July 24-30

When we at ITL decided to take over Ric Serritella’s daily football business show, The State of Football, the entire last week of July, it was with much trepidation. Did we have the on-air experience to make it look professional? Would we have the guests to make the show informative and insightful? Would we be able to roll with the inevitable glitches, schedule issues and other assorted maladies that are part of everyday life when you’re producing a live daily broadcast?  

Maybe those questions are better answered by our viewers, our guests and other consumers of ITL’s content. What we can tell you is this: it was a lot of fun. It was five hours of discussing the finer points of the football business with highly qualified and highly engaged professionals, some of whom are still making news themselves. What ITL’s Neil Stratton and College2Pro.com’s Bo Marchionte lacked in polish, they (hopefully) made up for with enthusiasm and energy. 

If you’ve already read this week’s blog, you’ve seen and read the highlights from our Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday shows. Here’s a look at today’s show, as well as Thursday’s.

Thursday (full show linked here):

Louisiana native Don Williams on the benefits of being in the Bayou State as he prepares to take the agent exam: “Being focused in Louisiana really branches me out, because a lot of our guys go to schools all across the country. We got guys at Louisville, LSU, TCU, so it kinda opens things up. . . I might know this guy’s brother, this guy’s uncle, and he might not be at LSU, but he’s still connected to Louisiana.” 

Agent and wealth manager Noel Lamontagne on how he would grade NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith’s job performance: “I’ll give him a C-plus, and the reason I’ll give him a C-plus is because I think that . . . he’s won at least as much as he’s lost. And that’s, I think, being generous. But it’s a very difficult position. This is an unpopular opinion, but the players have almost no leverage. Whatever the owners want to do, ultimately, they have the power to do.”

Former agent and NFL executive Mike Sullivan on which team impresses him the most when it comes to cap management: “I would put at the top Paraag Marathe of the 49ers. . . I think he’s always been brilliant, but at the same time, nice in how he communicates. They’ve been able, as a club, to do certain things that are significant in terms of their ability to make personnel decisions, the biggest one being that they use April 1 (for) a lot of their key dates as opposed to the first, third or fifth day of the league year, which gives them a little bit more time to make those personnel decisions and gives them time to make the right decisions.”


Agency1 Athlete Management Group’s Aston Wilson on his firm’s approach to NIL relationships: “For us, it was more or less educating the families and the players. Let’s find some deals that make sense. . . We’re all familiar with going through things for the first time and not knowing who’s who and what’s what. So the players and the families that we have relationships with, we said, ‘hey, we’re here . . . use us as a sounding board. If anyone brings any deals to you, let’s go through it together.’”

Ole Miss GM Matt Lindsey on creating an incubator for budding NFL scouts: “My goal is to create an environment where they can make a seamless transition. I’ve had a few people that have worked with me over the years that have gone on to work at NFL teams, and that’s the first thing they say. ‘This has been real easy for me versus the other scouting assistant we hired because I’m used to doing point-of-attack tapes and I’m used to managing the board and overseeing that.’ I think that’s always our mindset and our goal is to create an environment where those guys can reach their goals.”  

RebelGrove.com’s Neal McCready on the impact of the Texas-Oklahoma news and its implications: “When that (ESPN-SEC) deal got cut, it was, ‘if you expand, and ESPN signs off on the expansion, it’s a pro rata deal.’ In other words, there had always been this assumption that if you add schools in, that your slice of the pie gets smaller. Not now. ESPN basically said . . . if we like the team . . . if you add Texas, we’ll just make more pie. You add Oklahoma, we’ll just make more pie. We’ll buy some ingredients and stick it in the oven. More pie. Well, it stands to reason that if Clemson wanted to come in, ESPN would say, ‘yeah, we’ll make more pie.’ For USC? Ohio State? Michigan? We’ll make more pie.'”

The most exciting aspect of the week was the ability to provide something for everyone. For the tried-and-true football fan, we had media members (New Orleans Football’s Nick Underhill as well as McCready) and former NFL executives who are still connected in the game (Blake Beddingfield and Randy Mueller), and each gave insights and made predictions on what’s ahead for the 2021 season. For those interested in player representation, we had agents current and former, from Vanguard Sports Group’s Eugene Lee to UA Sports’ Evan Brennan to Agency1 Athlete Management’s Aston Wilson and Octagon Football’s Murphy McGuire. If money is your game, we had a former cap manager (Sullivan) and a current wealth manager who doubles as an agent (Lamontagne). For aspiring agents, there was former NFL offensive lineman Jeremiah Sirles and Williams, who will both take the exam next week, and for aspiring scouts, you had Catapult Leadership’s Jason Montanez and Lindsey, who both dished on what it takes to get an NFL job. And oh, by the way, we led off the week with the Assistant Commissioner of a major FCS football conference, Ralph Ventre. 

