Oct. 9-15

Now that we know the identities of the members of the 2021 NFLPA agent class – more on that later – and we’ve reached mid-October and the season’s midpoint, it’s time to start taking stock of the pre-draft push. A big part of that, every year, is the all-star slate. This year, with a never-before-seen-since-the-start-of-ITL eight games, it’s going to be an even bigger part it. 

With so much going on, we checked in with the game’s organizers to get a good sense of what you, the football industry, need to know with plenty of time to book hotels, flights and rental cars. We’re presuming you already know about the game run by Jim Nagy and Co. in Mobile. The other seven games, many of which are new or have undergone significant changes, will be our focus. We’ll take them chronologically.

College Gridiron Showcase (Jan. 7-12 at Farrington Field in Fort Worth, Texas): As always, the CGS will kick off the schedule, and next year, it will be coming off its biggest week ever after 12 draftees, including Ravens third-round DC Brandon Stephens (3/104, SMU), took the field in the Metroplex in January of this year. New this year, all players will get a medical scan courtesy of Dexa Scan and Body Basics; TAPS testing will provide another metric for all teams in attendance (in addition to HRT and teams’ proprietary tests); and 24 NFL scouting hopefuls will participate in CGS’ inaugural internship program, CGSU. The first wave of invites is out for all four player groupings (Wranglers, Desperadoes, Marshals and Regulators). Co-founders Jose Jefferson and Craig Redd, along with the rest of the crew, are back for Year 8. 

Tropical Bowl (Jan. 12-15 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando): Executive Director Michael Quartey is preparing for two games: the FCS Bowl in Daytona, Fla., Dec. 10, followed by the Trop. Submit FCS Bowl player recommendations by email to micqhitz@yahoo.com and Tropical Bowl player recommendations by email to fbsbowl@yahoo.com. Invites start in a few weeks. The Tropical Bowl had a fifth-rounder (Appalachian State DC Shemar Jean-Charles to the Packers) and a seventh-rounder (Concordia-St. Paul OB Chris Garrett to the Rams) in this year’s draft.

Hula Bowl (Jan. 11-15 at the UCF Bounce House in Orlando): Over 50 invites have already gone out for the game, which moves to the mainland from Honolulu this year. This year’s game will be broadcast on the CBS Sports Network, and will feature a celebrity golf tournament and a live halftime performance. Executive Director Damond Talbot, founder of NFL Draft Diamonds, is in talks with several former NFL coaches to head the teams, including former Falcons head coach Mike Smith and ex-Titans and Rams head coach Jeff Fisher. Talbot’s evaluation staff includes 21 members, including Ryan Mayhew, son of WFT GM Martin Mayhew. The game has also opened talks with The Fritz Pollard Alliance for assistant coaches, and inductees into the Hula Bowl Hall of Fame are now under consideration. 

NFLPA Bowl (Jan. 24-29 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.): The game recently moved its date to Jan. 29, a week later, with organizers hoping the change allows scouts, agents and media to stay on the West Coast and move seamlessly from Pasadena to Las Vegas. Invites go out early next month for the game, which, like the Shrine Bowl, returns to the field after a “virtual” year in 2021. 

Shrine Bowl (Jan. 29-Feb. 3 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas): The Shrine Bowl is going aggressively after the Senior Bowl, sending out a comparison of the game played in Las Vegas and the game played in Mobile to all agents this week. New Executive Director Eric Galko is trying a series of new programs and policies designed to market the bowl to aspiring scouts, to modernize information-gathering and to provide new NIL opportunities to players. Invitations to players started this week, giving it a head start on its rival in Alabama.

Cajun All-Star Bowl (Feb. 9-12 at Provost Umphrey Stadium in Beaumont, Texas): The first wave of invitations will go out Nov. 8 for the inaugural game, which has found a home in East Texas. Longtime college head coaches Hal Mummeand Melvin Spears will face off in the game, which will have a format similar to the Tropical Bowl (two days of practice followed by the game). Executive Director Bryan Beasley is assisted in his search for top players not only by Mumme and Spears, but by four interns who populate the Cajun Scouting Department (the game will announce its Canadian watch list with 16 players born in the Great White North soon). Also on the hunt for players are CFL veteran evaluator Uzooma Okeke (a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame) plus Gary Kraven and Ralph Cooper. Beasley is cautioning agents about making sure players recommended for the game have exhausted their college eligibility as no players who have applied for special eligibility will be allowed to play in the game. 

