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Championship!!!!
Scouting process just beginning
NFL.com Senior Analyst
(May 17, 2004) -- You might find this hard to believe, but almost every NFL team is getting ready to send at least three scouts to another scouting combine later this month. It'll be in sunny Florida, it'll be crowded with scouts who will be discussing the positives and negatives of many young men, but there won't be a single player there.
This is thanks to the NFL's pair of scouting organizations: BLESTO and National Football Scouting. Each of these organizations is made up of scouts from different teams, and all except five teams "subscribe" to one of these groups. Who's in which group? See for yourself:
BLESTO National No affiliation Atlanta Arizona Baltimore Buffalo Carolina Indianapolis Chicago Cincinnati New England Cleveland Denver Oakland Dallas Green Bay Washington Detroit Kansas City Houston New Orleans Jacksonville N.Y. Jets Miami Philadelphia Minnesota St. Louis N.Y. Giants San Diego Pittsburgh San Francisco Seattle Tampa Bay Tennessee
You'll notice there are some intriguing alliances made. For example, all four members of the NFC West are in National, as are Kansas City, Denver and San Diego (all three part of the AFC West). Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota are all in BLESTO, along with rivals Dallas and the Giants, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and Miami and Buffalo.
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Also, five teams -- the Ravens, Colts, Patriots, Raiders and Redskins -- aren't a part of either group. They choose to scout by themselves, keeping things "in house."
The point of these groups is that they are time savers and money savers. Instead of 27 teams independently travelling to each school -- from major college campuses to remote gyms in the middle of nowhere -- the two combines will cover them. From there, only a single report is filed and shared with the other teams as part of the group. That information-sharing process takes place in Florida (this year, BLESTO will be in Orlando while National will be in Longboat Key, Fla.).
At the meetings
At these very underpublicized affairs, area scouts will give their reports and a numerical grade on all of the 2005 draft-eligible players they have seen in action and work out at what they call "Junior Day" at campuses (more on that in a bit). The process is a bit more complicated than it sounds -- once a scout gives his report, there's a second opinion given from another scout. His report may sound a lot like the first scout, or it might be completely different. The grade could be the same, or it could be better or worse. There's an old phrase: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Bet you never thought that would apply to an NFL prospect, but it does.
The grade given lends an idea to teams where a player could be drafted. This way, the teams will know who the big-ticket guys are, who the mid-round guys are, who the late-round guys are, and if their scouts think differently, who the sleepers are. Now that teams have these grades, they can decide which schools their scouts are going to cover in the fall. This will even give teams an idea which small schools are worth going to on a regular basis. Thanks to last year's events, players like Jason Babin (Western Michigan) and Ricardo Colclough (Tusculum) were put on the map for scouts to discover. Both were taken with picks in the top 40 of last month's draft.
Of course, none of this can be done without the aforementioned Junior Day.
What is Junior Day?
How do BLESTO and National Scouts know how tall a player is or how much they weigh? Well, they don't run around with tape measures and scales chasing down collegiates on their way to class. Thanks to the college sports departments, the draft-eligible players take part in a workout much like a Pro Day just for these scouts. At some point after the college season and spring practice, schools will schedule their Junior Days. Iowa had its Junior Day after spring practice was over, while places like Kansas State did it after its Pro Day. Everybody has a different way of doing it.
Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle has been putting together Junior Days for a while, so perhaps it's better if he explains what happens:
"We start at 12:30 p.m.," Doyle said. "I meet with the pro scouts and just run down the list of who our draft eligible guys are. I give them an athletic background, a profile of each player, and information about the history of the players' physical development over their four years.
"Then we go to the weight room and the seniors are there waiting. At that time, we do measurables (height and weight, hand size and reach). Then we go to our indoor facility, go through a warm up, they run a 40-yard dash, complete with times for the first 10 yards and the entire distance. After that we have the players run a short shuttle, which gives the scouts a chance to judge their change of direction. After that, we give the guys 20 minutes to shower and change, and they take the Wonderlic test. That's pretty much Junior Day."
The skinny
You didn't think we were going to tell you about all of this without sharing some information, did you? We've spoken to a lot of people, and here are 64 names of players teams are talking about now. Write these names down, commit them to memory or bookmark this page and come back to it later, but here are 64 guys (in alphabetical order) you should keep an eye on during the upcoming football season. Besides, by this time next year, one or more of these guys could be on your favorite pro football team.
