Aug. 27-Sept. 2

How do you grade a draft? There are lots of ways. One way is to ask NFL scouts who performed best, which is what we’ve done for the last five years as we’ve handed out the Best NFL Draft Award at our annual combine seminar. However, when it comes to player representation, the criteria changes. 

At ITL, we track the agents who had the most combine invitees snubbed on draft day, the ones with the most non-combine draftees, the firms that had the most draft value points and other categories. However, what about where the rubber meets the road -- which firms are best at getting off-the-radar prospects not only signed after the draft, but onto 53-man rosters to start the season? That might be the truest measure of not only basic evaluation, but persuasion/salesmanship, training choices and the day-to-day support that is part of modern player representation. 

We counted 56 players that made rosters this week despite going undrafted. Per NFLPA rolls, we recorded and listed the agents for all of them in today’s post at Inside the League. Here are a few observations. 

Great work: Andrew “Buddy” Baker of Exclusive Sports Group was the only agent to rep four UDFAs who made it. The four are Colts SS Sterling Weatherford, Cowboys WO Dennis Houston, Eagles FS Reed Blankenship and Falcons DT Timmy Horne. Special mention also goes to Steve Caric of Caric Sports. Caric is the only agent to have three UDFAs make a 53 (Bears IB Jack Sanborn and TE Jake Tonges plus Rams OB Jake Hummel) plus have a Day 2 pick (he had two: Colts TE Jelani Woods, who went 3/73, and Broncos TE Greg Dulcich, who went 3/80). 

Great work II: The remaining agents who had at least two players make the 53 are Chad Berger of National Sports Agency; Damien Butler and Rodney Thomas of QC Sports; Shane Costa and Christian Kranz of Generation Sports Group; Pat Dye Jr. and Ben Setas of SportsTrust Advisors; Joe Linta of JL Sports; Hadley Engelhard of Enter-Sports; and Adam Seifer of Premier Athlete Advisors. In all, 85 agents had at least one undrafted client make a 53-man roster. That’s almost 10 percent of the total contract advisor community (869 total).  

Fast start: It’s unusual for a rookie contract advisor to get a player signed to a UDFA deal, but getting a player on a 53-man roster is almost unheard of. Still, it’s not impossible, and seven first-year agents pulled it off: Steve Feldman and Brian McGeough (who co-rep Giants OB Tomon Fox); Jordan Fish (Patriots OB Damarcus Mitchell); George Holley (Saints OT Lewis Kidd); Ness Mugrabi (Steelers OH Jaylen Warren); and Butler and Thomas (who co-rep Bears DC Jaylon Jones and Lions DT Demetrius Taylor). We’re proud to have worked with five of them during the exam prep process.

Flying solo: Only one player did it all without representation, per NFLPA rolls. It’s Raiders FS Isaiah Pola-Mao.

The long, long road: We found only one player who made it from tryout to UDFA signee to the 53. That's Packers LS Jack Coco.

Top trainers: We didn’t have time to round up the training facilities for all 56 players, but we did confirm that Jordan Luallen’s outfit, X3 Performance, prepped almost a fourth of them. They included Jets DC Tony Adams, Dolphins WO Tanner Conner, Colts OB Jojo Domann, Colts DC Dallis Flowers, Cowboys TE Peyton Hendershot, Raiders OB Luke Masterson, Bills OT Tanner Owen, Vikings DE Luiji Vilain, Mitchell, Fox and Houston. Among our other partners, Pete Bommarito and Co. at Bommarito Performance Systems trained four (Rams OB Jake Hansen, Texans DT Kurt Hinish, Panthers DT Marquan McCall and Warren) as did Dave Spitz and his team at California Strength (Vikings PT Ryan Wright plus Hummel, Sanborn and Tonges) and Adam Farrand’s EXOS trainers (Bucs IB Olakunle Fatukasi, Eagles DC Josh Jobe, 49ers OH Jordan Mason and Colts SS Sterling Weatherford). Finally, Tony Villani, Matt Gates and the XPE Sports professionals trained Cowboys FS Markquese Bell, Browns SS D’Anthony Bell and Titans OH Julius Chestnut, and Kevin Dunn and the folks at TEST Football Academy prepped Titans DC Tre Avery. 

Good eye: The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl and Hula Bowl reigned supreme with 12 players each whose alumni made the opening-week roster, so kudos to Dane Vandernat and his team at the NFLPA game and to Damond Talbot and his crew at the Hula. Of the 56 former UDFAs who made teams, only Pittsburgh’s Jaylen Warren didn’t play in an all-star game.We counted 11 Shriners, six from the College Gridiron Showcase and four from the Tropical Bowl.

Hats off not only to the 56 who beat the odds, but to their representatives, as well as those who played a role in their development. Make sure to review all the names and their contract advisors in today’s report.

