Feb. 12-18

Last week in this space, we told you about the 2022 ITL Combine Seminar Presented by TEST Football Academy and the XFL. It’s our 13th annual celebration of the football industry, especially as it relates to the agents, scouts and others who make up the unsung backbone of the game. We also asked you to save the date of Thursday, March 3, for the seminar. 

However, after further review, we’re asking you to scratch March 3 off your calendar. Instead, our annual event will be one day earlier, on Wednesday, March 2, with open bar starting at 6:30 p.m. and the seminar kicking off at 7 p.m. ET. We’ll be in Room 125 of the Indiana Convention Center, and we’ll go about an hour, with plenty of exciting announcements, presentations and information about the business we (and you) are so passionate about. Though we expect numbers to be way down for the last NFL Combine in Indianapolis – maybe – we look forward to welcoming scouts (aspiring and active), executives, agents and football people of every stripe to our annual meetup.

Our original intention was to sneak our seminar in before the real gist of workouts got under way toward the weekend. However, after reviewing the position-by-position nightly schedule posted on the National Football Scouting website, we decided not to go head to head with the quarterbacks, wide receivers and tight ends who’ll be running, jumping and getting in positional work Thursday night. We promise that everyone who joins us Wednesday will be out before 8 p.m. ET, when player interviews get started. As always, it’s our priority to celebrate the people in the game without getting in their way.

Here’s a preview of the award-winners:

Best Draft Award 2021: The vote got a lot tighter in the last couple weeks, but we have a winner for our fifth annual award, which was won by the Bucs last year. This year, two teams, the Dolphins and Broncos, combined for half of all votes cast. Will there be a Mile High winner this year, or will the win go to the Fins? The victorious team will be represented by its GM and other staffers, and our presentation of the Best Draft Award will launch the evening. 

BART List winners: The NFL’s scouts and executives were surveyed last fall, and their votes decided the top 10 evaluators in each conference, which were announced on the first day of October in the Friday Wrap. The award is named for former Rams scout Danton Barto, a gentleman and a football guy through and through as well as a brother we all lost too soon. Their busy schedules mean all 20 award-winners won’t make it to accept their plaques (and our congratulations) in person, but we’re expecting more than half to join us. The son of the award’s namesake, Will, will help us present the award.

C.O. Brocato Award: The winner of this year’s award for honorable but unsung work in the scouting industry is a veteran of almost 30 years in evaluation and almost two decades as the one scout known by everyone who watches players run the 40. Last year, Seahawks executive Alonzo Highsmith took the award, and Chicago’s Jeff Shiver was the inaugural winner. C.O.’s daughter, Becky, will be back to present the award.

Eugene Parker Award: This year, we’ll make the first posthumous presentation to a formerly West Coast-based agent who touched countless lives while serving honorably for decades. He’ll be represented by his stepbrother, an NFL veteran of the coaching ranks in his own right. Last year, former Octagon chief and Broncos cap expert Mike Sullivan won the award, while Ralph Cindrich took the first award in 2019. 

But that’s not all. ITL’s Neil Stratton will also present the salary and other compensation info gathered from this year’s survey, and the we’ll wrap the night with a presentation from our co-sponsor, the XFL. Senior VP of Player Personnel Doug Whaley will pass along everything agents need to know related to rosters, player acquisition, contracts, eligibility and all other relevant topics. We might even get a cameo from a person who, while not a Super Bowl winner, is no stranger to rings. 

If you’re reading this, you’re invited, and we hope you can join us. Again: Wednesday, March 2, at 7 p.m., Room 125 of the Indiana Convention Center, is where you need to be. See you there. In the meantime, here’s a look at what else we saw, heard, read and said in the business of college and pro football this week.

Catching Up: Mel Foels, 78, spent almost nine seasons in scouting, mostly crisscrossing the Midwest for the Rams. We caught up with him last month.

  • Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I’m living in outside of Wilmington, N.C., in a little area called Leland, right across the river from Wilmington. Basically, I’m involved in trying to help a high school a little bit in football, plus I’m chasing my grandkids around, which I enjoy, because I didn’t get a chance to do that with my daughters even though my one daughter was an All-American in soccer. She was a Division II All-American, and she was an All-American in high school, too, in soccer. I didn’t get a chance to see her play at all in college, so when my grandkids start getting involved in athletics after I retired, I said, ‘hey look, I’m going to spend as much time around them as I possibly can. I have four grandkids, two in college and two young ones that are 13 that are involved in a lot of athletic-type activities, one in volleyball and one in basketball. The one in basketball is on two different teams, so Saturday is my day to see her play, and then she  plays for the middle school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I’m involved in going to watch her play a lot. During spring football, I go over there to evaluate or help them a little bit, mostly with organization or giving them some ideas on what they can do better. Obviously, during the summers, in August, I’m over there in preseason and then during the season helping them. Everybody’s doing this Hudl stuff, so they asked me to look at upcoming games or tape and also to evaluate their own players’ strategy and stuff like that. What can we do better, that type of thing, give them some ideas there. I find that most high schools do a poor job with special teams, so a lot of things we talk about have to do with special teams programs or special teams in general.”

  • Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “Honestly, I did not enjoy it. I didn’t mind meeting with the coaches and all that kind of stuff and looking at talent, but I just didn’t like all that travel.”

  • Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “I talk to Mike Ackerley probably once or twice a month, and periodically I get a hold of Dave Boller. He’s hard to get hold of, but I talk to him periodically. I do get emails periodically from Tom Marino. Tom was with the Giants, that’s where I first met him, and we worked together with the Rams. He was also with the Saints. I haven’t talked to him in quite a while. The other one I talk to periodically is Tim Mingey. Tim, of course, was with the Jaguars. Tim is retired. He’s in St. Augustine (Fla.) right now, or right outside of St. Augustine.” 

  • Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “I don’t go to any pro games. Ever since (former NFL QB Colin) Kaepernick started taking a knee and these jacklegs started taking a knee, I don’t have any respect for any of those guys. I emailed Goodell and told him to muster some intestinal fortitude and tell them to stand for the national anthem. I’ve got two brothers who were in the service, one who spent time in Vietnam, and they spit all over him and everything when he got back from Vietnam. I also had a good friend who was a sniper in Afghanistan . . . so those guys that say, ‘hey, we have a right to take a knee,’ as far as the national anthem, get their asses over there and let them fight. So I don’t watch any NFL football.”

  • Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “I watch college (football). I try to stay on top of that as much as I can, the ACC for the most part, the Southeastern Conference. All my relatives are still up in Ohio, so I watch the Big Ten a little bit. When I can, I’ll watch the Pac-12. It’s unbelievable what’s going on with college ball with all the leagues merging now, and Texas and Oklahoma going to the SEC.” 

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.

Questions and answers . . . but mostly questions: We had our monthly Zoom session for new agents Thursday night, and it was pretty lively. We discussed plenty of topics related to the NFL Draft, the difficulty of getting players into big-school pro days, how to network with scouts, and all manner of issues related to the USFL. Many contract advisors are weighing advising their clients to sign USFL contracts, but have questions before they’re ready to ask players to commit. Others are confused about exactly what USFL contracts say, and how the fine print differs from perception. The Zoom session was co-hosted by ITL’s Neil Stratton and AL 360’s Rodrik David, a former Falcons area scout. Missed it? We’ve got highlights in today’s post at Succeed in Football. 

Rep Rumblings: It was nice having a couple weeks “off” in the middle of January, but the unusual all-star schedule, late Senior Bowl and later NFL Combine made for a rush of activity this month. As a result, our regular reports have been a little hard to come by. On Tuesday, we looked at a hot rumor related to recruiting strategies of the USFL, and we also had thoughts on scouting movement in New England and Las Vegas. On Thursday, we looked at the NFL Combine’s Covid restrictions this year, reminded subscribers of a key pro day date (especially for those agents seeking more opportunities for their players) and broke down the ’22 draft class. Make sure to review all our reports so far this year here.

2022 Pro Day Grid: We’re a week-plus later than we’d like to have posted it, but we’ve got our first whack at this year’s workouts now up on the site. For now, we’ve listed 77 schools of every size and from all over the country. So far, we’re seeing similar patterns as last year, with some schools (Indiana, Ball State, UCF, Houston and several others) pushing their pro days until April. We’ve also got 17 sub-FBS schools listed, which is encouraging with more players than ever seeking opportunities. More schools to come. Check out our progress so far here.

Agent Changes (December to January): After a short report earlier this month, things were a little more normal this week for our latest compilation of agent terminations. Fifteen players made the switch over the 30 days from December to January, including four tight ends and three each of wide receivers and linebackers. A year ago, 16 players made switches at the same time. We have Agent Changes reports going back to 2005 here.

Agents by Total Clients: We counted 107 agents with at least 10 active clients as of last month, which we reported on Monday. January is always a tough time for client totals with the season ending and practice squads evaporating, but two agent (Sportstars’ Jared Fox and Athletes First’s Brian Murphy) each managed to add two clients over the month. Check out the full rundown here. 

Agent Exam Prep: This week, we’ll begin our monthly brush-ups for the 2022 NFLPA Exam. If you’re an ITL client, cost is $20. If not, it’s $50. We’ll send out details and pay links this week. Interested? Hit us up and we’ll make sure you’re registered and ready to go. As always, our in-house CBA expert, Chicago-based Ian Greengross, will lead the session. See you Thursday.

Next week: In the last week before the combine, we’ll work on (surprise!) our Combine Grid. We’re way behind on tracking training facilities for combine invitees, and we’ll try to catch up. We’re also going to add more signees to our Signings Grid. We’ll also fill in some of the blanks in our schedule for Indianapolis next week (we plan on hitting town Tuesday and heading home Thursday). We’ll also continue to add pro days to our big board, and if there are scouting changes, they’ll go here. As you know, we’ll also have a post for our regular blog, Succeed in Football; our Rep Rumblings; and anything else we can think of that helps you do your job better. After all, we’re all here to serve the game, right? See how we do our part here.