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Chalk Talk On Patreon: Former Eagles Pro Scout Dan Hatman Talks Advance Scouting, How To Be A Scout · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome to a special edition of chalk Talk
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: on Inside the Birds. I'm Jeff Mosher alongside Adam Kaplan,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: and we're so so excited about the guests we have
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: He has worn many hats.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In the NFL. In fact, he's wearing a hat right now,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: it's just not an NFL one. He is a former
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: scout pro scout with the Philadelphia Eagles. He's been with
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: two other NFL teams, and right now he's the founder
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and the director of Scouting development for the Scouting Academy,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: which we'll talk about too.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: We're really happy to have with us, Dan Hatman.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: We really appreciate the time that you have today to
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: entertain us and educate us really on the scouting process.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So we're gonna do a couple of things.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about the job that you had so Dan,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: for your context right this show chalk Talk, Adam and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I have been very fortunate to have What we try
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to do is educate people on a certain element of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the game behind the scenes. So we've had head coaches,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: we've had gms, we've had personnel directors, we've had offensive coordinators,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: defense go head trainers, we've had literally almost every outside
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: equipment manager. We may have had every single type of
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: NFL employee, but you are our first kind of pro
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: scout who did advance scouting. And while we're in the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: middle of the season right now, we thought it would
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: be a great idea to sort of give us what
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the life is like of someone who doesn't actually get
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to watch his own football team each week that he
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: works for because he's out scouting other teams. So just
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: start off talking to us about the job that you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: had with the Eagles as a pro scout from twenty
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: eleven to twenty thirteen.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: So pro scouting, I mean you got to take anybody
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: that's no longer college eligible and that becomes our job.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: So this is people that are playing in other leagues.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: This could be the CF, any of the spring leagues.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: We've had seven hundred of them here in the last decade,
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: but any of the spring leagues that are up and running.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: So those kind of things were always monitoring with the
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: monitor every player that's coming in and out of the NFL.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: So every active roster, every practice squad, we've got to
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: maintain relationships and understanding of the players that are available
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: on the street from free agency. We're prepping for actual
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: free agency in the springtime, and as you bring up,
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: we're advancing opponents. So for a four person department in
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: most clubs, it's an awful lot of things that you're
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: trying to keep track of for four people.
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: Dan, how did you like pro scouting? How does one
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: get into that comparatively to college scouting? What what drew
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: you in or is that kind of when you worked
• 2:42
  Speaker 5: for the Eagles, that's what where they put you.
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: How'd you get into the pro scouting end of it?
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: You know, it's it's interesting because most people coming in
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: don't get to choose. It's kind of like what opens
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: up ahead of you. So I got into pro scouting
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: with the Giants actually because that's kind of where they
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: take their intern program. So you come in, you do
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: their intern program, and you funnel for the first couple
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: of years through the pro scouting side, and then you
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: can go off into college scouting. Should that be your
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: interest or what have you? And a lot of times
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: in the league, once you get labeled with something, you
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: get kind of siloed. So because that was my first opportunity.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Then I got labeled a pro scout. So then when
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: I was with the Jets, they were like, oh, well
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: you have a pro scouting background, let's put you back
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: in pro scouting.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: So I did it with.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: Them, And then when the lockout happened and I was
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: able to get with Howie and talk about an opportunity,
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: is like, well, I could put you back in pro scouting. Okay,
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: I've got some experience with that, so here we go.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: So you know that ended up being what I did
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: with all three places.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Let's discuss the role of an advanced scout and how
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: that differs from maybe any other pro scouting role as
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: far as you're on the road most weeks of the season.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: Correct, So you can imagine your team plays Sunday in
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: most weeks and we all talk about, you know that
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: day after Monday, you know, they meet with the players,
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: are going to break down the film or whatever, and
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: then we talk about, you know, they're going to get
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: into the next week of game planning. And that's kind
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: of where the fan base gets left.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: We know the coaches are preparing for the week. We
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: can see you know, injury reports or whatever, but not
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: a whole lot gets discussed. That week of prep really
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: kicks off Monday night with a meeting between the coaching
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: staff and the pro scouting department. It maybe just one
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: or two members of the department. It kind of depends
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: on team. Most of the time, you're gonna do an
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: offensive meeting in a defensive meeting at different times. You know,
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: one maybe before dinner, one maybe after whatever. But Monday
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: night you are delivering a report on your next opponent. Right,
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: So if you just got done playing Denver right next week,
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: you've got Dallas or Washington or whatever whatever that next
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: opponent is, we've been spending the last seven, maybe even
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: ten days on that next opponent. And so Monday night
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: we come into the coaching staff and outline, here's their
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: current roster, right, here's the next guy's up on the
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: practice squad. You know, we go through that kind of thing,
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: their strengths, their weaknesses. We talk about what we're seeing
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: from the team, tendencies we may have found, you know,
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: key plays, situations, things for them to focus on. You're
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: going through offense, defense, special teams, the whole nine yards,
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: and you're really just trying to give that coaching staff
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: a leg up auditioning.
