Latest / Scouting the League / Pro & College Scouts - What they are doing....
Transcript
- Rodrik David @RightStepAdv: Hey everybody, it's Monday, October 5th, and this is Scouting the League. As we turn the clock into October, it's time to check in on what scouts are doing across the country, both at the pro and college level. I've been on the road, I have sat in the building. No matter who you are, what your record is, there are still some things that you're going to be doing that are pretty universal. Today I'll pull that curtain back a little bit and let you see inside some of these scouting departments. Make sure you hit me with any other questions you have on what is going over at right step 80 V on Twitter. Make sure you give me a follow while you're there. Interact everywhere where you're listening and watching. Tomorrow we head it back to wide receiver in our march towards the 2027 NFL draft, a guy who will have a decision to make. Mike Matthews of the Tennessee Volunteers Underclassman, who was doing some good things as part of that Tennessee offense. So we will talk about his draft profile and see what we think. Wednesday. Riding royalty sits down with Neil Stratton to talk all things football. Make sure you tune into that one and give Neil a follow. Of course, he is at Inside the League on Twitter. The last couple weeks we have had Dane Brugler of the Athletic and Jordan Reed of ESPN on talking draft prospects. Make sure you head back to those archives. Check the video portions for those. Hit your comments. Players we talked about. Do you want to get a draft profile on? Let me know. For All things scouting, you can follow me at Right Step A D V, my website, rsafootball.com. If you need a full report, maybe you're an agent, a player, a parent, a school, you need a report, check out Right Stepscouting.com. Check out this video for more information on that. Yes, rightstepscouting.com is going to be the spot for those reports. Can full reports, one-liners, video reports, no matter who you are. If you need a report, get it done there. Former NFL Scout myself, we're gonna be taking a look at that, so we'll get that to you. Make sure if you're a scout or an aspiring scout, you check out thescoutingcommunity.com for all the resources, information, and getting your leg up on all your competition. And get the most comfortable insoles out there. BlueMaca.com is the spot to do that. Code Scouting20 at checkout will let them know we sent you and get a little discount on that order. That is blue maca.com. So, what are scouts doing? We are going to talk today. Pro and college, I spent part of the 2016 season as a pro scout as well as the entirety of the 17 and 2018 seasons in pro transition to spring of 2019. Started with the pro days, got a full fall on the road that fall before. Twenty twenty was a course at home. Twenty twenty one before that joke of the COVID vaccine cost me my job sitting in Lansing, Michigan at the time. Still remember that moment like it was yesterday. But either way, Pro Scouts, we are going to start with you today. What are Pro Scouts across 32 NFL teams doing? Well, again, it really starts with winning every week, doing advances, giving your coaching staff a leg up in whatever way. Tendencies. working the analytics in, looking at their rosters, keeping updates on injuries, coaching stats, everything that the coaching staff needs to have ready to go come Monday of game week, scouts have to have that ready. Quality control coaches on both offensive and decent sides of the ball are getting that involved as well. But the pro scouts have to have a pulse, a temperature, have to know what this team looks like, what they've been going through the The trends, the ups, the downs. Again, working with the analytic department, working on things that they see on film tells some of the stuff 80% and plus that can give you an idea of what to expect. Pro scouts have to be in tune on that as part of that event. You're looking at all 53 players, you're looking at the practice squad to think about who do we need to worry about? Who can we attack? Who can we go after? The best teams are. are communicating, have a plan, know the way they want to attack it. Again, there were times we did better than other times in Atlanta where coaching staff and scouts were on the same page. Maybe there's some scouts, some coaches that want certain information on certain teams. Again, there's familiarity, there's division opponents, all that kind of stuff. But when it comes down to it, coaching staff is so focused week to week. It's one week at a time for them So when they dive into a plan, again, some coaches Sunday night, but for the most part, clean everything up from your game week, Monday during the day. By Monday evening, you're on to the next week. Pro scouts have to be ready to answer any questions, to paint a really nice, clear picture of what the week's gonna look like. That way, coaches can hit the ground running and not have a bunch of questions to answer themselves. That's going to kick off the week. Like I said, quality control coaches. Pro scouts have to be working together because again, there is there are pro scouts who are very good on the coaching side. There are pro scouts who are strictly scouts, strictly evaluators. They have a harder time with the schematics of it. And that's where there has to be a great piece. With the analytics we have in today's game, you've got to have some symmetry across all three of those positions. It's going to be communication two, sometimes three weeks in advances in advance as Coaches, as analytics, as pro scouts start to think about this team are really diving in on them. But pro scouts gonna spend two to three weeks on a team. You're gonna be spitting splitting up your schedule across two, sometimes three, maybe even four pro scouts for big staffs. You may split them up even more than that. So you're going to be in Graham in depth. Again, part of what those scouts are doing when you're looking at the 53, you're getting some initial reports done for what's coming up with