Aug. 13-19
With camps under way, NFL teams have set their scouting departments for the ’22 season, wrapping up the hiring and firing that is part of every summer. Though, as of Wednesday, there were still 10 teams who had not published their media guides, we can get a pretty good picture of NFL hiring practices by looking at the almost 280 moves that we’ve already logged on our Scouting Changes Grid.
So where did this year’s new scouts come from? How much experience is enough to get hired into the league? What boxes need to be checked before you have a good case for working in an NFL front office?
We looked at the three scouting categories into which people were hired this offseason. They include “entry-level plus,” i.e., someone hired into a full scouting role as a scout, director or scouting analyst; the scouting assistant/personnel assistant/data analyst level; and intern or equivalent. Eight were hired into the first category, with 18 taking the more traditional route and seven entering as interns. Here’s a look at each category and what we found.
Entry-level plus (8): Ryan Cavanaugh took a job with the Bears this offseason, but as an NFL veteran with 20 years in NFL scouting, we’ll throw him out. Of the remaining seven hires, six had at least a decade working in football, primarily in college recruiting departments (though new 49ers area scout Eric Thatcher has mostly coaching experience). Three of the seven had pervious NFL experience, mostly on the scouting assistant/quality control level. Only Michael Coe, who joined the Panthers as an area scout this offseason, made it without the benefit of several years working in recruiting and personnel departments at P5 schools. However, his work with the Senior Bowl (he was the game’s Director of Football Operations last year) probably gave him access to multiple teams that allowed him to build a considerable network without the years others had. Bottom line, to hop right into a full-time scouting role, make sure you have 10 years in the game, preferably at big-name schools, and previous NFL experience doesn’t hurt.
Scouting assistant/personnel assistant (18): A number of this year’s hires were analysts, assistants or associates in schools’ recruiting departments, so they had far less seasoning than their “entry-level plus” counterparts. Only six had “director” or “manager” in their respective titles. One came from the media side. We couldn’t find any recruiting or personnel experience for former NFL offensive lineman Ben Ijalana, who’s new with the Eagles this year. The same is true for former Boston College linebacker Reggie Terry II, whose father, Reggie Sr., is a longtime NFL and college administrator. In truth, digging up info on many of this year’s scouting assistants was difficult, owing to their limited experience in football. The most experience this year’s scouting assistants had was 5-6 years, with some landing NFL posts with two or fewer years working in football. Also, we could find only two with previous NFL experience, and even their experience was limited to a couple months, respectively. At the end of the day, the secret to success for these 18 seemed to be their ability to make connections, to earn a recommendation and interview successfully. We couldn’t locate a baseline age, number of years of football experience, or other background metric that was a common thread.
Intern or equivalent (7): In many cases, the people hired as interns or their equivalent to help out with training camp, etc., were and are as qualified as those hired as scouting assistants. One hire, Leesa Rockhold, has more baseball experience than football. Another KC hire, Cade Ciarocca, seems to lack extensive football recruiting or personnel experience, though his father is a longtime college coach. Once again, drawing clear lines that describe how they landed their opportunities is difficult.
Want to maximize your opportunities? We recommend putting in 4-5 years in college recruiting and personnel departments, with the Universities of Alabama or Ohio State particularly impressive if you can add them to your resume. Obviously, the league has put emphasis on diversity in their hires, as well. If you have previous NFL experience of any kind, it might mean you can skip a step and go right into a scouting role. In the meantime, follow this advice, gather as much experience as you can, and don’t give up. Also, study our grid; maybe you can decipher trends we couldn’t identify. We hope to see you out on the trail someday.
In the meantime, here’s a look at what else we saw, heard, read and said about the business of college and pro football this week.
Congratulations!: Speaking of scouting hires, the Senior Bowl announced its senior staff members and evaluators for the 2023 game on Thursday. Matt Kelly is the game’s new Director of Football Operations, while Johnny Williams will be the Creative Content Coordinator. Among scouts this year will be veterans Frantzy Jourdain (Patriots, Texans, Broncos), Walter Juliff (Cowboys, Raiders), Bobby Macedo (Bears), T.J. McCreight (Eagles, Colts, Cardinals, Ravens), Chris Prescott (Jets, Bears, Jaguars), Paul Roell (Jaguars, Vikings, Colts), Brock Sunderland (Jets, CFL), and Brian Zeches(Redskins, Chiefs). Other staffers who are building their respective scouting resumes are Brad Jackson, Kalija Lipscomb and Chris Smith. Congratulations to new and returning team members, and we’ll see everyone in Mobile in February.
Catching Up: Charles Fisher, 46, interned with the Packers in the early 2000s, then spent several years in Seattle, coming up just short of a decade in player evaluation. Though he’s no longer a scout, he remains very close to the game. We caught up with him earlier this week.
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Where are you living and what are you doing now? “I live in Florence, Ky. Cincinnati, Ohio, basically. Now, I’m a sports agent with Roc Nation Sports in New York City. I’m up there once a month, just working. I’m up there 2-3 weeks a month nowadays, but throughout the year, probably once a month.”