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: Do you go back do you ever take college stuff
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: like that?
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: You noticed?
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: Let's say it's a rookie, right, like, you're you're the
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: team and you got to do pro advance and the
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: guy start a couple games, but his biggest tape is
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: from college.
• 5:28
  Speaker 6: Do you actually get any college information?
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we have access to the reports, so
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: we can look at what the scouts might have said
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: about them coming out. We can certainly go back and
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: watch that, especially when you look at these guys that
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: maybe you know, we know their starter is dinged up.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: We're getting that questionable tag, right, they're playing the fifty
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: to fifty game. And we look at the next person
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: the practice squad that's going to be the call up
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: player to fill in for that position, and they've got
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: twelve snaps in the preseason doing very vanilla generic things,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: and you're like, I don't really have a way to
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: tell my team with any conviction what to expect. We
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: got to go find something. So, yeah, let's pop on
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: the college film. Let's see if there's any you know,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: valuable opponents from a single player entity standpoint to say, hey,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: we watched them play against this player. What have you
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: and that maybe is reminiscent of a guy we have
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: on our roster.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: So if we're going to go prep for a dB
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: for another team, and we can say, hey, you know
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: AJ Brown's kind of a one to one body type.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: We saw this guy play against a bigger body type
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: in college. You know, let's go pop that on and
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: take a look and give some kind of a signal
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: as to things that maybe they did well against that
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: body type or poorly or what have you. Again, just
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: trying to give him any little and they're usually little things, right,
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: it's usually a massive broad stroke things. It's little nuanced
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: things about hey, this dB has a really hard time
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: dealing with the back shoulder throat.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: To what at the stadium are you mostly doing with
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: your notes and your binocia? What are you looking at?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: What are you looking for? And then what do you
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: do after? Like when does your report do? How do
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: you write your report on what you saw?
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: So again, we've done a week's worth of work leading
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: up to that particular game. So again, if I'm advancing Dallas,
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: I've spent the last week watching their roster, right, I've
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: watched the players, I've written reports on them, I've watched
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: their last three, four or five games or what have
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: you paid attention to that, especially if there is an
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: opponent that does something similar to what we do, either
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: offensively or defensively.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: So if you're, you.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Know, with all of the Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay offensive
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: guys out there, like we were running one of those offenses,
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: I want to watch Dallas play against Lafleur. I want
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: to watch him play against Mike McDaniel. I want to
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: watch them play against those things because there's gonna be
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: parallels to what we're going to get. So we've done
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: all that work, so that game day is confirmation, right,
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: that game day is about getting other operational details, simple
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: things like how fast do they break the huddle? When
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: does the play call come in right? How do they
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: sub personnel? Who who need to pay attention to one
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: of the things you're going to do for your own
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: team when it's actually time to play Dallas is either
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: it could be somebody from the Pro Department or it
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: could be a coach, but somebody is in the communication
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: with a coordinator on game day saying, hey, they're bringing
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: out their nickel personnel. They're bringing out this you know
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: sub package that we see where they bring an extra
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: safety in, but it's typically a guy that does a
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: lot of blitzing. He's a special team or whatever. And
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: you flag those kind of things. Well, somebody again has
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: to be signaling that, you know, telling the defensive coordinator, Hey,
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: they're coming out in that two BAC personnel we saw
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: this week, but they're both running backs and this is
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: the stuff that they do with that, you know, and
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: we'll have a name for that. Hey, this is the
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: pony package this week, or whatever the case may be.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: And you're passing that information along and so that's the
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: stuff we're getting on game day.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: What is it like to a.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: How do you separate yourself in the industry? How do
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you get your feedback, your performance reviews? And then how
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: do you deal with not actually being able to watch
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the team that you work for playing because you're usually
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: at the same time watching somebody else.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: So fortunately, with some of the clubs I was with,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: we would be on a rotation, all right. So that's
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: how with the Jets, and then some of the time
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: in Philly, Riddick was a bit of a masochist, so
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: there was a point in time where he did all
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: of them weekly, which is, yeah, that was a crazy time.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: Too many red bulls and five hour energies. I don't