free agency. You're probably gonna tag some players that may be potential trade candidates, cut candidates, also those practice squad players that are, hey, this could be a poach guy based on the report you have, probably some preseason reports. So all that information that scouts are going through is going to be done again in about a two to three week window. And this is where pro scouts can really fall into a nice routine. Again, from Monday to Saturday with travel within buildings. Again, for every team that loves to have a Sunday to Sunday schedule. Again, forget the Thursday, forget the Monday games. Again, that throws off the schedule. If there's one thing people in football buildings would love to have, it is a week-to-week schedule that's really consistent. Pro scouts a little bit easier because you're not quite having to deal with everything that coaches, game times, again, travel quite as much as teams do where you're traveling about every other week. But again, falling into some of those routines is really nice. Again, with those conversations on the advances. Again, shortlist practice squad conversations are always going to be happen happening. Whoever's running, updating that shortlist, as we talked about on last week's episode with practice squads, the way you construct that practice squad as the year goes, that practice squad construction is probably going to change a little bit. Maybe you go from vet heavy to young developmental futures thinking. Maybe it's the other way. Maybe you're a development and you get to midseason, kind of have to change some of those guys out for some of your late season playoff. short list type players, that's certainly gonna happen. So it's gonna be an interesting thing to track as we we talked about head back and listen to that full practice squad episode for kind of what the practice squad makeup currently is early in the year certainly I think that's gonna change. We're thinking free agency, getting those initial reports done start to set the landscape because it matters not only for free agency, but that's going to help set a little bit of direction as the GM and personnel directors think about the draft as well. A really rich, heavy, deep free agency group may change the way you think about the draft, and vice versa. A really thin free agency group makes you think about the draft in different ways. Everything with building a roster has to work together. so again, you've got to have a full landscape of it and it has to happen. One of the things that can happen after four games that used to happen in a nice easy 16 week season. 16 game season is you got four games in that's first quarter. Let's do a self-evaluation. My opinion, not enough teams do enough self-evaluation. It'd be happening both weekly, but then when you talk about first quarter, it's got to step back. That umbrella has to get a little bit bigger in what you're evaluating. And that has to be every piece of it. What coaches are really overachieving, what coaches are underachieving. And this is where pro scouts. with that development portion I talked about on the 21st. If you want to get my two cents on evaluation and the lack of it, head back and listen to that one. But self-evaluation has to be happening so you can address things in season where you can, or you have to start thinking about those things that come January, February, you've got to be ready to address right away. Again, I go clear back to that 2016 season. As that offense started rolling, it became obvious that arguably the best head coach in the NFL currently Kyle Shanahan is going to be gone. There should have been a weekly evaluation from the pro scouting department, from anybody on the director level that was in that building to see is there somebody a Matt LaFleur, a Mike McDaniel, a Mike LaFleur, a Chris Morgan, somebody else on that offensive side of the staff that's like, hey, if Kyle leaves, This is our OC. Those kinds of conversations have to be happening. And on the other side, if there is just a spot that is sorely lacking, communications missing, execution's missing, details are missing, a change may have to be made during season. Again, we could look at a a CSU Jim Morris situation where something could be taken away, true colors will be shown. We're gonna move some move some priorities and some responsibilities around. But if the conversations The evaluation and a plan forward is not happening. Teams are setting themselves up to do the same thing for the next number of weeks, hoping that it fixes itself. And we know that's rarely the case in football. So teams have to be doing that at this point. But again, routine is certainly welcome this time of year. Teams are working across all of that. Pro scouting, it's about the routine. It's about winning games every week, finding a way to win. Each day and each week. Again, wins are what matters dealing with injuries you feel for teams like the Washington Commanders who would lose another quarterback. You see what happened to in the wide receiver in Kansas. Injuries are always going to be a part of the game. Have to have a plan, have to address them, and certainly that can mean changes for everybody in the building. As we flip it over to the college side, now scouts who have been on the road, that's area scouts, regional, national scouts. You get your directors out there, you get personnel people out there. Again, many, many visits have been done. The calendars flipped to October. Every team has quality film now on the college level, which means a lot of reports are starting to be buttoned up. Not finished. No report is ever finished. You're gonna get to the end of this season when games are done. Now the game portion can be done. Character is never done. You're never hitting submit. You're never finalizing that. You can feel really good about it. Character is always gonna be built though. So Second visits have been done, which means there are parts of a report that can be quote unquote finished. If you have done a body type portion, or if you've gotten some really good information, dealt