Sept. 25-Oct. 1

NFL scouts honored some big and some not-so-big names in four weeks of voting for the inaugural BART List, which compile the top 10 evaluators in each conference as voted on by more than 500 members of NFL evaluation staffs.

Leading vote-getters in each conference were, in the NFC, Falcons national scout Tokunbo Abanikanda, who earned 31 votes, and Colts Assistant GM Ed Dodds, who got 29 votes. Abanikanda is in his ninth season with Atlanta and seventh as an area scout. He’s a former linebacker at Southern Mississippi, where he played from 2005-08. Meanwhile, Dodds worked for the Raiders and Seahawks before arriving in Indy in 2017, shortly after Chris Ballard’s arrival as GM. A native of the Lone Star State, Dodds coached with Ballard at Texas A&M-Kingsville more than two decades ago.

Rounding out the top 10 in the NFC are Seahawks Senior Executive Advisor to the GM Alonzo Highsmith (29 votes); Rams Assistant Director of College Scouting Ted Monago (28); Saints Assistant GM Jeff Ireland (25); 49ers Director of College Scouting Tariq Ahmad (22) and Seahawks Assistant Director of College Scouting Aaron Hineline (22); Bears area scout Breck Ackley (21); Lions Senior Personnel Executive John Dorsey and Packers Co-Director of Player Personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan (19); and Seahawks Vice President of Player Personnel Trent Kirchner (17). 

Three more evaluators -- Justin Chabot and Steve Rubio (49ers) and Marcus Cooper (Giants) – finished just off the pace with 16 votes each.

On the AFC side, following Dodds were Bills Assistant Director of Player Personnel Terrance Gray (24); Dolphins Assistant Director of College Scouting Matt Winston and Patriots Scouting Consultant Eliot Wolf (23); Jets college scout Johnathon Stigall (20); Ravens National Scout David Blackburn (19); Colts Assistant Director of College Scouting Matt Terpening (17); and Jets college scout Alonzo Dotson, Texans Assistant Director of Player Personnel James Liipfert and Colts area scout Jamie Moore with 16 each. 

Just outside the top 10 were Marvin Allen (Dolphins); Lake Dawson and Joe Schoen (Bills); and Sae Woon Jo(Broncos) with 15 each.

Scouts from several of the teams who’ve previously won the Best Draft Award, presented annually for the past four years at the ITL Combine Seminar and selected by a popular vote of NFL scouts, showed up in the voting. Ireland (Saints in 2018 for their work in the ’17 draft); Dodds, Terpening and Moore (Colts won in ’19); and Ahmad (49ers won in ’20) have all been pictured along with the award at the annual seminar previously. 

The Colts and Seahawks led all teams with three representatives each on the list. Also, Highsmith, Dorsey and Wolf combined to make the scouting decisions for the Browns until their departure after the 2019 season.

All 20 winners will receive plaques at the 2022 ITL Combine Seminar in Indianapolis. 

In today’s blog at Succeed in Football, you can read more about the voting process and what we learned as we compiled the votes in honor of our friend, Danton Barto, who passed away in August after a short illness. Barto played at Memphis and was a veteran of coaching at several levels as well as a former area scout for the Rams. To see all scouts who got at least 10 votes, click here.

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

Needing assistance: This week, Rodrik David got the news that he is no longer an area scout for the Atlanta Falcons. As a member of the football community, you might have learned about it on social media, or even read about it at ITL. You may know Rodrik, who has spent the last six seasons with the Dirty Birds (this was his third year on the road). However, you might not know that his wife, Alyssa, is 17 weeks pregnant, leaving Rodrik, Alyssa and their 16-month-old, Harper, facing mounting medical bills at a critical time. We at Inside the League have started a Go Fund Me account to help him through this difficult time, and it’s our hope that the football community will close ranks around the Davids. No matter what you think about Rodrik and his family’s situation, would you consider a small donation to help out?

Tips for new agents: We’re getting closer to the complete new list of certified contract advisors to appear on the NFLPA website. With more than a hundred newly minted agents, there’s plenty of energy and excitement, but also questions. Last week, in our blog and in our Friday Wrap, we passed a long a few ideas for people new to the industry. Here are a few more:

  • Understand that players will call you: You may be intimidated by cold-calling players and trying to establish relationships that way. Not to worry. Your contact info will be published here (on the NFLPA website) by late next month/early November. Once seniors begin to reach the end of their respective careers, and no agents are calling, they then start doing their own calling. You'll hear from many of them. This is why merely signing a member of the '22 draft class isn't the accomplishment you might think it is.
  • Know the all-star games: The bigger agents tend to be dismissive of all-star games for a number of reasons that are beyond the scope of this post, but that doesn't matter to you. Every year, players are signed (and sometimes drafted) based on how they players and/or interviewed at one of the annual all-star games, and this year, there are more credible all-star games than ever. Sure, you know the Senior Bowl, but you need to know the other six games that will be played this January/February. Check them out here.
  • Know your scouts: Having a working knowledge of the scouts recruiting your players and the regions they cover is something you'll learn as you go forward, but there's no reason to delay learning it (and your clients will expect you to). Track the hundreds of moves in the scouting industry this offseason here, and dive into the evaluators on each team's scouting departments (with their backgrounds, when hired, where they've worked and more) with our Know Your Scouts series.
  • Consider other possible revenue streams: Representation of coaches is on a serious upward trend. Know who represents college coaches and who represents NFL coaches on each of these respective grids, and know which search firms are doing the most work so you'll know where to build your network.

Want more information on best business practices? We spent more than an hour dispensing tips via Zoom to our ’21 class members on Monday, and we’re getting ready for Round 2. All ITL members of the ’21 agent class are welcome for our October session, which is just around the corner. We’ll go in-depth on finances, the all-star landscape and how to get a player invited, how scouts think and what to know, and plenty more. If you’re not already part of the ITL family, please come check us out. 