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: have a man's alive. But that's not typical. We were
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: the Jets, you know, Scott Cohen and Brendan Prophet would
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: trade off weeks and so the week that you were
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: not on, you got to watch your own team. Right,
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: you'd certainly watch your own team on tape afterwards, but
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: there were those situations where you'd be missing those kind
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: of things, which was kind of strange to probably catch
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: up on your own team, but it was critical, right,
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: you're always evaluating against your own club, Like the self
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: scout is the most critical thing you're going to do
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: as a team builder, because I have to be able
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: to establish if this other player is better or worse
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: than what I've got. That could be for my own
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: roster build, that could be for the opponent side, whatever
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: the case may be. Like that, on your own self
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: evaluation is paramount, and when you screw that up, everything
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: starts to fall apart, Like you can't mess up the
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: eval of your own club. But those kind of things
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: were definitely wrinkles in there. I think the part of
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: it that got hard in the space. On the whole,
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: is that pro scouting originated with coaches, right, if you
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: were going to do this kind of stuff, like Bill
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: Belichick's dad, Steve, has a book, a scouting manual, but
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: it's advanced scouting, Like if you want to go read
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: about some of the real core principles of this, there's
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: a book published and he was at Navy in the
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: seventies about how to do this task. We've been gathering
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: data and looking for tips and tendencies for decades, but
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: it was coaches that were doing this, and so a
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: lot of the people that worked on the pro side
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: had either a heavy coaching or playing background, and so
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: that ability to speak a coach's language made sense.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: There was that symbiotic relationship because you were already kind
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: of tuned into that language. As the scouting profession has
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: gotten younger and we've hired more people out of like
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: the college recruiting space who maybe don't have a playing
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: or a coaching background, it.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: Started to water down that language. Right.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: There was a now all of a sudden, there's a gap. Right,
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: the people that are speaking about pro scouting are not
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: speaking in a coaching language, and it can create. I
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: wouldn't say like mistrust, but it's hard to be taken
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: seriously by the coaching staff when you're not speaking their language,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: when you're not putting it into context in terms and
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: things that actually move the needle for them on a
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: week to week basis. And so I think the importance
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: of it has come down because we didn't have the
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: right people doing it.
• 11:47
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  Speaker 6: Dan, How did you learn how to be a pro? Scott?
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: Who are who your mentors in it?
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: I mean I would say that, I mean my first
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: boss with Dave Gelman. That's how I got brought into
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: the space and pro scouting. I would say with.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Who with what team was he? Oh, it was with
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: the Giants.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: So I would say that the way that department in
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Coughlin's coaching staff, I don't there was a value, but
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: not a tremendous value.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: I think when I.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: Saw what Scott and Brendan were giving to Rex and
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: that staff, that really kind of opened the doors. They
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: were really getting again the things I'm breaking, the huddle
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: and time to snap and win, the play calls and
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: all these little wrinkles. And then when I got to
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Philly again, the things that one and those that staff
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: wanted from us, like this manual of things that we
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: had to fill out, all these details and new ones. Now,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: what happens in this scenario? What happens in this scenario.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: I mean then the things that we had to provide
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: to that staff were again I still show them every
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: year I do with Scout School, with the Senior Bowl,
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: and we'll bring in another pro director what have you,
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: and I'll put it in front of Jeff King, or
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: I'll put it in front of you know, these other
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: guys and they're like, holy crap, we don't do anything
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: We did, you know, we did at that time. We
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: put a lot of information in front of them. So
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: that was a huge learning curve for me.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: And just for those who might be struggling in the timeline.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Gettleman brought you to the Giants, not when Gettleman was GM.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: This is when he and Jerry was the GM Ernie
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: of CORSTI was the GM his retirement party, so amazing.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: You know that that was my first four agg What did.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: You learn from your years with Andy Reid?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I know, because your overlap with Chip was just a
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: few months, all right, and then you were on to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the next one.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: So I think, you know, all these all these folks
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: have these fascinating strengths and weaknesses to their to their's
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: uh their abilities. I think the the biggest thing from
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Andy was that that little extra diligence again, that finding
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: finding something the players were gonna deem actionable.
