you miss most is the relationships with other scouts, coaches, players, the day-to-day contact. If you love football, you gravitate toward people like you, and you find that with scouting. People so talented, who could be making a lot of money in other areas, but because it’s a labor of love, it’s what they love to do. (Bucs scouts) Byron Kiefer, Tony Hardie, these are unsung heroes. I equate those guys to the front-line people in the medical profession that don’t get a lot of credit but when the rubber meets the road, you can’ be successful without people like that. Scouting is such a unique business because if you have a big ego, you’re not gonna survive, because you simply don’t get the credit you deserve, and if that’s your motivation, you’re gonna wash out very quickly. You have to be very unselfish, a team-first guy. Of all the layers of football I’ve been involved in, scouts, are the most humble, hardest-working people I’ve been around. It’s refreshing in a lot of ways, and disappointing in some ways, because you know some of those people deserve so much more.” 

  • Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “I do. A mentor of mine has been (Cardinals GM) Steve Keim. Even before I got into scouting, he really  helped me. Another unsung superstar is (Raiders Director of College Scouting) Jim Abrams. Those guys in Tampa, I try not to bother them, but I have such affection for those guys. It’s really important for me to maintain those relationships.” 

  • Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “Yes I do. My son is working for the University of Kansas in the interns department, working with (former Browns scout) Scott Aligo, and I did coach for them a few years ago. We live an hour away, so I get to the Kansas games, a lot of them. I also go to high school games, and I have some friends who coach. I really love high school Friday night lights.”

  • Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “There are so many. The guy I really fell in love with lately, and I knew him from (Eastern Michigan), is Maxx Crosby. This kid is just completely relentless. Another guy that I really enjoy watching from a skills standpoint is the linebacker for the Colts, Darius Leonard. I just love watching him play, his passion. I was an offensive coach but I gravitate toward those high-intensity defensive players sometimes. Those guys really stick out this year. And the other guy would be (Colts OG) Quentin Nelson. I really love watching him. I had a high grade on him coming out, as anybody would. That was obvious. I wasn’t uncovering a hidden gem. Those guys stuck out to me this season.” 

Review the latest from other former NFL scouts and executives by accessing our Catching Up archive here. Want to hear from a former scout, or know someone who may be interested in being interviewed? Let us know.

All-Star rosters: This week, we filled in almost all our blanks in the Hula Bowl’s Kai and Aina rosters, created the Eastand West rosters for the Shrine Bowl, finished up the American and National rosters for the Senior Bowl, and even did a little work on the National and American rosters for the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl. By this time next week, we hope to have far fewer blanks in our agent-player grids, maybe even none. Stay tuned. 

Agents by Total Clients (December): We are slowly getting back into the swing of things on some of our regular features. One of those is Agents by Total Clients for December, which we posted Thursday. We found 111 agents with at least 10 active clients to end the season, with Priority Sports’ Mike McCartney making the biggest November-to-December jump by adding three league clients to his total of 28, which ties him for 21st among all contract advisors. Also, we saw no changes in the top 10 with Rosenhaus Sports’ Drew Rosenhaus maintaining his place atop the heap with 98 clients, followed by CAA’s Jimmy Sexton (75) and WME Sports’ Joel Segal (66) in third place. Check out all the numbers here.

Next week: It’s the best week of the year. After a couple of days in Las Vegas, we’ll be in Mobile from Monday night until Wednesday, maybe Thursday. During the next six days across two cities, we’ll be renewing acquaintances, getting feedback on the services we provide, working on pairing agents with new agencies, filling in the blanks in our grids, getting the lowdown on where post-draft scouting vacancies could pop up, eating, drinking and otherwise consorting with the great people of the business. We hope to see each and every one of you. In the meantime, we’ve got a lot of content work to do this week. We hope to introduce our 2022 NFL Head Coaches-Agents Grid, now that (we think) all the vacancies have been created and new hires are near. We’re also behind on our Agents by Total Clients report for January, and we expect to shore that up this week. Agent Changes for December and January won’t be too far behind. We’ll also likely kick off our Scouting Changes Board now that GMs are being shuffled and scouts may not be far behind. Also, now that the combine invitations are out, we’ll be looking for a comprehensive list and putting together our big board soon. As far as Rep Rumblings, we’ll dish on everything we hear in Las Vegas and Mobile, and our Succeed in Footballpost will be along those lines, as well. Next week in our Friday Wrap, we’ll wrap up the all-star games and talk to former Rams executive Charley Armey in our Catching Up feature. It’s gonna be a great week, and we hope you’ll be out enjoying it, too. No? Can’t? Keep up with everything happening here.