Dec. 31-Jan. 6
The unanimous picks: All seven services have 14 players as first-rounders. They are Alabama QB Bryce Young(average draft slot 1.0, the unanimous top pick), Georgia DT Jalen Carter (2.43), Alabama OB Will Anderson (2.57), Ohio St. QB CJ Stroud (5.43), Clemson DE Myles Murphy (6.71), Texas Tech DE Tyree Wilson (7.43), Kentucky QB Will Levis (8.15), TCU WO Quentin Johnston (10.14), Northwestern OT Peter Skoronski (10.71), Oregon DC Christian Gonzalez (14.14), Ohio St. OT Paris Johnson (14.43), Penn St. DC Joey Porter Jr. (15.29, tied with Verse), USC WO Jordan Addison (15.86) and Texas OH Bijan Robinson (19.86).
Addison, Wilson, Gonzalez, Porter have been added since November.
Just missed: Clemson DT Bryan Bresee, Georgia OT Broderick Jones, Notre Dame TE Michael Mayer, Florida QB Anthony Richardson, Ohio St. WO Jaxon Smith-Njigba, South Carolina DC Cam Smith, Florida St. DE Jared Verse and Illinois DC Devon Witherspoon each made six boards, but not all seven. Walter Football, which always goes its own way, was responsible for three of the snubs (Bresee, Jones and Smith). Pro Football Network left Mayer and Smith-Njigba off their list, and The Athletic’s Dane Brugler had no room for Richardson. Maybe next time; Brugler’s last mock draft was at the end of November, so maybe next time. Verse was bumped by CBS’ Chris Trapasso.
Coming on: Young needs to watch his back as Carter is coming on strong. Last time, Carter was all alone at No. 4 (4.71 average draft slot). This time, he’s edged ahead of Anderson, though the two are definitely wrestling for the second spot. Carter is No. 2 according to Pro Football Network, PFF, Matt Miller of The Draft Scout and ESPN’s Todd McShay. Anderson is No. 2 per Trapasso, The Athletic’s Dane Brugler and Walter Football.
Also hot: Last time, Florida St. DE Jared Verse was on five boards, with only Trapasso listing him in the top 10 (at No. 10, so barely). This time, he’s on six, with PFF listing him at No. 6 and PFN at 7.
Flying solo: If you follow our reviews, you know Walter Football always goes its own way, and as usual, the service didn’t disappoint. Only Walter had Rutgers DC Max Melton (14), Alabama OT Tyler Steen (16), Tennessee WO Cedric Tillman (22), Michigan DT Mazi Smith (24), Iowa IB Jack Campbell (26) and Alabama IB Henry To’oTo’o in its top 32. No other service had more than two outliers.
Make sure to review our review here. Though it’s not a measure of what scouts think, it’s a good way to know what players are being talked about as draft season begins in earnest, so make sure to check it out.
Here’s a look at what else we saw, heard, read and said in the business of pro and college football this week.
2023 Signings Grid: We’ve got draft prospects on our board so far. All of them have an all-star game invite, an agent, a combine invite, or all three. Among things you might notice:
· Of the 558 players on our board, we have representation for 341.
· We’ve tracked the agents for 64 East-West Shrine Bowl invitees, 31 NFLPA Bowl invitees and 26 Hula Bowl invitees. All of those numbers will grow soon.
· Seven of the 15 players rated as first-rounders by all seven draft services have already signed with agencies.
· Six of the seven players who were rated as first-rounders by six of the seven services have signed; only one, Georgia OT Broderick Jones, has not, for obvious reasons.
Find out how your competition is doing and who’s signing the key players in our grid.
So what’s it gonna take?: It’s one thing to draft a player, but something else entirely just to sign a top draft prospect these days. If you read last week’s Wrap, you know the rules have changed significantly since last year with so many factors (NIL, extra Covid eligibility, transfer portal, etc.) at play. Given so many aggressive market forces, the “price” of signing a draft-eligible player is soaring. But how do you determine that value? We gave it our best shot in today’s post at Succeed in Football. A few highlights:
· We see three tiers of players getting “paid:” The very top of the draft (1-5), the prospects who’ll be selected through the end of Day 2; and those who’ll be drafted before 150, i.e., those players who were considered Day 2 types but who slid.
· Do players who get drafted later receive packages? Oh yes. But the biggest fit into the top three tiers.
· Offense vs. defense; ranking coming out of high school; conference and school; and other factors play a role in determining costs.
Are we way off base? Close, but no cigar? Give our post a look and let us know in the comments, or by responding to this email. Either way, if you struggle to make sense of it all, get in line. The cost of providing professional representation has never been higher than it is today.
The next five days . . . : Inside the League hits Fort Worth, and you can find Neil Stratton in town starting tomorrow around noon through Wednesday. More details:
· Neil is running the CGSU program along with CGS personnel director Michael Rittelman; the program runs through Monday night. He’ll be busiest during the day but will be around in the evenings.
· Communications specialist Lauren Burchfield will be on hand to chronicle the CGSU’s work with an eye toward assembling a brief video compilation afterwards.
