From left, Kyle Munoz and Leo Gjoni of Capital Preservation Partners; Inside the League's Neil Stratton, Saints Assistant GM Jeff Ireland and The Scouting Network's Shawn Zobel at the 9th annual Capital Preservation Partners ITL Combine Seminar Presented by Sure Sports.

Expectations were sky-high for the 9 ^th annual Capital Preservation Partners ITL Combine Seminar Presented by Sure Sports, and we're proud (and relieved) to say it didn't disappoint. Perhaps you already read about it in The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.) or the Times-Picayune (of New Orleans), or you saw something on the New Orleans Saints' official website. However, if you missed any of those, it was an exciting night where a room full of football professionals listened to incredible insights from our ex-scout panel. They also witnessed our presentation of the inaugural Best NFL Draft for 2017 Award to the Saints, with Assistant GM Jeff Ireland, whom head coach Sean Payton credits with turning around the Saints' drafts, accepting the award on the team's behalf. "Scouting is not an easy job," he told the audience in brief remarks following the presentation of the trophy. "It's not just watching a lot of football. It's a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication." He also credited the entire scouting department and not just the faces of the Saints like GM Mickey Loomis and Payton. "There's a lot of collaborative effort that goes into the draft, and hard work and dedication of our scouts. The long days, the short nights, out on the road, risking their lives driving through the mountains, so I really appreciate the scouts." The team's college staff includes national scouts Mike Baugh, Steve Malin and Terry Wooden; area scouts Cody Rager, Jon Sandusky, Casey Talley and Joey Vitt, Jr.; combine scout C.J. Leak; college scouting coordinator Paul Zimmer; football analyst Ryan Herman; scouting assistants Bailee Brown and Matt Phillips; and football IT specialist Ben Autin. Sandusky, Rager, Leak and Malin have been hired since Ireland's arrival in 2015 . Among those in attendance were all three members of our scouting panel, including James Kirkland, Matt Manocherian and Bob Morris (more on them later); Rams player personnel consultant Ray Farmer, himself a former speaker at an ITL Combine Seminar (2016), and a host of agents, trainers, wealth managers, marketing professionals and members of the football media. It's the first time in the history of ITL that it has honored a team for its performance on draft day, and the first time an award has been given for such an accomplishment. It won't be the last, as we hope to make the Best Draft Class Award a staple of our annual seminars. The reception we got from attendees was overwhelmingly positive, and we're excited about what's ahead. So who are the early contenders for 2019? The Browns seem to be in the catbird seat with 12 picks overall, two in the first four picks, and a reformatted front office full of respected names. Or maybe the Bills, who have four picks in the first 56, or the 49ers, who enter the draft with a lot of on-field momentum, a young QB with a new contract and a fistful of picks (10)? We'll be watching and our panel will be voting. It will be an interesting next 12 months. In the meantime, here's what else we saw, heard, read and said in a busy week in the football world.

 

The ITL Scouting Department: Interview prep for the combine is over. So is position-specific training. That means our work on the 2018 class is pretty much done. In all, our team has worked one-on-one or in a group setting with approximately 20 players here in Indianapolis. Also, since late October, our team of ex-scouts has written reports on about 200 players in the '18 draft class. Now, it's time to turn the page. We're getting to work on the 2019 draft, looking at the top players who surprised everyone by returning for another season and sifting out the ones that will be in the news this time next year. Already trying to decide who to recruit? Need a professional look at the player you hope is at the centerpiece of your signing class next year? Hit us up. We can help you find the diamonds in the rough at a rock-bottom price.

 

Attention all agents: TEST Football Academy would like to invite you to lunch at the Santa Fe Suite in the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown (350 West Maryland St.) this Saturday, March 3, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. in Indianapolis. Meet the owner, Kevin Dunn, and Director of Football Operations Geir Gudmundsen to find out why TEST has been "the choice of the pros" for two decades. TEST, which is based in Martinsville, NJ, has been an Inside the League partner for more than a decade and has a long list of NFL veteran clients and combine participants, including Mississippi DE Marquis Haynes and Indiana OB Tegray Scales and TE Ian Thomas this year. For more information, email Kevin at [email protected].

 

While you're here: Get a look at some of the finer combine prep facilities in the game and meet the people behind them at their suites here in town. In addition to TEST Football Academy (above), Miami-based Bommarito Performance Systems is in Room 126 of the Indiana Convention Center and McKinney, Texas-based Michael Johnson Performance is in Suite 1201 of the Omni Severin Hotel; XPE Sports is in Grand Ballroom 4 at The Westin Indianapolis; and Team EXOS is in the basement of the Omni.