HBCU Legacy Bowl (Feb. 19 in New Orleans): Details are still a little hard to come by for the inaugural game, which will feature players from the SWAC, MEAC and other conferences featuring the best historically black schools. We’re still on the hunt for details like reporting date, practice site and who agents need to talk to about pitching player invites. Stay tuned. 

For a complete breakdown of each game, its location for practices and games, date that practices will begin, each game’s executive director and other details, check out our 2022 All-Star Slate Grid. As you begin to map out your travel schedule, whether you’re a scout, agent or just fan, it’s got need-to-know info. 

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

Speaking of all-star games: There’s a lot more to know about all-star games than just where and when, especially if you’re a new agent. Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET, ITL’s Neil Stratton (who has run or assisted in four games and sits on the board of the College Gridiron Showcase) will host a Zoom session with all Class of ’21 contract advisors who are members of ITL. Among questions he’ll address:

  • How do each of the games work, and when should agents be there?
  • What kind of scouting presence will there be at each game?
  • When is the best time to approach an all-star game about inviting a player?
  • What do you tell a player when he asks if you can get him into an all-star game?
  • What’s the etiquette for withdrawing a player from an all-star game?
  • What are the costs associated with each of the games? 

It’s Stratton’s second monthly session with new agents. On Sept. 27, he took a deep dive into recruiting, registering with schools and states, how to build bridges with scouts, what to say when you contact a recruit and other topics. We’re still soliciting ideas for our November session, which we’ll discuss next week. If you’re a new agent, we hope you can join us! Details (Zoom link, etc.) will be sent to ITL clients next week. Not an ITL client yet (just $29.95/month, cancel any time)? Fix that here.

Going Deep: Thursday evening, ITL’s Stratton hosted guest speaker (and former Falcons Midwest area scout) Rodrik David for a Zoom session with ITL clients and guests (including several Class of ’21 agents). Rodrik drilled into scouting, discussing how evaluators and college personnel talk about prospects these days, how to interview a highly partisan source, what kind of players may be newly popular soon on the NFL level and why, and much more. It was a lot of fun, and involved plenty of stories from Rodrik’s almost six years with Atlanta. If you missed it, we’re very sorry, but there’s good news: we’ve captured some of Rodrik’s best takes in this week’s blog post at Succeed in Football. Check it out! 

Agent Changes: With our list of the players who switched representation in September now posted, we are now, finally, caught up. We counted 11 changes, dominated, surprisingly, by offensive linemen. It was a much leaner list this year than last, when almost double the number of changes were made, but much more in line with previous seasons, when 14-15 changes have typically been made. Find out who’s got a new rep this month here, and review all the changes we’ve tracked going back more than a decade here.

First look at the 2021 NFL Agent Class: Thursday morning, we learned that the NFLPA had updated its list of all certified contract advisors to include the ’21 class, so we dug in. By Thursday night, we finally put the microscope away and filed this report. In it, we included the bad news on the passing rate (it’s about what we predicted it would be); the ex-NFL GM who’s a newly minted agent; the 25 people (including some very seasoned members of the NFL business community) who are now ex-agents; the ex-players who crossed over to join the agent ranks; and plenty more. It’s always interesting to sift through the new class, learn the new contract advisors’ stories, and look at where they came from. Dig through it all here in Thursday’s Rep Rumblings report. We also posted Wednesday, talking about the first all-star invitees of the year, notes on the new USFL season, and one of the final items from the ITL Scouting Department for the ’21-’22 cycle. Don’t forget you can review all our reports from 2021 (and beyond) here.

Know Your Scouts: As you know, our school-by-school look at the best prospects in FBS football, i.e., our Profile Reports, are over for the ’21-’22 cycle (you can access them here). However, a new series is under way as we help you Know Your Scouts in advance of the ’22 draft. This week, we looked at five teams (the 49ers, Bears, Bengals, Bills andBroncos) and next week, five more (Browns, Buccaneers, Cardinals, Chargers and Chiefs). We feel our series is the best way to get to know the people who make up each NFL evaluation staff, especially this year as we’ve added a notation for all scouts honored as part of our BART List (as well as all scouts who got at least double-digit votes from their peers). You can even see how each staff evolved over the last decade, as our series is 10 years old. If you’re interested in how teams hire scouts and evaluate players, make sure you’re reading our Know Your Scouts series. 