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Do you miss the job? What do you miss most? “I do. I do miss scouting. I had a good time. I had some good years and good relationships with people in the business. I miss the camaraderie of sitting down and watching a player, deciding where he fits and what level of player he will be. Traveling with the guys and within football, it was fun. Enjoyable.”
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Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues? “Yeah, I talk to a lot of them. I talk to many, plus my cousin’s in scouting, too (Kelvin Fisher with the Steelers). I just got off the phone with him. But I keep up with a lot of the guys I worked with in Seattle like Jason Barnes, Lake Dawson, Scott Fitterer, John Schneider. Those are all my friends for life, not just from a professional standpoint.”
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Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)? “Honestly, with my agent work, I don’t really go to games like I used to. Obviously, back in the scouting days, I was at a game almost every week, but now, between pro, college and watching (former teammate and fellow Roc Nation contract advisor) John (Thornton’s) boys playing high school football, probably about 10 games a year.”
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Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game? “Obviously, all the guys in Seattle are guys I came up with, and there’s a lot of guys still left from (former GM) Tim Ruskell’s days that stayed with (current GM) John Schneider, and I obviously root for them, but with my cousin with the Steelers, I root for them, too. But my friends are spread out. I always want to see their teams do well. I also like the Bengals because they drafted me (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.
New scouting and draft podcast: The Scouting Report, former Falcons area scout Rodrik David’s daily reports on scouting and the players NFL teams will be watching this fall, is now available on iTunes and Podbean. Listeners get to hear brief audio scouting reports on athletes primed to be part of the 2023 draft class from David, who breaks down prospects’ strengths and weaknesses and gives player comparisons while adding his take on how scouts across the NFL will view them. Wednesday Specials give a behind-the-scenes look at different topics in the NFL, including what area scouts do in the fall, how to look at pre-season roster breakdowns and more. This week, David had reports on Pittsburgh DE Habakkuk Baldonado, Kansas St. DC Julius Brents and Arkansas OC Ricky Stromberg, and last week, he was joined on the Wednesday Special by longtime former NFL scout Russ Bolinger. Check out all the podcasts here.
Help is on the way: With the first year of the name, image and likeness era behind us, it almost seems like there are even more questions than there were on July 1, 2021. However, we have a solution. On Tuesday, Aug. 30, at 8 p.m., we’ll bring three experts on NIL together for a 90-minute Zoom session. They’ll include an expert from Agent Live 360; Peter Schoenthal of Athliance; and Sammy Spina of Breaking Into Sports. Our format will have a twist. We’ll be presenting a case study. Our “client” will be an offensive tackle at West Virginia University who’s entering his senior year after two years of all-conference honors. Our experts will answer all the relevant questions, including:
- What would your agreement with him look like?
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How do you encourage him to step out of his comfort zone without becoming too uncomfortable?
- What are the pitfalls he needs to know about?
- How do you spark interest in an offensive lineman in Morgantown, W.Va., with a limited social media presence?
- What kind of strategy would you develop for beefing up his Twitter and Instagram following?
- How could you bring in WVU’s collective/marketplace/etc. mechanisms to help make your job easier?
- How could you identify potential Morgantown businesses that might be open to working with him, and how could you pitch him to those businesses?
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What about the websites like Dreamfield and Cameo – could they help?
Of course, we’re just scratching the surface, and we’ll leave no stone unturned. Cost is $50 plus tax for ITL subscribers, $80 plus tax for non-subscribers. Best of all, all of our participants will receive a copy of the video, which will be must-watch vieweing for months. More information to come, but put the date in your phone. You don’t want to miss it.
Rep Rumblings: This week, we had two reports. On Monday, we discussed the NFLPA’s decision to delay the exam until next summer for test-takers who were unable to take it last month due to technical issues. It was met with some controversy, though, surprisingly, not as much as we expected (more on that later). We also had an NIL signing and player representation notes. On Tuesday, we had a few Jets scouting moves, a long look at San Diego State’s program and its NFL ties and more. It was a short week but we’ll have more next week. Check out all our reports here.
Succeed in Football: As we noted earlier, it’s “wait till next year” for the unlucky prospective agents who couldn’t test in July due to problems with the testing service. The NFLPA confirmed as much with an email that went out Monday morning. We had quotes from some of those who are in a holding pattern and our thoughts on what it all means in this week’s blog at Succeed in Football.
Next week: Can you believe we’ll have college football games next weekend? It’s here. Fourteen games next Saturday! Here’s what we’ll have next week to tide you over till kickoff.
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We’ll have five more reports in our 2023+ Profile Reports series. Next up: South Florida, Southern Cal, SMU, Southern Miss and Stanford.
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The next Agent Changes won’t take nearly as long to produce. We’ll have the July-to-August edition next week.
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We’ll also have our Agents by Total Clients list.
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We’ll be back with another post in our blog series, Succeed in Football. Our guess: we’ll be talking about NIL.
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We’ll have at least two Rep Rumblings reports, maybe more.
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We’ll try again to get a few more scouting moves onto our Twitter account (or at least into our Rep Rumblings), and we’ll plug them into our Scouting Changes Grid.
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The Friday Wrap will roll on, and we’ve got a couple scouts whose stories we may be telling in our Catching Upfeature.
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We may have an update on our Draft by the Numbers report for the 2022 draft. We’re working on it.
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