Sept. 4-10

With the season under way and scouts out doing their jobs, we’ve been digging into how NFL staffs have been built as we prepared our balloting for the BART List (more on that later). In the course of doing so, we’ve drawn a few conclusions about the industry, and given that we know you’re as interested in scouting and evaluation as we are, we thought we’d pass along what we found.

When we began to devise the ballots, we decided to include everyone who was working for an NFL team on draft day five of the last six years, reasoning that most hires are done in May/June and that scouts working on draft day spent a whole year there. That meant there are 196 scouts on the NFC ballot. Here’s what we found:

  • Our research clearly displayed the disposable mentality toward scouts these days. Of the 196 NFC scouts, we counted only 11 who were out of the league for one year but returned (12 more were not hired until 2017). That means, basically, that 186 have had an unbroken string of years working in the league since they entered it. The takeaway: if you’re out more than one season, it’s very hard to come back.
  • Also, of the 196, just 38 have worked for more than team one during the last six years, and just two have worked for more than two teams in the last six years. Our takeaway is that there’s very little “working your way up” by moving from team to team. Loyalty counts more than anything else. 

Things were slightly different in the AFC, which had 10 fewer scouts (186) that met the working-five-of-the-last-six-years minimum. 

  • There’s even less movement among teams in the AFC. Just three scouts have not been working for at least five years straight (15 more weren’t hired until 2017). 
  • Also, 46 have worked for at least two teams in the last six years, and five have worked for three. Again, the numbers support the belief that it’s rare for scouts to move up by moving around.

There’s a perception that the 2021 offseason has been quiet when many expected wholesale changes after a pandemic-influenced 2020 offseason. The truth is that it’s been a very transitory offseason. It’s just that the movement has been in-house, not between teams, for the most part. 

For example, we’ve counted 229 moves since the end of the ’20 season (which includes all in-season front office terminations during the season, like GM terminations). That’s almost 100 more than each of the last three offseasons (133 in 2020, 138 in 2019 and 134 in 2018). Teams are certainly making moves; it’s just that they aren’t going out and getting scouts from other teams to fill their jobs. Unless it’s a scout following a former staffer who takes a GM post with another team, there’s very little poaching of scouts by other teams. Most of what we saw in this year’s hiring jibes with our earlier findings about the dearth of experienced scout hires we discussed in May.

As for the BART voting, we’ve been shocked by the response. The number of participating voters so far is already more than half of the response to our scouting salary and Best Draft Award voting in January, when we received the best response ever. We’re confident that as we continue to gather votes over the next two weeks, we’ll achieve an even greater sampling of the league than we ever have.

The results have been interesting. So far, nine NFC scouts have received votes from at least 15 percent of those surveyed, while eight AFC scouts have achieved the same mark. While we won’t provide the names of the leaders here (we’ll honor the top 10 vote-getters from each conference in October), we did discuss the top five in each conference in this week’s edition of The State of Football with Ric Serritella of NFL Draft Bible (view it here; we start at about the 44:30 mark). 

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

Please vote: Before we move forward, if you’re an active NFL scout, you have in your inbox a fresh ballot for the BART List, our survey of the 10-best scouts in each conference. We can’t do this without you. Remember, this is a strictly peer-run vote, so no one who’s not working in the league gets to weigh in. Think of the scouts who’ve expertly run pro days, who’ve stuck to their guns (and been right), who watch film long into the night, who ask the awkward questions that no one else wants to ask, and reward them by voting them as one of the best 10 scouts in each conference. Didn’t get the email? Let us know and we’ll send you the link. We’ll publish the results in October. Thanks for your help, and safe travels. 

Catching Up: Steve Devine, 71, spent almost 19 years with the Giants after two decades in coaching on the high school and college level, retiring after the 2019 draft. We caught up with him this week.

  • Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I live in Marysville, Ohio, basically where I grew up. When the Giants called me, I had decided to get out of (college) coaching and come back to my hometown because I’d always wanted to be a teacher and coach. So when I went to the Giants, we still lived here in town. Then when I retired from the Giants, I call it more of a ‘redirect’ than a retirement. I just help here. I volunteer as a teacher and coach with the school, and I’m privileged to be able to do that. It’s a privilege to coach someone else’s son, so I’ve been privileged to do that. I also have three grandchildren now, and grandpa is not as fast as (he thinks he is), but I’ve gotten a little faster having to chase them. So it’s been great.” 
  • Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “I miss visiting with college coaching staffs and seeing college kids play football. I also miss the people I worked with at the Giants. When I got the call from the team, one of my hesitations was I didn’t know anything about the people there, but I talked to some people that I knew in college coaching and they said that when it comes to organizations, the Giants are that organization that really takes care of its people. I especially enjoyed spending most of my time with (former Giants GM) Jerry Reese, who was GM for most of my years there. I developed a great relationship with him. I also miss sitting in the room with those fellow scouts and sharing our passion for evaluation and for winning, but I don’t miss the hotels and the traveling and that part of the job.” 
  • Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “I try to do that with some of the guys with the Giants. Also, Andy Dengler, who worked with the Jaguars, he lives nearby in Circleville, Ohio, and some other scouts live close by, as well. Andy and I try to get together regularly. I’ll also jump on the phone and try to talk to my fellow scouts every once in a while. Sometimes I’ll talk to an active scout who’s out and about. (Chargers National Cross-Checker) Justin Sheridan was out here recently and we had a great conversation about our families. There are a lot of scouts out there who are a joy to be around.” 
  • Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “I volunteer coach with the high school, so I go to a lot of live events here. Ohio football is a big deal, and also, my son coaches on the team, so coaching with him is quite a privilege and joy for me, and I’ll even jump on the JV bus on Saturday mornings and coach with him. I always wanted to be a teacher and coach, so after I retired, it was a simple redirect for me. So it’s been great that way. I’ve gone to a couple Ohio State games, and several of the guys on the staff are people I coached with or knew, and they’re usually kind enough to let old-timers like me waddle in there if I want to. I don’t take advantage of that much, but it’s nice to be able to pick up the phone and get over there. And then some coaches will get together for breakfast to tell stories, as well.”
  • Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “That part is separated a little bit by the years I’ve been out, but a lot of those guys I enjoyed watching. One of the best pro day workouts I ever saw was at Notre Dame by (former Giants DE) Justin Tuck. That workout is kind of embedded in my head. And the one receiver for New England (Julian Edelman). He had played QB at Kent State, and at his pro day, Kent State wasn’t a very good team, but I had never seen a guy with his quickness and anticipation. I couldn’t talk our guys into him, but he ended up having a pretty good career. The other guy I was very proud of, (Panthers special teams coordinator and Marysville native) Chase Blackburn, was part of the two Super Bowl teams, and I have enjoyed watching him going into coaching. He comes back into town and puts on fundraisers for a particular type of cancer one of his relatives went through, and he’s just a character human being and stands for all the right things. There are other names that pop up every once in a while, but there are people who jump up and grab your heart and your head.” 

