Aug. 31-Sept. 6

Which teams draft best? That’s a question that’s hard to answer. Some teams just seem to have no luck, no matter the GM, no matter the head coach. Some teams go on hot streaks, then hit dry spells. Other teams just seem to have talent consistently. NFL scouts certainly have an opinion on it, based on this Friday Wrap from June.

While their opinions matter, there are objective ways to look at it and categories that might have more relevance than others. With Week 1 here, cuts over, and rosters completely set for the opening games, we decided to count the number of former draftees who made it past last week, paying special attention to five categories. Here’s what we came up with:

Total former draftees on NFL rosters, opening week: Among all former draftees that are on NFL rosters (active, PS, IR, etc.), the Jaguars are the leaders with 59 players. Just behind them are the Browns and Patriots (58); 49ers (57); Bills, Bengals and Eagles (55); and Cardinals (54) rounding out the top five. 

Total former draftees on active 53-man rosters, opening week: Once again, the Jags rule the roost with 48 former draftees on rosters and ready go in Week 1. After Jacksonville, it’s the Bengals, Browns and Steelers (44); Bills and Eagles (43); 49ers, Buccaneers, Chargers, Texans (42); and Chiefs, Falcons, Jets, Packers and Patriots (41). 

Total former draftees on practice squads, opening week: Sure, some aggressive teams swing for the fences, accepting the fact that many of those gambles won’t pay off. However, the teams whose picks rate at least a practice squad look with other teams deserve some credit, we felt. In this case, kudos go to the Cardinals and Patriots, who each have 10 former draftees on their own or other practice squads entering the 2024 season. After that, it’s the Jaguars and Saints (9); Browns and Texans (8); Bears, Chiefs, Eagles and Falcons (7); and Bills, Broncos, Colts, Commanders, Giants and Vikings (6). How many of these draftees are on their drafting teams’ practice squads? Sorry, we’ll have to save that for another Wrap.  

Total OL/DL on active 53-man rosters, opening week: It all starts up front, right? If that’s true, it’s probably worth noting who’s drafted the most offensive and defensive linemen that remain on 53-man rosters. The winner is the Colts, who are all alone in first with 21. After that, it’s the Jaguars with 20. Tied for third place are the Bengals, Browns, Cardinals and Falcons with 17 each. In fourth place are the Packers, Rams and Steeler with 16 each, while the 49ers, Bills, Buccaneers, Commanders, Eagles, Saints, Seahawks and Vikings are tied with 15 each. 

Total skills players on active 53-man rosters, opening week: Which team has drafted the most QBs, WRs, RBs and TEs that are on active 53s? Who’s best at picking the touchdown-scorers? It figures that it’s the team that found the greatest QB ever in the sixth round. We counted 15 for the Patriots, who are all alone in first place. Also in the top five are the 49ers, Rams and Titans (14); Bengals, Broncos, Browns, Colts, Commanders and Texans (13); Bears, Bills, Buccaneers, Chargers, Chiefs, Jaguars, Seahawks and Steelers with 12; and Eagles, Giants, Raiders, Ravens and Packers with 11 each.

Obviously, there are a lot of variables involved. Teams that struggle tend to pick higher and get better players, and the more conservative fiscal teams get more bites of the apple due to comp picks. What’s more, the better franchises are more likely to bundle their draft picks for one pick (or an NFL veteran), so this is clearly not a perfect measure. But it’s one way to look at things in a different way, and for that reason, we think it has merit.

Want to see how the team you work for came out in all five categories? Check out today’s report, in which we list every team, first to last, in all five categories. Even if your team didn’t come out so well, remember that these are just five snapshots of the draft. Ultimately, the winners of the drafts, respectively, are the last two teams playing in February. 

Though the entire football world celebrated the first game of the season in Kansas City last night, there were hundreds of people celebrating for an entirely different reason this morning as the NFLPA provided results of the 2024 exam taken the last Monday in January. This year’s results were produced 39 years the exam, about a week faster than most years, due in part to how late the exam was administered. The Players Association typically likes to give successful test-takers about a month to round up registration and insurance fees. Here are a few responses from happy applicants that used ITL’s pre-exam services.

• “Score one for Team ITL! Passed!”
• "Just wanted to let you know I woke up to some great news this morning. Truly a childhood dream come true.”
• “I passed!!!!!”
• “Yessir!! LETS GO. Passed passed passed.”
• “Calling to let you know that I have passed the 2024 NFLPA certification exam.”
• “Definitely excited. Only the beginning of an uphill climb.”
• “Now comes the real part! I’m ready for it.”
• “Passed the exam. Now the real work begins.”
• “What a journey.”
• “I definitely will (celebrate) in my own boring way (Cracker Barrel after church or something like that)! Now I gotta find me some clients.”
• “Thanks so much for the help. What happens next usually? Where do I even start?”