with the different sources, feel really good, three, four sources all say the exact same thing again about the a player's body weight, or about the way they've attacked the training room, the way they've attacked the the academics. All that kind of stuff to hey, I I feel really good about this. I've heard the same story. It all makes sense. You don't stop digging on that, you don't stop asking questions, but it becomes becomes a lesser priority as you focus on the on-field stuff, the football character, leadership, how he's responding to game week stuff, sideline stuff. So scouts who are done with their second visits to some of these schools can start to put a bow on some of these reports. Not that it's ever done. But you can feel good about where those are at. The month of October, you gotta think about getting those visits. And there's schools up north where you're gonna start thinking about snow. We gotta be done with those visits. Scouts don't ever want to get trapped, stranded, lose a day because you are out there at the road. As as we go through October, you've got high level competition. You're into conference play, you're into your bigger games, which means there's going to be weeks here and there where restrictions get a little bit tighter. That's certainly gonna be the case. As November comes, as we get later in the year, jobs are more on the line. Maybe we're going for a conference title. Restrictions are naturally going to get tired tighter. You don't want to be relying on a end of October, early November visit to grab a bunch of information. You better have a lot of it done. It's going to be cleanup, it's going to be late risers, it's going to be trying to find another opinion, another source in a building, seeing somebody in person. that you're doing again you're gonna be on the road probably until the week before Thanksgiving is what most scouts pencil in but it better get lighter the schedule be little more flexible as we get through October November because the road has been busy you've hit a lot of schools now it's time to make sure we're cleaned up and buttoned up on all these schools we're doing in-person games is always a big part of it. Who are the quarterbacks that I need to see in person adversity who do I need to see deal with stuff on the sideline Who do I need to get a body type on? Couldn't get to practice. They were laid out to practice, didn't practice that day. In-person stuff, this is where you can squeeze a game in, a Friday night game, a Saturday game, a Thursday game if you love that max and some of the other conferences. You'll love to see some in-person stuff for its quarterbacks. Three to four visits in person, in games, whether the scouts or directors, areas, regionals, nationals, whoever it is, gotta see quarterbacks in person. And then this is the time of year where it's character, dig. follow up, dig some more again. You've got to find out the information, the real information. And that means any more phone calls, Zoom calls. This is where coaches will get on the phone later in the day in the evening as those coaches hit their schedule during the year. You can start to figure out hey, this is Thursday nights is going to be the night where I can get these guys to get some real information. You've got to find those things and get that character done. Risers, fallers, underclassmen. You're gonna start to note those guys. If there's a follower moving a player to 2028, maybe an underclassman all of a sudden pops on the board. You're hearing more and more this player's coming. If you're waiting for blesto and NFS updates as a scout, you're probably going to be behind. You're going to have to get that work done into December, into January. Just would put your team behind the eight ball. Some scouting operator scouting departments are operating more that way than they used to. But it's going to put you behind the more time you have to dig for information, ask questions as those players leave the building. Staffs are less likely to talk about them, or the story can certainly change with them. So for scouts, you've got a month of visits, front offices, you've got a month of visits. Everything better be coordinated. This is where, in the older days, pre-transfer portal, pre-so many players playing the free agency game. You operated in silos, character was your character. Let's not cross-train it. Let's not share it within a certain within the same scouting staff. But I don't think that can be the case anymore. The front offices that are sharing character information that are allowing their northeast guy to share information with their southeast guy, because that player went from an Ivy League down to big-time SEC, they're going to have a better picture. This is the time where directors and good leadership. is getting everybody on the same page to make sure all questions are answered, not just the Northeast Scouts questions, the Southeast questions out scouts questions. It's the Carolina Panthers questions. It's the Tampa Bay Buccaneers questions. It's the New York Giants questions. Have to be answered. And it doesn't matter who gets the answer, as long as it's answered with good, reliable sources. So the front offices that are doing the most communication, the most collaboration, and having it directed in the right way are certainly going to be ahead. Probably not as much as it needs to be, but hopefully trending in the right directions. again, it's a new day and age, a new scouting staff, and college football's changing. So so do the scouting procedures that are place. Questions about pro scouts, about collar scouts, whatever it is, hit me at right stepadb. They are busy, they are doing work, they're looking at players across the country. Head over to Twitter at right stepadv is where you can hit me those questions. Happy to answer, happy to jump on and talk all about it. See you tomorrow as I discuss Mike Matthews wide receiver at Tennessee. The King arrives on Wednesday with Neil Stratton. So set your reminders and in everything you're doing, make sure you keep scouting.