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.

If you want to work in football, you’ve got to read this story: We don’t always promote our services and writings as aggressively as we maybe should, but trust us – this is a great story. It’s the story of how Saints head coach Sean Payton, one of the NFL’s greatest offensive minds, fought, clawed and scratched his way to his first college coaching opportunity at San Diego State in 1988. Yes, we know – you’ve heard all the stories about the humble beginnings of the biggest names in the game -- but you haven’t heard this one. If you’re discouraged about your prospects of working in the game, or just wondering when your break will come, you’ve got to read this week’s post at Succeed in Football, which was told to us by former Giants scout Steve Devine during our Catching Up conversation. Sometimes, success comes only after sheer persistence against the longest of odds. Enjoy.

Zooming: Whether you’re an aspiring contract advisor dying to know if you passed the exam yet, or an NFL scouting hopeful who’s part of the ITL family, we’re working on Zoom sessions that you won’t want to miss. We will be using the platform to help you get better with experts from the business who can get you tuned up on NIL, interview skills, evaluation and more. We’re setting it all up and getting things ready. Watch your inbox this week. 

Rep Rumblings: This week, we had four reports. On Monday, we looked at a change in the Niners’ scouting staff for ’21, plus we looked at moves in Cleveland and Miami, and checked out some of the top prospects at Temple and their potential connections to agencies. Tuesday, we looked at the lead contender to run the replacement process for Randy Edsall at Connecticut, plus we looked at scouting moves in Detroit and Tampa Bay, passed along a few NIL moves and more. On Wednesday, we had breaking news on the representation choice for one of the top tight ends in the game, plus we had NIL developments and looked at an Aggie whose father has a stout NFL history. Finally, on Thursday, we had the new home for the Cajun All-Star Bowl, we looked at agency connections for a player at Texas, had NIL news and more. There was plenty to know, and you can get it all by reviewing our reports from 2021 and before here.

Next week: We’re excited about the arrival of a new season but still far behnd where we’d normally be with the season here. One thing we’ll work on is the Scouts Grid by Team, which wasn’t updated last season when most scouts weren’t on the road, at least until late in the season. We’ll reach out to schools across the nation to get a handle on how teams are evaluating the nation, region by region. We expect big changes over our 2019 grid with so many scouts in and out of the business. We also hope to post the Agent Changes for July, and maybe even August. Either way, we hope to get back on track soon. Speaking of agents, we’re expecting results soon from this summer’s exam, and if test-takers start getting those results this week, we’ll have their reaction to the news. Did most pass or fail? Were the results appreciably different from what they’ve been in the past? Will those would-be agents who didn’t get to take it this year get a chance this fall, or will they have to wait until next year? There are many questions to answer. We’ll also have five more schools for our Profile Reports (Texas-San Antonio, Texas Tech, UTEP, Toledo and Troy) as we wind down our run through all FBS teams (21 to go!), and we’ll update our NIL big board with all the latest deals, partnerships and signings. Just around the corner: We’ll go team-by-team through the NFL in our Know Your Scouts series, breaking down the evaluation staffs of all 32 teams and taking a deep dive on every scout, college and pro, in each of the 32 front offices. If you aspire to scout someday, it’s must-have information on who today’s scouts are, where they came from, and how they were hired. We’ll also have a post in our Succeed in Football blog, which is still going strong seven years after we introduced it in June of 2014. Finally, we’ll also have our Rep Rumblings, in which we’ll have our ear to the ground on any agent changes, recruiting buzz, all-star developments, NIL partnerships, search firm decisions or anything else related to the business behind the game. Remember: all our content is curated either on our YouTube page, at our Twitter account, in our booksor at the mother ship. It’s never a bad time to get caught up on what’s happening. Speaking of getting caught up, we remember what happened 20 years ago Saturday, and we hope you’ll join us in saying a prayer for the lost, as well as the survivors. Read this powerful piece if you weren’t around in 2001, or just want to remember the tragedy of that day. God bless our great nation.