Aug. 1, 2018
Greetings! 

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What is a Scout?: Part 1
NFL scouts have a job with intrigue and cache; almost every person who's ever won a fantasy football league has entertained dreams of evaluating talent for a living. Let's discuss these men of mystery.
 
What do scouts do?: First off, there are two kinds of scouts, pro and college. College scouts are what most people think of when they think 'scout;' they evaluate college players for the coming draft. 'Pro' scouts evaluate NFL players on the 32 teams and 'street' (post-college) free agents seeking tryouts. Most teams have 3-4 times as many college scouts as they have pro scouts.
 
What do college scouts do?: College scouts are assigned regions - usually West Coast, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and Southwest, though different team split the country up their own ways - and travel 10-11 months of the year. Here's a breakdown of NFL teams' scouts last year and which schools' players they evaluated. They tend to live not where their team is based (necessarily), but usually in the middle of their region. In other words, the Seahawks' southeast scout might live in Biloxi, Atlanta, or Pensacola. Some perceive that scouts spend all their time watching college games, but that's not so. Many go home on weekends but spend Sunday night through Friday night on the road, visiting as many schools as possible. A typical day might involve showing up at a school and watching film all morning, spending the afternoon talking to coaches and team personnel about the team's best prospects, watching practice, then returning to their hotel to write up reports on the players he evaluated that day. Then it's on to the next school, often that night. Here's a post on a day in the life of a scout from our free blog, Succeed in Football, written by Giants area scout Mike Murphy.
 
Evaluation: Sometimes a coach will recommend a player, but usually a scout arrives at a school knowing who the top players are. Once a seasoned scout gets a good handle on the team's personnel (which may take more than one day), he decides which ones to write a report on, and which ones don't deserve a report. If a scout doesn't 'write' a player, he's essentially declared him not a prospect even to be signed after the draft. The players he does 'write' wind up getting cross-checked by the team's National Scout, usually a veteran with over a decade in the business. Most players that get ratings in the top rounds get evaluated 5-6 times by different members of the scouting department. The bigger, more talented schools usually even draw a handful of teams' general managers.
 
National and BLESTO: Most NFL teams subscribe to one of two 'combines:' National Football Scouting and BLESTO. These two services employ scouts (usually young and/or inexperienced in the business) to watch juniors, grade them, and compile them in lists that can be presented to subscribing teams each May so teams can compose their scouting schedules. They also time and measure players the spring before their senior seasons. This is how teams have a preliminary idea of which seniors to evaluate. 

More on scouts in Thursday's post.

Inside The League is the consulting service for the football industry. We work with the contract advisors for about two-thirds of active NFL players as well as the combine trainers, financial planners, scouts, coaches and other pro league organizers that make up the game. Cost is $29.95/month, and you can cancel at any time. To register, click here. Also check out our new free blog, Succeed in Football. Copyright Neil Stratton and ITL.

Sincerely, Neil Stratton
President
Inside the League

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