Catching Up: Rick Thompson spent 32-and-a-half years in the league, starting with the Seahawks in 1975, then continuing with the Saints for seven years (eight drafts) and a season with the Dolphins. We caught up with him last week. 

  • Where are you living and what are you doing now?: I live in Mandeville, La., and have for 21 years. (Former Saints GM) Randy Mueller and I used to live in the same development. I did a couple gigs in what was called the United Football League in 2009. I was with Orlando . . . and (former Saints head coach) Jim Haslett was the head coach of the Florida team and Ted Cottrell was with the New York team. (Former Saints executive) Rick Mueller was the personnel director for the league, so he called me up. It was basically a three-month gig. Then they put a team in Omaha, Neb., so I went up for another three-month gig. I wasn’t making a lot of money, but at least I got paid. I did that from 2009-10, but that was it. My wife wouldn’t let me do it anymore (laughs). The way I look at it, as long as I wasn’t losing money, it was worth it.” 
  • Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “Yes and no. I don’t miss the hours. I don’t think I could do physically what I did then. During training camp, I lived with the players. I did the bed checks, curfew, ran training camp, so I was busy. Really, I’d put in over 100 hours per week easy. Get up at 6, live on coffee during the day and beer at night, I guess, and still have to stay up till midnight to do curfew. I also was The Turk most of my years. All of the years in New Orleans, and then with the Dolphins. It was a lot of hours, not much time off. You might get a week of vacation during the summer, but during the season, even then I was working 80-90 hours. Friday was my only day that I’d get home at a decent time. The others, Monday through Thursday, I’d get home late. Lot of hours, but at the time, I loved doing it. I wouldn’t have changed anything. It was my dream job.” 
  • Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “I talk to Randy once in a while, though I don’t do it as much. I used to go back to Seattle after I was retired, used to go see my parents, who lived in the Seattle area, and would drive up and stay up there a few weeks, and then come home, but they all moved to Las Vegas. Randy still has his house in Kirkland, where the Seahawks used to have a training facility, but he also has a place on Lake Coeur d'Alene (in Idaho), and I spent a couple days with him (recently). The thing is, the people that I do correspond with, it’s usually about bad news, somebody died or something. (Former scout) Pat Mondock’s the one I probably talk to more regularly than anybody. Pat and I are kinda the same way. We kinda don’t (talk to a lot of people), but we do it with each other a little bit. Even though I still live here, I don’t communicate (regularly) with anybody with the Saints. I think I’ve talked to (GM) Mickey (Loomis) a couple times, and I ran into him in the press box . . . a couple times. There’s a  guy named Jeff Smith, he was a scout with Seattle. Jeff retired and he and his wife . . . would travel a lot, and he came down to New Orleans a couple times and we’d get together.”
  • Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?:  “Well, for a while, 2-3 years, Ken Berthelot, who used to do play-by-play for Tulane, he was doing some high school games for CST (Cox Sports Television). He said he didn’t have a spotter, so I volunteered to do it. We’d do like 5-6 games each season, mostly high school games, but a couple of Nicholls (State) games, too, so I did that. But other than that, I really haven’t done a bunch of other stuff because of Covid. I’ve gone to a few games. My wife’s boss has tickets to LSU and Saints games, and he’s given them to me a few times, so I’ve probably gone to 3-4 Saints games and a handful of LSU games the last few years, but that’s about it, and I don’t ask for them. If he offers, I go, but I don’t normally ask.” 
  • Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “(Bengals QB) Joe Burrow. My son went to LSU and graduated from there, and I wasn’t much of an LSU fan till he went to school there. He graduated from there in 2013, but I’ve become a big fan of LSU football, and I’m probably a bigger LSU fan than I am a Saints fan. I love watching Joe Burrow. LSU that championship year was incredible. But I’m trying to think of players other than Saints players. I loved (Peyton and Eli Manning) when they came out. I was a big DrewBrees fan. I think Russell Wilson is a really good QB, though I don’t really care about the Seahawks, don’t really follow them. . . It’s not that I’m negative about it. I still love the NFL. I just don’t wanna watch them all the time.” 

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.

Rep Rumblings: This week, we had four reports. On Monday, we looked at CAA’s big purchase and what it means to the industry, plus we spotlighted two recent industry hires that were facilitated by the team at ITL. Tuesday, we did a little work on our Scouts by Area Grid, had an NIL update, and looked at the pace of hiring, as it were, in alternative football. On Wednesday, we looked at the recent NLRB memo affecting college players, tracked Josh Gordon’s winding representation path, and had agent and NIL notes. Finally, on Thursday, we looked at hiring and firing decisions in the scouting and agent world. It’s going to be another big week of news and notes ahead. Make sure you’re keeping up with everything as it happens by reading the rumblings.

Next week: In the coming seven days, our plan is to get caught up. Totally caught up. That means, our goal will be Agent Changes reports for July, August and September. Soon, we’ll be squeezing in our second ITL Agent Orientation Sessionvia Zoom; all ITL members who are part of the ’21 agent class will be invited. Get those questions ready. It will also be our final week of Profile Reports for the summer of 2021. Just six schools to go – Washington State, West Virginia, Western Kentucky, Western Michigan, Wisconsin and Wyoming. We’ll also have four more Rep Rumblings reports; we’ll have something for the upcoming agent, scout or both on our Succeed in Football blog; and we’ll track the game and try to help everyone trying build a career in football on Twitter, on our YouTube page, in the pages of our books and really anywhere a football is thrown, carried, intercepted or fumbled. We also hang out at Inside the League some. You should, too.