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

Catching Up: Bobby Grier, 80, spent almost 20 years in the Patriots’ front office (where he played a key role in drafting a QB you might have heard of), followed by another near-20 years with the Texans. Now retired, he still does a little work on the side for the Dolphins. We caught up with him this week.

·      Where are you living and what are you doing now? “I live in Boston and I’ve got family up here, and I do a little of nothing as of right now. I enjoy retirement.”
·      Do you miss the job? What do you miss most? “I’m still involved a little bit. I kind of help my son (Dolphins GM Chris Grier) out at Miami. I do a little work there sometimes, but as far as really missing it, my answer is no.”
·      Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues? “There’s a few guys that I talk to that call and check in on me and stuff, but I’m really more of a loner. I don’t do a lot of stuff and I don’t seek out a lot of stuff, so it’s really . . . I guess you’d say I’m enjoying the fruits of retirement. I’ve never been a guy that seeks stuff, and I’m very comfortable in retirement and living alone.” 
·      Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)? “I don’t know when the last time I was at a college game. I have flown down to Miami and gone to some Dolphins games down there, but living here in Boston, I haven’t been to a Patriots game and really, I watch the college games on TV because there’s so many of them. I can sit there and make my choice. I’m really not active in scouting or doing any of that stuff right now.”
·      Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game? “I watch all the Dolphin games. The rest of them, I just enjoy the game. I don’t have a favorite player or anybody like that, and if I have a favorite team, it’s the Dolphins.” 

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.

Where are the BART ballots?: Last year at this time, we kicked off our first-ever balloting for the BART List, our rendering of the 10 best scouts in each NFL conference. While we were excited by the balloting for our inaugural year, we want to expand our voting categories as well as the number of votes cast. The problem: not every team updates its website with its scouting changes, and several teams still haven’t published their media guides for the 2022 season (believe it or not). By next month, that shouldn’t be the case, so we’ll wait until October to start distributing the vote lists for this year’s scouts. What’s more, we’ve got one more change: we won’t announce the winners of our votes until our seminar at the 2023 NFL Combine. So we do appreciate your vote, though you’ll have to wait to find out who won. Ballots on the way in five weeks. Thanks for your patience. 

The strong get stronger: On Thursday, we saw Priority Sports acquire the services of Michael Perrett and Element Sports Group, while Dream Point Sports’ Tony Paige and Chitta Mallik moved over to Vanguard Sports Group. Why did this happen, and what does it all mean for the player representation industry? We see it as the latest in an important (and perhaps troubling) trend, and we broke it all down in Thursday’s Rep Rumblings report. That might have been our last report of the week, but it was far from our only one. On Monday,  we looked at a new marketing group that’s gathering clients at western schools, plus we had a few key geographical notes related to alternative leagues and the like. Tuesday, we had search firm notes, plus we looked at the players and coaches with NFL and agent ties at TCU. On Wednesday, we reviewed the quarterbacks that will lead their teams into Week 1 battle and the agencies that represent them (you’ll be surprised by how many agencies are in the QB business) and we had the latest signing buzz on some of the top players in the ’23 draft class. Read up on everything we discussed this week and this year here.

The news on NIL: Tuesday, we hosted Peter Schoenthal of Athliance and Sammy Spina of Breaking into Sports, two experts in name, image and likeness, in an incredibly informative Zoom session. Peter and Sammy knocked it out of the park as they looked at how to make money in NIL from every angle, illustrating their points with stories, videos, websites, presentations and timeless insights. They answered every questions and stuck around for 40 minutes past the expected hour. Participants were treated to the kind of practical advice you just don’t find everywhere, and we promptly sent the video by private link to everyone who joined us. Our recording is still for sale, and if you’re looking to add a new dimension to your work with NFL players, you won’t be sorry if you pick it up. If you’re an ITL client, sign up for $50 plus tax here. If you’re not, get it for $80 plus tax here. Make sure to let us know your gmail email address; it’s a must-have to watch private videos on YouTube.

Next week: We got football this weekend! NFL and college!! Well, we already had college, but things really get going this weekend. But you know all that. The stuff we’ll have next week maybe you didn’t know includes:

·      We’ll be back with five more Profile Reports as we go down the home stretch. In the next seven days, it’s Texas week. You’ll see Texas, Texas State, UTSA, Texas Tech and UTEP. 
·      We’ll have the July-to-August Agent Changes. Maybe Tuesday. 
·      Three or four more Rep Rumblings reports are on the way.
·      On our Succeed in Football blog, we’ll have our usual focused and maybe a little weird look at the business of football. After expecting agent exam results this week but getting nothing, our hope is that we’ll be talking to the prospective agents who passed and failed July’s test in our weekly post. Fingers crossed.
·      We’re going to take another cut at updating our Draft by the Numbers with rosters now intact. 
·      We’ll also be watching lots of football, so who knows what might happen that makes it into our content?

Enjoy the weekend and raise a glass to our nation’s workforce, our greatest natural resource. Did we mention that we’ve got a pretty good team here at Inside the League? Come see for yourself.