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: Again.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: You go to a player and you tell him, hey,
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: we're playing DK Metcalf this week, right, expect them to
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: be big, expect them to run deep like I mean
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: the player's going yeah, of course. It doesn't take you
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: that long to get that. That in could teach me
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: that what we feel again when you can come to
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: the player and you can say hey, when they're in
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: the slot formation with the inside foot up and they
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: get a head up to an inside shade from the corner,
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: this is the release they tend to use the diamond
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: and take to the outside step. They're going to try
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: to bring you there before they cross your face or like,
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: when you can bring them those kind of things and
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: then they can see that actually manifest and you can
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: build that trust, it's an entirely different game. I think
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: that's what separates those really unique coaches in our profession
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: is that they can help the players anticipate because they
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: know what the player is going to see. And when
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: you can go to the player and say you're gonna
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: see these things when you get into this situation, this
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: is what you can expect. And then the player goes
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: out there and that situation occurs, and that thing actually
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: manifests the trust level between the player and the coach.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: It just it changes.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Like I would like to ask you, I think a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: lot of people would like to understand the role of
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: that you would have when the season's over. Yes, so
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: you're not going to games, You're not filing reports of
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the opponent in two weeks, you're not handing all that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: information down. What's next for the advance or the pro
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: scout in the in an NFL front office.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: So with Philly, and this was a little different the Giants.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: The Giants silod Pro and college.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: But in Philly, I mean the next thing was for agency, right,
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: So when these guys are going to a Senior Bowl
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: these days, or certainly by the time you go to
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: the combine, you got to talk contracts, right, You're talking
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: to people that you have interest in. So we had
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: to have all of those kind of things. We had
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: our own draft board, right, Our free agency board was
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: up and present and discussed. So as we're doing advances
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: and we're watching all these players in the league, obviously
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: the players that are impending for agents. That's part of
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: how we're building that board. Right, we're grading all those players.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: We're talking about their strengths and weaknesses. You then have
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: to cover all those teams you didn't like, right, you
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: wanted to finish the season having a report on everybody
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: that was in the league that year, which some years
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: of injuries, that could be a rather long list, but
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: you'd have all the free agents graded. And so as
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: we came out of any sort of you know, if
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: we di missed the playoffs or whenever we came off
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: of the field, so to speak, that was the full situation.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: We got to prep these guys for free agency. And
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: here's the market, here's what it looks like. Here's premium players,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: here's the undervalue but might fit our scheme, whatever the
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: case may be. Once you've hit the combine, and again
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: you've already kind of prepped for those things you're not
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: waiting for March, like that heavy lift has been done.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: So then we get pulled in on the college side
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: for crosscheck. So what happens then is that again you've
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: got all these area scouts and people you got all
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: over the country watching players. Well, that means that any
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: one of those individual scouts is not watching all of
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: the players at that position across the country. So our
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: West Coast scout, he knew all the players in the West,
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: that was his job, but he might not have context
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: on what the tackles look like in the Southeast, or
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: what the wide receivers look like in the Midwest, or
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: what have you. So my crosscheck was running backs. So
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: I'd get brought in at that time and I'd be
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: given the list of all the running backs that were
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: deemed draftable or priority free agents, and it was like, hey, Dan,
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: here's twenty five names, go write them all up.
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  Speaker 1: went into for you once you were out of the
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: NFL putting together the scouting academy? What was the brain
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: idea behind it and how did you get everybody involved
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and for people who don't know. There are so many
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: great former coaches involved, and maybe even.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Some current ones.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Obviously lou Ridick has involved, Jerry Angelo, former NFLGM has
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: been involved. Mike Martz, I mean there's just a list,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: a list of people. Bobby April, as Dan mentioned before,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I mean you probably can fill in some other blanks
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: for me there, Dan, right, who else is involved that
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: they currently?
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Peter Giunta is coaching currently, a guy's like Charlie Pointer
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: that have been around the league for a long time.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: Mike Martz. I had a lot of different people involved,
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: and it was part of wanting to bring some of
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: that coaching language to this. Right, we can talk personnel,
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: and we've got people that can talk personnel, but being
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: able to see what does that mean for the person
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: who's gonna put him on the field was a key
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: piece of it. The idea actually started as an apprenticeship program.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: I pitched in Philly, so again having been one of
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: my third team at that point, I'd been with two
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: college programs prior to that. Like people that got brought in,
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: you got kind of thrown in the deep end. Here
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: you are do the work, sink or swim, and there
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: was this chicken and egg thing, right, So teams wanted
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: people that knew what to do, but the only place
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: to learn what to do was with the team.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: So how the heck does that work? Right?