 

The Grids: We're still hammering away at our bread-and-butter features for the '18 draft. This week, we updated our big board and moved to almost 900 names. We'll continue rolling this week and get past 1,000. We also closed in filling up our 2018 NFL Combine Grid completely. This week, while continuing to work on both, we'll also beef up our 2018 Pro Day Grid by adding dates and passing along on-the-scene reports from around the nation.   

 

Succeed in Football: it was our great pleasure to present Saints Assistant GM Jeff Ireland with the inaugural Top NFL Draft Class Award for 2017 at our seminar Wednesday. However, the show

	Former NFL scout Bob Morris answers a question from moderator Shawn Zobel (left) at Wednesday's panel. Also pictured are James Kirkland and Matt Manocherian (far right).

wasn't over when Ireland left the stage. The audience of 100-plus stuck around for more than an hour to hear from questions moderator Shawn Zobel posed to ex-NFL scouts James Kirkland, Bob Morris and Matt Manocherian. We'll have the full seminar on video in a couple weeks, but for now, read up on our three takeaways from Wednesday in our weekly blog. We've got a story from the war room in 2007; a candid observation on the value of on-field vs. 'on-track' evaluation; and a look at scouting salaries from as recently as a couple years ago. Check out our post (and everything we've posted since 2014) here.

 

Rep Rumblings: In January, when it was announced that the NFLPA would require all except rookie agents to take a brief online exam on the CBA every two years, we predicted that this move would make the NFLPA seminar at the combine, well, um . . . lively. It was indeed a spectacle. Once things got going in the afternoon, there were threats of litigation (several), charges that the NFLPA was trying to reduce the number of agents (which was, to some degree, admitted), admissions that discussing such a controversial topic in an open forum might have been "a mistake," and plenty of fire and brimstone from the numerous contract advisors who took the microphone. We gathered several accounts of what happened and ran it all down in Thursday's report. If you care about the agent industry, you'll want to read it. We also had a pre-Indy report Tuesday, in which we took a look at several trends involving this year's combine class as it relates to agencies and numbers by position, and a post-Indy report today, in which we passed along a new candidate to rep the hottest unsigned player at the combine. As always, you can catch all our reports from 2018 here, and our reports from 2017 here.

 

Oh, by the way: It obviously doesn't look like the NFLPA will be backing down on its controversial 'retest,' barring any changes when the players association presents the idea to the players for a second look later this month (wink, wink). No one wants to leave the industry on his shield, and you don't have to if you use our practice exam. It's $100 for ITL clients (subscribe here) and $150 for non-clients, and would-be agents have used it for almost a decade to vault the at-large exam passage rate of 45 percent and succeed at a 70-plus percent rate. Our questions are proven and will look almost exactly like the ones you'll see (or your intern will see) in June. And if you want to whittle the CBA down to a more manageable size, our study guide is excellent and on-point in breaking down all the key topics that are important, but maybe not as oft-used as others. Just email us, we'll bill you and we'll get it sent on its way. The test is what it is, and it's unlikely to go away. Get started today and putting it behind you once and for all.

 

Next week: It seems hard to believe, but the first FBS pro day of the 2018 draft cycle - and maybe the biggest of March - is just five days away. Alabama will hold its pro day on Wednesday, followed by Air Force, Alabama State and Fordham on Thursday and South Alabama on Friday. The pre-draft rush is here, and we'll be following along as the out-of-nowhere times and performances (good and bad) start showing up on Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere on the web, just as we did last year. We'll also be sifting through the chatter as news and info bubbles up from around the NFL and college games and passing along what we've heard in our Rep Rumblings. We also owe our readers an Agent Changes for the February-to-March cycle. The pre-free agency list of changes is usually pretty thick. Will it yield as many transitions as the same period in 2017 (24) or 2016 (30)? We'll soon find out. Also, after taking Thursday 'off' due to our busy combine schedule, we'll be back with a full week of the ITL Rising Contract Advisor Newsletter, breaking down pro day tips and what you need to know to get your client to the front of scouts' minds. But we won't be focused solely on 2018. Our tenth edition of the ITL Profile Reports are just around the corner and will start up in a month. It's hard to believe 2019 will represent a decade of presenting the top seniors, school by school, starting in April and ending in September. But we won't be putting '18 away just yet, and in fact, we'll still be plugging a few last holes in our 2018 NFL Combine Grid as well as adding to our 2018 Pro Day Grid. While our last couple of weeks have been a little lean as we ramped up for this year's combine and seminar, we'll be back to our normal cycle of multiple weekly reports and, most days, at least two. Oh, and don't forget, we've got a practice exam and a study guide that you can get for less than the cost of your plane ticket to Indy and, in most cases, one night's hotel stay here. You don't want to take any chances on this test, do you? Let us know if you'd like the study guide and click here for the practice exam. With so much to do these days, whether you're focused on 2018 or 2019 (or both), it's never business as usual in the world of football, and it can be hard to break everything down without getting confused. Let us help you whiteboard everything.