· Catch him at the Agent Live 360 mixer at the Fort Worth Sheraton, 1701 Commerce St., from 5-6 p.m. Monday evening. There, at the Chef’s Table Bar, you can also meet AL360’s Rodrik David, a former area scout with the Falcons, as well as dozens of other members of the football business community. If you're an agent, don't miss this.
· All ITL subscribers are requested to text Stratton upon their arrival in Fort Worth. The Gateway to the West has lots of great barbecue and Tex-Mex, and we at ITL love to break bread with members of the ITL family during all-star season. Join us!
Neil will not make it to Orlando this week, but will touch down there the following week for the Tropical Bowl. More details in next week’s Friday Wrap.
Making progress: We don’t have the representation choices for all the players headed to Mobile – after all, some of them are playing Monday – but we’re about two-thirds of the way there after our latest post. Recent additions: Michigan WO Ronnie Bell, Alabama TE Cameron Latu, South Carolina DC Darius Rush and USC OG Andrew Vorhees. We’ve got more on the way, and we’ll be populating the Hula Bowl and CGS rosters soon, as well. As always, if you want to know who’s working with whom during the final weeks before the NFL Draft, there’s one place to go. Check out the Senior Bowl big board here.
Catching Up: Tom Marino turned 75 Tuesday and doesn’t do a lot of scouting today, but did plenty of it across three leagues (the WFL and USFL as well as the NFL) and four teams (Bears, Giants, Rams, Saints) during his career of almost five decades. We caught up with him this week.
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Where are you living and what are you doing now? “I’m retired, and working on a project I’ve been working on for seven or eight years. But I’m retired and living in Raleigh, N.C. It’s not really (a football project). One of these days I’ll tell you about it. . I can’t tell you what it is. There’s sports involved and a lot of different things. I’ve always been an idea guy.”
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Do you miss the job? What do you miss most? “I think the game has changed so much. I don’t have any idea. . . I was there in the 70s, 80s and up to 2006, and when the (alternative) leagues folded, I was out for a time, but for the most part, I was there for five decades doing this thing here, and now . . . I learned so much from some of the great scouts, Jackie Graves and some of the real champions. Now I don’t know if they know what they’re doing. Offensive line play is pathetic. Everything they do is zone blocking. Nobody comes off the ball. Nobody’s in a three-point stance anymore. The reason they can’t is they can’t move fast enough is because it’s a 300-plus-pound guy going against a 240-pound guy. The game has changed. But I miss the game the way it was. I miss the camaraderie.”
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Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues? “I still talk to a bunch of guys. I talked to (former Rams executive) Charley Armey last week; his wife passed away in mid-December. But we get together. I went to the Senior Bowl, and there were about 4-5 guys there that I know. That was about 5-6 years after I retired. I would probably go there now and no one would know who the hell I am.”
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Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)? “I really haven’t. I haven’t gone. I don’t watch it as much as I used to watch it. There was a time when I’d go to two games on a Saturday every Saturday. I’d look at football players for months in the summertime, create different things, how to scout, things like that, doing it the right way. Everything I learned, I learned from the all-pros. Great people and stuff like that. But I don’t go to that many now.”
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Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game? “I probably couldn’t tell you five guys that went in the first round last year. I don’t read about the prospects, who’s good and not good, whatever the case may be. I probably watch as much as I can, but I haven’t watched but a couple of times. The Rams were my wife’s team. She passed away in 2017, and she’d be pissed at the way they’re playing now (laughs).”
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.
Get ready to vote: Next week, we’ll send out our annual scouting salary survey. We’d appreciate your participation if you’re an active NFL evaluator. We’ll also ask for your vote on the best NFL liaison in the business, and of course, the team that did the best on draft day last spring. In next week’s Friday Wrap, we’ll announce the five finalists for the big award that’s been earned by the Saints, Colts, 49ers, Bucs and Broncos so far. The 2023 ITL Combine Seminar promises to be the best one so far, and your votes matter. Thanks for your help. Ballots coming next weekend.
Next week: We’re traveling, but the work doesn’t stop. Here’s a look at what’s ahead.
· With one of the roughest parts of the business ahead in three days, we’ll launch our Scouting Changes Gridsometime next week. We’re expecting – and hoping for – a quiet week, but changes always come, and there will no doubt be some surprises.
· Our Signings Grid will grow by leaps and bounds this week. We’ve got more than 500 names on our board right now, but we hope to have player and agent for 700-plus players by this time next Friday.
· We’ll continue to fortify our Senior Bowl roster, tracking down representation for the 30-odd players who are yet to make a decision, or who’ve eluded us so far.
· The Hula Bowl is also this week; we’ll do our best to publish the agents for everyone in Orlando, as well.
· Typically this year, in January, we use our Succeed in Football blog to post quick dispatches from the road and notes that don’t fit neatly into our Rep Rumblings or any of our grids.
· Our Rep Rumblings are used to pass along signing buzz, of course, but also keep you up to date on the XFL, USFL, Black Monday, agent terminations and more.
· As you know, the season is just too busy this time of year to produce our normal Agent Changes and Agents by Total Clients features for December. We’ll have all that soon, hopefully before the end of January.
It’s here! The best part of the year. We look forward to seeing you, whether it’s this weekend in Fort Worth or in any of the four cities where games will be held over the next month. There’s so much happening, and you don’t want to miss it. If you haven’t already, become a part of the ITL family today.