If you missed any of it, or just want to review the things you heard, all shows are on SI.com’s Twitch channel, which is here. We owe a special debt of gratitude to Sam Serritella, Ric’s wife, who made each daily production smooth as glass, just as she does every day for The State of Football. Sam’s work on the 2021 ITL Combine Seminar – which was held solely online for the first time ever in February – added a dash of polish and professionalism that we had previously lacked. 

You may see Stratton and Marchionte as co-hosts of TSOF again in the future (if we’re asked back). For now, Stratton returns to his weekly guest spot on Thursday mornings at 9:40 a.m. ET. Ric Serritella resumes his hosting role on Monday as Year 2 of the show kicks off. We look forward to what’s ahead for the show in its second season. 

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: Bill Dekraker, 48, scouted for the Redskins, Panthers, Cardinals, Cowboys and Jets over his 20-plus years as an evaluator. We sat down with him this week.

  • Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I’m living in Warrenton, Va., and I’ve probably been here 10 years. I have a couple things I’m going. I’m an AD for a high school out here, and I’m also selling real estate and that’s been awesome to reconnect with. Through the years, I bought multiple investment properties. I had a chance to dip into real estate when I was working in the league, so when I got out, I got my Virginia real estate license and started dabbling a little more, and the school offered me an AD position, and I don’t know if that’s a bucket list thing or not, but it’s something I wanted to do. The other thing I do is run Integrity Wrestling Club, and we do a lot of hard and aggressive wrestling. I bring in in clinicians from all over the country, and they talk about what it’s like to be a role model and a team leader, and I have them, during the cooldowns, talk not just about right and wrong, but hands-on, how to lead, how to become a role model, how it’s OK not to be an alpha male role model, just ways to lead without being a leader. Sports has evolved so much, with all the club sports, it’s evolved to win at all costs, and I think there’s some vales that are missed. It’s just a way to use my room and the boys I’ve had in my room to relay that to these kids. We’ve done well. The kids were very good, and we won the Virginia state title with 11 kids vs. teams that had over 40. With luck of God and everything else, they persevered, and every one of them won their division. I’m very proud of it. There’s some late nights and early morning. Sometimes I’ll read some texts I sent out late at night and it’s like, ‘man, what did I say?’” 
  • Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “So everybody I’m sure says they miss the camaraderie, and I definitely miss some of the guys, but I miss going into schools and evaluating guys that I see them, I kinda just know they’ll go a lot higher than they’re projected early on. I miss evaluating players and looking at their length and size and ability, getting into their background with the coaches, and (knowing) this kid’s gonna be a lot better than people expect. That’s what I miss the most. The first- and second-rounders, everyone knows them, but I miss the late-rounders and the free agents. I miss looking past the warts and what they can do and what’s improvable, and in the right system, this could be an unbelievable special-teamer. That’s the thing I miss. Guys that are looked over, even midway through the season. I used to get really excited around Thanksgiving, and I knew guys that were selling them short. This guy’s got better, or this guy’s checked out. I just miss evaluating the guys and finding the fifth-round to free agent that will make the team. I take more pride in the late-round picks that made the team, and now this guy’s making $20M and we signed him for $2,000. That’s the thing that gets my heart pumping, competing with myself to find somebody who can make the team and make a difference.” 
  • Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?:  “Yeah, I still talk to a lot of those guys. I just get so tired at night, and I’m not calling that guy back. It’s not that I don’t have time, I’m just too tired to chitchat. But I love them and they’ve been good to me, and I appreciate the guys that have kept in touch with me. I try to keep up with them as much as I can, but I know they’re busy. We’ve gone through town after town after town together, and you grow a bond with these guys. I absolutely miss some of those dudes.”
  • Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: ”I go to a lot of wrestling events because my kids are still competing, and they’re more competing in Wisconsin, Indianapolis, they’re looking at going to Romania this summer. So I do go to a lot of events, but a lot more wrestling. I watch (NFL) highlights and find myself pulling stuff up (on the web), but because my kids don’t compete locally -- it’s a flight to Atlanta, you gotta leave on Thursday, you got to get their homework done. It’s a flight, it’s hotels, so I don’t have the whole weekend. There’s a lot of travel to it. It’s why I built the facility on my property. I was spending too much time going to Pennsylvania to practice, so I thought, I’ll build a facility here and bring people here.”
  • Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “Yeah. I always try to self-evaluate. I like watching Robby Anderson, who I signed with the Jets and Folo Fatukasi, the defensive tackle. I signed the TE out of Harvard, Anthony Firkser, who we had for a while with the Jets, and he’s obviously doing very well now. A lot of guys I put time and hours in, I feel like I watched them more, those guys in the later rounds and the free agents, the Robby Andersons and Anthony Firksers. Like Avonte Maddox, the Eagles took him in the fourth round, and he was supposed to be too short, but he was such a ballplayer and so fun to watch. I follow more of those guys that I’ve put hours of my life into.” 

