Nov. 6-12
Today – about two weeks ahead of our normal kickoff – we launched the 2022 Signings Grid for the coming draft season. It’s annually one of our most popular features as we use it to track not only player-agent signings, but training destinations, all-star and combine (eventually) invitations for every member of the draft class. New this year: we’ll be identifying players who’ve signed an NIL deal with an agency.
We’d prefer to have waited, but with eight all-star games this year, something had to give. Obviously, we don’t have any signings to report just yet, but there’s plenty of other activity. Here are a few first observations as we get things going.
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The Senior Bowl is way behind pace from last year. Wednesday, Northern Iowa OT Trevor Penning became the first publicly announced player headed to southern Alabama in January. By this time last year, Texas QB Sam Ehlinger, Mississippi TE Kenny Yeboah and OC Royce Newman, ACU DC Robert Rochell, Georgia QB Jamie Newman, North Carolina Central DC Bryan Mills, Michigan DC Ambry Thomas and WO Nico Collins, Illinois St. SS Christian Uphoff, South Dakota St. WO Cade Johnson, Penn State DE Shaka Toney, Oregon DC Thomas Graham and Grambling OT David Moore had already been announced as accepting invitations to Mobile. Unlike the other games, the Senior Bowl has no compelling reason to make early invitations, but it’s still an interesting shift in strategy for Executive Director Jim Nagy, who’s been a major presence on social media since taking the helm of the game in the spring of 2018.
- The East-West Shrine Bowl is way out in front on invitations accepted (we count 18), with most of them from small-school and non-Power 5 teams. It’s no surprise these players have accepted; bigger-school players are always more likely to weigh their options.
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So far, only three players with NIL deals (TCU DC Noah Daniels, Alabama DT Phidarian Mathis and Coastal Carolina DC D’Jordan Strong) have publicly been invited to games, though, obviously, that will change. Whether or not NIL deals impact the way players are promoted by the games this year is something we’ll be monitoring.
- By the way, expect to see a greater number of small-schoolers receiving invitations this year given there are so many games this year.
- So far, we’ve still seen no invites published by the HBCU Legacy Bowl or by players attending the game. Is this because the game is much later? Is the game just getting a later start? Or have game organizers asked players and teams to keep invitations under wraps? If it’s the latter, it’s a curious choice given that there will be so much competition this year.
- Though it’s fun to track the invitations, as always, names announced in November often have little to no similarity to the players who actually show up for the games in January. We’re just beginning to see the churn that always takes place as the various games elbow for the best talent.
Of course, all-star invitations don’t take place in a vacuum, and the role of college coaches, NFL scouts and agents in promoting players to game organizers cannot be overemphasized. With that in mind, we will host representatives from six games (Senior Bowl, East-West Shrine Bowl, NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, College Gridiron Showcase, Tropical Bowl and Hula Bowl) on Zoom Thursday at 8 p.m. ET. Each representative will be given a 10-minute window to talk about the progress of invitations, how to pitch a player for the game, details about player arrival and what to bring, and any other topic worth addressing. We’ll also have a brief question-and-answer session for each director. There’s no cost for Thursday’s session; you just have to be a member of ITL. Sign up here if you want to join us but aren’t part of the family yet. We’re excited about giving so many new contract advisors access to the people making key decisions about the ’22 draft class.
We hope you can join us. When you get a chance, make sure to check out our first look at the big board for the ’22 draft. 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.
School’s in session: Thursday’s Zoom session won’t be our only one next week. On Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, we’ll welcome members of the ’21 agent class for an in-depth discussion about the cost of representing players. We’ll get down to business discussing the relative costs of training, how to choose a combine prep facility, the difference between combine prep and pro day training, the costs of representing players at various positions, the things you should and shouldn’t pay for, and more. It’s also important to know how to share costs with agents and how that works, and we’ll have a seasoned contract advisor on to discuss exactly that. Finally, if you’re listed as a contract advisor on the NFLPA website, you will be solicited by members of the current draft classes (and many previous ones). We’ll have an agent on to tell the story of signing just such a player, then watching him make not just the practice squad, but a 53-man roster in September. What went into his rise? How close did the agent come to passing up the player? We believe in the power of hearing straight from the people in the game, and we’ll bring you more key voices Tuesday. Once again, there’s no cost . . . as long as you’re part of the ITL family.