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: We'd go out there hiring and we'd be looking for
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: people that were ready made scouts, except there was no
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: place to be a ready made scout. So the idea
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: of the apprenticeship was we'd bring in four new people
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: a year, so we'd have eight total in the program,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: two year deals, and it was kind of like a
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: junior rotational thing, like they'd spend some time in personnel,
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: they'd spend some time with coaching, they'd spend and so
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: I walked them through that. You know, they'd have an
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: Arena League team they RESPONSI before, and a Canadian team
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: that RESPONSI before, and like they do all these different things.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: And by the time you're doing with two years of
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: a person exposed all that, Number one, you'd figure out
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: like do you want them at all? Number two, you'd
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: have the understanding of where would you put them right,
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: and then they would have an understanding of how to
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: do all that and truly make it two years of
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: redundant learning work like not like the only person building
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: who's doing that, a person who is apprenticing. They are
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: learning this craft, but they're not the sole person doing
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: it that that's not really the mechanism. Most people brought
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: in even as interns are doing the task from day one,
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: and they're the only person doing that particular task from
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: day one. So you know, I want again, I want
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: of these eight people. I needed to have office space
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: and desks and computers. And I write up this whole
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: proposal healthcare, you know, the whole nine yards. Well, the
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: proposals like three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars, and
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: you know that that's not usually something that people sign
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: off on. So anyway, when you know, I wasn't able
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: to get that operational, and I found myself in this
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: space in between. I actually started a company on building
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: a technology for valuing players, and we were trying to
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: move that in the marketplace. And while that was actually
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: being built, I put up a post on work in
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: sports and I was like, hey, like, if you guys
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: want to do scouting, like I'd be here. I'd be
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: happy to help you. And one hundred people reached out
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: the first week. They're like, oh, I wanted a scout.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: I had no idea.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: I was blown away by the number of people that
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: were interested in the profession, and so I dusted out
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: that old apprenticeship program and started building this structure, and
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: I took fifteen of them. In fact, I took Juan
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Castillo's kid, Greg as one of those first fifteen in
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: the beta program. And it was like, Hey, how do
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: I teach this thing remote that had always been taught
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: two people in a room. So I spent nine months
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: with these people. I didn't charge them anything. I was like,
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: you're gonna teach me as much as I teach you, right,
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: You're gonna help me figure out how the heck do
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: I do this virtually.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: This is before online ed was really exactly.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: So I figured out how to teach this thing. And
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: once I had the model, that's when I went to
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: Jerry and Mike and Lou and all these guys and
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: I presented them the model.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: And they're like, yeah, I'd love to be a part
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: of that. And we put it together and we're in
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: year twelve.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Now, wow, and that's what you're doing the Scouting Academy.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: The mission statement is right there on the web page.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Learn how to scout football like a pro. It's Scouting
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Academy dot com. I believe you work on a semester basis, right,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you have two different semesters per year. So anybody who's
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: interested can go to Scouting Academy dot com and there's.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: A button to sign up.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And and folks, if you didn't realize this, Tann has
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: had dance placed so many people in NFL teams.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: And it's not just geeks like me.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: You've never played football, right, I mean you've had like
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: former football players.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: I think, go through the program and look for it.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Do you have some people with Eagles.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: I was gonna say, Ben a Jelana, former NFL player,
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: Eagle alums.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Right, Villanova?
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Right? Didn't you play at Villanova?
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Ben Ajelana exactly.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of people from the Scouting
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Academy now working in NFL front offices. So if you're interested,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Scouting Academy dot com and again a lot of great
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: people to coach you and get you to understand how
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to watch tape, what to look for, how to how
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to write a scout scouting report. You learn everything when
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you go through the Scouting Academy.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Take it for me.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I'm much more well versed in tape study and understanding
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the game because of it. Dan, we can't thank you enough.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: It's been great catching up. Really, listeners are going to
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: be smarter for having heard this, so thank you. And again,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: during free agency or draft period, we're going to have
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: you come on and do an ask an Eagle with us,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: so all of our great listeners can ask you questions
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: on what you look for and have a personal interaction
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: with you.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: No, that sounds great.