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.

Scouting Changes Grid: Every year, there are a few scouting moves that don’t catch the eye of the local media, or that don’t get announced, or that happen just as camps are starting, like New Orleans’ recent hire of Tosan Eyetsemitan or the numerous promotions and new titles we saw in Denver this week. Incidentally, it’s been a sneaky-busy offseason as we are at 198 moves in scouting departments across the league right now. We’re on the precipice of history (sort of) as we’ve never notched 200 moves since we started tracking them in the 2012 offseason. Check out every move we’ve curated since 2012 here.

NIL Grid: Speaking of lists, we’re up to 211 players on our NIL board. Of that number, 56 are signed to exclusive deals with NFL-certified agencies. Also, as many expected, most (95) are quarterbacks, running backs or wide receivers (interestingly, the lion’s share of signees to NFL agencies are running backs, with 11, along with seven QBs and five wide receivers). Among NFL agencies, Miami Beach, Fla.-based Rosenhaus Sports is the runaway leader with 14 players signed to exclusive marketing partnerships; Miami-based First-Round Management is second with eight. Care to dig into the numbers even more? Check out the big board here.

Next week: This week, a day arrives that’s been two years in the making. The last time the NFLPA didn’t offer new agent certification, 2011, the players association was at war with the owners on a new CBA. Last year, Covid felled the exam, putting the dreams of hundreds of aspiring agents on hold. . . but not for much longer. Tuesday afternoon, the PA begins its first of two days of seminars, followed by testing on Thursday. We’ll begin final preparations on Sunday evening at 8 p.m. ET with our first-ever online Zoom class. Our instructor, an active NFL agent, will walk through three problems similar to what test-takers will see in six days (and, of course, very similar to the questions we’ve presented on both Practice Exam 1 and Practice Exam 2). Then, Monday night, we’ll be back with another set of questions that our instructor will answer. Of course, he’ll also answer questions about the exam, test prep and strategy and anything else anyone asks. It’s just $75 for the first session and the same for the second session (or $125 for both). Remember: test-takers gets to keep the money normally spent flying to DC, spending two nights at the Ritz and eating at the restaurants around the national’s capital in their wallets this year, so why not spend that money making sure you won’t be making a return engagement to the NFLPA exam around this time next year? We’ll also have our last four editions of the ITL Rising Contract Advisors Newsletter this week before we take some time off and wait for the results to come back. However, we’ll also be doing some non-agent stuff. We’ll put the focus on five more teams in our 2022+ Profile Reports. This week will be rich in prospects as we look at Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio, Ohio State and Oklahoma. We’ll also post in our weekly blog, Succeed in Football, with something timely and related to the industry (and most likely focused on the agent exam), and we’re two months behind on our Agent Changes reports, so hopefully we can get some work done on at least one of them and posted this week. We’ll also track all the unreported changes in NFL scouting departments – mostly shifts in areas and new titles – in our Scouting Changes Grid, and we’ll continue to track all the latest in name, image and likeness to fill up our NIL Grid. When we have buzz that doesn’t fit neatly into a grid or list, or maybe requires a little more development and explanation, we’ll have it in our Rep Rumblings. Even if you’re not taking the exam this week, it’s going to be a big next seven days. We hope you can join us.