Interesting question, and glad you asked. Obviously, even those people giddy after crossing one big hurdle are ready for the next challenge. We’re preparing our first formal “next step” program for new agents. We’ll cover all the topics you may be wondering about, such as:

• How do I find my first client?
• What do I say when a player asks how many clients I have? 
• Can I get a player drafted in my first year certified?
• How do I cover the costs associated with the business?
• How do I get a player in an all-star game? 
• What do I do when a player or a parent asks me a question I can’t answer?

Our Zoom series will bring you current and former NFL scouts and executives; the people you need to know at all the major all-star games; success stories from new and established contract advisors; experts on how to save money (and recover the money you invest in players); and plenty more. We’ll have an introductory Zoom session this week. Make sure to keep an eye on your inbox for details. To all of those people who gave us the privilege of helping during the pre-exam phase, we’re eager to help you take the next step to success as an NFLPA contract advisor. 

However, before you start digging into the industry, check out this week’s post at Succeed in Football. In it, we took stock of the player representation landscape in 2024, a time when name, image and likeness are changing the way players and agents look at their relationships faster than ever. We expected the results today, which is why today’s super-candid blog post came out this week. It’s a little bracing, sure, but you deserve the truth, at least as ITL’s Neil Stratton sees it. By the way, after reading the post, several top agents had a few words of advice that weren’t in the blog. Here’s what they told us.

• “Know that it will take years to start to turn a profit. Because of training costs, you probably won’t get your investment back until the third year of a player’s career. And even then, you won’t make much money. It’s all about getting players to lucrative second contracts where you can actually earn a decent living.”
• “Couple of things that came to mind: (Number one,) why do you want to become an agent? If it’s to hang out, be friends, red carpets, etc., stop while you are ahead. Simply don’t waste your time or money. All about helping people! Plain and simple. (Number two), the NFLPA (is) not your friend, true, also in part because of the small size. Just not enough people over there to really help. So . . . don’t expect much. (Number 3), find a mentor!!! (Number four,) consider partnering up with other young agents -- share costs, resources, etc.”
• “From my perspective the biggest challenge is how early the recruiting process is starting. Now in high school. That’s a long time to keep a player happy. So the investment of resources is incredible with no guarantee you are going to get an SRA signed and no guarantee the player is going to be a legit prospect when the time comes.”

Don’t get discouraged. If it couldn’t be done, there wouldn’t be six members of the 2022 NFL agent class who already have 10 active NFL clients as of our last review (plus one who got certified in the summer of 2023!). Also remember, we’re not going anywhere, and we’ll do whatever it takes to help our clients.

Turning to the scouting world, there were still plenty of front office moves coming to light even as play began this week. Here’s a look at what we broke:

• Technically, the news came out last week, but we only caught up with Randy Mueller’s return to New Orleans on Saturday. If his second term there is as successful as his first, blue skies are ahead for the Saints. 
• The Steelers made moves in their scouting and analytics departments, respectively. Those moves, in addition to New Orleans’ promotion of a Scouting Assistant, were part of Wednesday’s Rep Rumblings.
• James O’Shaughnessy, Ryan Brosnan and Patrick Holly are new Scouting Assistants in Chicago. O’Shaughnessy is a former player, while Brosnan arrives after years spent with the Niners and at the University of Oregon, while Holly prepped for the Bears in the league office. We covered it all in Thursday’s report.

As we continue reviewing the new NFL media guides, we’ll have more in the coming weeks. Make sure to follow the Scouting Changes Grid for all the latest moves. 

If you follow scouting, you follow the draft, which means you know who Dane Brugler is. The Athletic’s draft expert is probably the most respected such voice in the industry, and it’s not by chance. His work ethic comes through loud and clear in his hour spent with Right Step Advising’s Rodrik David and ITL’s Neil Stratton in this week’s edition of the Scouting the League Podcast. In it, he discusses:

• On getting started: “My first job out of college, I did baseball ops for a Double-A minor league team in Frisco, Texas, then I worked for the Super Bowl a little bit, the Final Four, with Emmitt Smith for a little bit. I had a lot of interesting, fun jobs, but all the while I was working on my scouting on the side, trying to break in.”
• On gathering information from the players themselves: “Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of bad info out there in media circles, whether it’s a hot-button issue or whatever.”  
• On the hidden aspects of NFL evaluation: “You think about the GM of an NFL team, you know how they feel about 7-8 players, from the outside looking in. All you know is they drafted those 7-8 players, and they like those 7-8 players.”
• On teams’ draft philosophies. “I have a document on my computer that I use as a guide to keep up with coaches and assistants and front offices. It’s challenging, but there’s a fun aspect to figuring out all the tendencies of certain teams, certain coaches. Knowing which teams would never, no matter what, draft a running back in the first round. Or the teams that won’t even consider a corner with under 32-inch arms. Some teams really care about age. Other teams don’t care.”