Catching Up: Dan Rambo, 69, spent 24 years in personnel on the NFL, WLAF and CFL level and the last 13 in the computer programming and data design phase, but with a football twist. We caught up with him this week.

  • Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada’s capital city. In 2008, we started FBXchange.com with my associate & IT man Rob (Garby) and a few contributors. We are always looking for global and national players playing in the states and around the world. We also offer the program to scouts who are not working or just starting out but want to get or stay involved by giving them a platform to write reports on and that can be seen by pro teams. 
  • Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “Not exactly . . . I’m still doing it. But there is a difference working with a team and for a league and what I’m doing, (I’m) basically a third party company that only gets to chat with GMs, directors and scouts but not nearly enough. They are a busy bunch. You miss the friendships and all the road stories. Don’t miss the intense competition between staff members, coaches and owners, though, but that only happens when there isn’t a clear line of leadership, roles and responsibilities. But all in all, the scales tip heavily in favor of the great people who I’ve worked with and who mentored me (Bill Baker was my biggest and most positive influence in my career). And of course, the locker room on the teams where you helped recruit some of the players, along with the team-building and strategies to get done what needs doing.”
  • Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues? “Of course. Not enough, though. Being on the outside looking in, you want to maintain your distance and speak only when you have something to say. I certainly know how busy they are especially in season. But that said I still want to keep up on the CBA, rules and regulations, etc., so I can better design, and Rob build, our software to better fit the needs of each team.
  • Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “I try to go to all the local games here in Ottawa, (like) the CFL Ottawa RedBlacks, (University of) Carleton Ravens and occasionally the (University of) Ottawa Gee-Gees but, because my wife is a Carleton alumnus, I try my best not to miss Carleton games. Steve (Sumarah), the Carleton coach, is very free with his time for the pro scouts or players in need to talk football or help out where he can.”
  • Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?
  • “Players I love to watch is just about anyone that gives 100% each play, is a true sportsman, and I hate to admit it, but wins. (Bucs QB) Tom Brady is probably a good example, but also because I remember doing my report on him when I was working for Denver and he was at Michigan and the player he replaced at New England, due to an injury, was Drew Bledsoe, whose dad lives in Whitefish, Montana. You see, I’m from Montana, and anybody from there can’t be all bad. Of course, Drew’s injury happened to be on my niece’s birthday Sept 23. Too many things line up not to like TB12. There are a few players I’m close to -- close doesn’t mean daily or even monthly contact -- not counting the boys around Ottawa like Miles Gorrell, Duke Ellingson, Jeff Avery, Gord Weber, guys like this that I see at the RedBlacks game, but three that were players on our Saskatchewan team that certainly stick out are Eddie Lowe from Alabama, Kent Austin from Ole Miss and Richie Hall from Colorado State. I know there are a number more that I can’t think of right now. You realize my age and memory go hand in hand. But getting personal and close to players during ‘the time’ really wasn’t a thing. It wasn’t considered professional. But those that you respected, like Eddie, Kent and Richie, are now older adults I can talk to like not a day passed from the last time we met. It’s important to keep the positive memories alive to give a person hope that the sun will rise tomorrow.”

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.

Ready to rumble?: If your client isn’t on an NFL roster or practice squad or a CFL team, maybe it’s time to use their athletic talents for something else. The WWE is always on the lookout for ex-football players to give wrestling a try, and you don’t have to be the size of Georgia’s Jordan Davis, either. Learn more about the WWE’s training program here, and if your client is curious, send him our way for an expedited application process. Let’s get him in the ring.
 
Next week: With the new agent class announced, we’re getting down to business helping them. First item on the agenda: our Zoom session Wednesday night, in which we’ll talk about the all-star slate and answer everyone’s questions on the value of such games and how to work with their organizers. If you’re an ITL client, you’re invited. If not, we invite you to become one. We’ll also be preparing for the resumption of the ITL Rising Contract Advisors Newsletter, which offers daily tips on how to negotiate your first year as an agent, Monday through Thursday. It goes out to all ITL members of the ’21 agent class. Also on the horizon, we’re working on an online NIL class of probably three sessions ($150) and another former NFL scout who’ll join us in the coming weeks at no cost to ITL subscribers. We’ll also break down five more NFL teams (Browns, Bucs, Cardinals, Chargers and Chiefs) in our Know Your Scouts series. There will also be all the features you expect: our Succeed in Football blog, our Rep Rumblings; our YouTube page; our books; and our tweets. Need anything else? Just let us know. Seeking permission to come aboard? Granted.