Zoom boom: Yes, we have one more Zoom session next week. This one will be Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET, and our guest will be Trevor Swenson of Dynamic Talent. This time, his focus will be on practical knowledge of the process as illustrated by a detailed case study. He’ll start with a hypothetical offensive tackle who’s a junior at a small-market P-5 school (like Nebraska). In other words, a program with a rabid fan base, but one that’s struggling currently. As for the player, challenges include:
- He plays a non-sexy position (not a TD scorer).
- He is not a senior so he’s not getting tons of national exposure (mock drafts, etc.)
- He is not local (played HS in Iowa).
- He has only about 2,000 IG followers. 500 Twitter followers, no Facebook.
Trevor will go step by step on how he would handle this client, answering questions like:
- What he would tell the player upon signing him.
- How he would grow the player’s social media followers and how long that would take.
- How he would prioritize his social media platforms (IG, Snap, YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
- What his long-term goals for the player would be.
- Which companies he would pursue for initial NIL deals, and when he would pursue them (based on follower totals), as well as how he would ‘stair step” into bigger opportunities.
- How he would build the player’s online marketplace
- How he would spur merchandise sales
- How he would approach Google ads, Facebook ads, etc. (which ones would he use/not use?)
- As the player transitioned from junior season to senior season, would that change how he presented him?
- What if the player’s follower totals were slow to build? What would he do?
He will also provide basic documentation – a general NIL player-vendor agreement, a pitch presentation to potential endorsers, and even a general document similar to the one Trevor signs with every client he represents. Unlike our other sessions, this one won’t be free. However, we feel that the cost ($100 plus tax) is a reasonable one for so much information. After Wednesday’s session, participants will have a comprehensive plan every time they solicit a player for NIL representation, and will be able to answer questions they probably haven’t even considered. We’ll start at 8 p.m. ET and go for about 90 minutes, providing an outline and documentation to everyone on the Zoom. If you aren’t sure about Trevor’s grasp of the topic, check out these 10 tips gathered from Wednesday night’s session as posted in our Succeed in Football blog. Still got questions? Let us know. Ready to sign up? Do that here.
Catching Up: Ed Lambert, 73, spent nine years scouting for the Broncos and Texans after a long coaching career spent mostly at colleges on the West Coast and the Northwest. We caught up with him earlier this month.
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Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I live in Nashville, Tenn. I’ve been here for a long time. I was the offensive coordinator at Vanderbilt for a long time, and coached with (former Vandy coaches) Rod Dowhowerand Woody Widenhofer. I do all kinds of special projects, and I evaluate tape for different people, like guys who could be in high school trying to go to college. I’ll look at them and write my critique.”
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Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “No, I don’t miss scouting. I don’t miss the job of scouting. I enjoyed scouting because I like to sit down and evaluate certain players against other certain players. Some guys give you critiques, but I like to sit down and get my own assessment. Everybody is different and (different scouts) don’t see the same thing in different people. I learned that from being around (former coach) Sid Gillman and (former executive) Don Klosterman and (former scout) Dick Daniels.”
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Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “Oh yeah. Me and (former scout) Mike Ackerley -- we coached together with the (USFL’s) L.A. Express -- and just old coaches like that that I’ve coached with, we stay in contact. Others, I try to stay in contact with, as well.”
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Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “Yeah, pretty much college. Sometimes I’ll go to some high school games (when) I know some of the kids and their relatives, and I can try to help them. A lot of parents, they don’t know a lot about (the process), and they don’t know what their son is doing, and the logistics of it. There’s a lot of politics to it, too.”
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Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “When they get out of college, and move up a little bit, I kinda like to start out and go around and watch the guys I watched when they were in college.”
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.
We’re now at 282 total moves, more than double what we normally see in the offseason. Will we get to 300? With a week-plus to go and seven more teams, maybe so. Make sure you’re following our Know Your Scouts series to see for yourself. We’ve got Washington, New Orleans, Seattle, Pittsburgh and Houston ahead this week.
Next week: Over the next seven weeks, we’ll be working nights quite a bit. We’ve got New Agent Orientation sessions scheduled Tuesday and Thursday and our NIL Workshop on Wednesday. They’re gonna be big, and we hope you can join us. With coaches getting fired and – a new trend this year – hired as well, we’ll be updating our Head Coach-Agent Grid and College Coaches Changes Grid. But there’s more. We’ll also be loading up the 2022 Signings Grid, and we’ll continue our Know Your Scouts series. In our Rep Rumblings reports, we’ll be recapping the off-the-radar front office news for our Scouting Changes Grid, and we’ll recap all our Zooms on Thursday or Friday in our weekly blog, Succeed in Football. As the game on the field eyes the end of the regular season, the game off the field is gaining steam. Don’t believe us? Come and see.
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