If you’ve always dismissed draft analysts as entertainers only and don’t see them as doing the real work of evaluation, you’ll feel different after Brugler’s hour on the podcast. We think it’s a riveting 66 minutes not just because of his insights on the 2025 draft class, but also for how he discusses his process and the challenges he faces each year. We encourage you to check it out.

Catching Up: After wrapping up a brief NFL playing career, Joey Clinkscales, 60, spent more than two decades in NFL scouting with the Jets, Raiders and Steelers as well as National Football Scouting. We caught up with him this week.

• Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I’m in between New Jersey and Nashville right now, and I do some consulting with one of the sports agencies I help with. I’m not an agent, I don’t do any of that, but I help them evaluate guys, make sure they’re on the right page. I also do some NIL consulting, and what that means is, in today’s college football, it’s paying the right guys, and my job as a consultant is to make sure that some of these guys that are asking for this kinda money are actually worth that kind of money they’re trying to get. That’s what I do on that end.” 

• Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?:  “Absolutely. If you’re a scout, if you’re a football guy, that’s never out of your system. Not only the evaluation, but getting to know the players that you’re evaluating. Once you go into a school and you find out about a kid’s background, family, likes and dislikes, how everybody is coached best . . . once you get into the player, you really have an affinity for what he’s like, the things he likes, how he can best fit in your system. Scouting is like a puzzle. You can see 10 guys that look alike on the surface, but once you dig deeper, they aren’t all the same.” 

• Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “Oh yeah, absolutely. I have some of them that are lifelong friends that I still talk to around the NFL, even a couple coaches who are still there (in the league), and some that are retired. Scouting is a fraternity, and I keep in touch with those guys, but it’s like anything that’s real: once you pick back up, you pick up where you left off. Everybody knows what the job entails. It can be a grind at times, but you enjoy it. You enjoy that kind of grind. If you’re doing your job right, it doesn’t feel like a job. You enjoy the grind. Now, the late night report-writing isn’t always great, but knowing the players, being able to articulate what you see in the players in the meetings, that’s what you live for a s a scout.”

• Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “I go to some high school games in Westfield, NJ, from time to time. Not as many college ang pro games anymore, but I’ll get back to that. It’s funny because when you really know football, it’s hard to sit with people who think they know football. So if you’re out watching the game and you hear people talking, and I’m not saying anything, and they’re saying, ‘why did they do that?’ And I’m looking for somewhere else to move to (laughs). I mean, you’re thinking, ‘you really don’t understand.’”

• Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “There are certain teams I like. I really like the culture in Kansas City, but my all-time favorite team growing up was the Steelers, always rooting for the Steelers, no matter what. I ‘m a big culture guy, so when I see things done the right way, as much as I hated the Patriots, being with the Jets, and there was a real dislike of them, but you appreciated the operation they had. It was flawless, and really, even after I left the Jets, man for man, we were a better football team, but they had two things that they had. Obviously, they had No. 12, but hey had a culture where this guy can play here, or here, or there. They drafted a million smart players who were versatile with a lot of skill sets, and that’s what made them special. The Steelers are my all-time favorite, but there’s a lot of teams where I like the way they play football.” 

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.

Profile Reports: We’ve got 25 reports left in the 2025+ cycle and three weeks-plus to finish them after we published SMU, Southern Miss, Stanford, Syracuse and TCU this week. Wil we make it? We’ll have to say. That’s 25 reports in 16 report days. We’ll do our best. Make sure to check out all our reports here.

Next week: By next week, every NFL team will have played its first game of the 2024 season. Crazy, huh? Most colleges will have played two games (some even three). Football is back. Let us all be glad. Here’s what we’ll have next week.

• We’re due to produce the Temple, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Texas and Texas State Profile Reports this week, but we’re hoping to have UTSA and Texas Tech, at least, as well. Maybe even UTEP, too, to complete our sweep of the Lone Star State. Fingers crossed.
• If all goes well, we’ll have our final updates to the 2024 Draft Class by the Numbers report, which is always an interesting look at how NFL teams really viewed the prospects. How many players, at each position, made rosters? We’ll know after next week. Here’s our look at the 2023 class.
• In Succeed in Football, we’ll take a longer look at the new agent class. Who’s arriving to rep tomorrow’s players, and where did they come from? We’ll know more next week.
• We’ve got another great episode of Scouting the League coming on Wednesday. Our podcast is becoming the go-to place for scouts and evaluation professionals to consider the finer points of the business. Make sure to check it out. 
• Our Rep Rumblings will be bustling with talk of which agency is signing whom, what’s going on in NFL front offices and elsewhere in football. Make sure to make our reports part of your daily schedule. 

Inside the League is the perfect companion to go with Saturdays, Sundays, or anytime football is on. Give us a shot and find out.