Jason Anderson WR Wake Forest Derek Anderson QB Oregon State Alex Barron OT Florida State David Bass OG Michigan Cedric Benson RB Texas Michael Boley LB Southern Miss Jamaal Brimmer S UNLV C.J. Brooks OT Maryland Elton Brown OG Virginia James Brown OT Oklahoma Ronnie Brown RB Auburn Kevin Burnett LB Tennessee James Butler S Georgia Tech Chris Canty OG Virginia Brian Casey TE Kansas State Mark Clayton WR Oklahoma Dan Cody DE Oklahoma Shawn Cody DE Southern Cal Chris Colmer OT N.C. State Dustin Colquitt P Tennessee Anthony Davis RB Wisconsin Adell Duckett DE Texas Tech Braylon Edwards WR Michigan Charles Fredrick WR Washington Charlie Frye QB Akron Fred Gibson WR Georgia David Greene QB Georgia Marques Harris LB Colorado Anttaj Hawthorne DT Wisconsin Reggie Herrell WR TCU Cedric Houston RB Tennessee Jonathan Jackson DE Oklahoma Marlin Jackson CB Michigan Derrick Johnson LB Texas Marcus Johnson OG Mississippi Eric King CB Wake Forest Geoff McArthur WR Cal Lance Mitchell LB Oklahoma Kyle Morrison LB San Diego State Michael Munoz OT Tennessee Terrence Murphy WR Texas A&M Jonathan Nichols K Mississippi Donte Nicholson S Oklahoma Doug Nienhuis OT Oregon State Dan Orlovsky QB Connecticut Kyle Orton QB Purdue Mike Patterson DT Southern Cal Antonio Perkins KR Oklahoma Rob Petitti OT Pittsburgh David Pollack DE Georgia Walter Reyes RB Syracuse Antrel Rolle CB Miami (Fla.) Matt Roth DE Iowa Marcus Spears DE LSU Darren Sproles RB Kansas State Bill Swancutt DT Oregon State Adam Terry OT Syracuse Craphonso Thorpe WR Florida State Andrew Walter QB Arizona State Corey Webster CB LSU Jason White QB Oklahoma Ben Wilkerson C LSU Carnell Williams RB Auburn Darren Williams CB Oklahoma State
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By Gil BrandtNFL.com Senior Analyst
(May 17, 2004) -- You might find this hard to believe, but almost every NFL team is getting ready to send at least three scouts to another scouting combine later this month. It'll be in sunny Florida, it'll be crowded with scouts who will be discussing the positives and negatives of many young men, but there won't be a single player there.
This is thanks to the NFL's pair of scouting organizations: BLESTO and National Football Scouting. Each of these organizations is made up of scouts from different teams, and all except five teams "subscribe" to one of these groups. Who's in which group? See for yourself:
BLESTO National No affiliation Atlanta Arizona Baltimore Buffalo Carolina Indianapolis Chicago Cincinnati New England Cleveland Denver Oakland Dallas Green Bay Washington Detroit Kansas City Houston New Orleans Jacksonville N.Y. Jets Miami Philadelphia Minnesota St. Louis N.Y. Giants San Diego Pittsburgh San Francisco Seattle Tampa Bay Tennessee
You'll notice there are some intriguing alliances made. For example, all four members of the NFC West are in National, as are Kansas City, Denver and San Diego (all three part of the AFC West). Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota are all in BLESTO, along with rivals Dallas and the Giants, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and Miami and Buffalo.
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Also, five teams -- the Ravens, Colts, Patriots, Raiders and Redskins -- aren't a part of either group. They choose to scout by themselves, keeping things "in house."
The point of these groups is that they are time savers and money savers. Instead of 27 teams independently travelling to each school -- from major college campuses to remote gyms in the middle of nowhere -- the two combines will cover them. From there, only a single report is filed and shared with the other teams as part of the group. That information-sharing process takes place in Florida (this year, BLESTO will be in Orlando while National will be in Longboat Key, Fla.).
At the meetings
At these very underpublicized affairs, area scouts will give their reports and a numerical grade on all of the 2005 draft-eligible players they have seen in action and work out at what they call "Junior Day" at campuses (more on that in a bit). The process is a bit more complicated than it sounds -- once a scout gives his report, there's a second opinion given from another scout. His report may sound a lot like the first scout, or it might be completely different. The grade could be the same, or it could be better or worse. There's an old phrase: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Bet you never thought that would apply to an NFL prospect, but it does.
The grade given lends an idea to teams where a player could be drafted. This way, the teams will know who the big-ticket guys are, who the mid-round guys are, who the late-round guys are, and if their scouts think differently, who the sleepers are. Now that teams have these grades, they can decide which schools their scouts are going to cover in the fall. This will even give teams an idea which small schools are worth going to on a regular basis. Thanks to last year's events, players like Jason Babin (Western Michigan) and Ricardo Colclough (Tusculum) were put on the map for scouts to discover. Both were taken with picks in the top 40 of last month's draft.
Of course, none of this can be done without the aforementioned Junior Day.
What is Junior Day?
How do BLESTO and National Scouts know how tall a player is or how much they weigh? Well, they don't run around with tape measures and scales chasing down collegiates on their way to class. Thanks to the college sports departments, the draft-eligible players take part in a workout much like a Pro Day just for these scouts. At some point after the college season and spring practice, schools will schedule their Junior Days. Iowa had its Junior Day after spring practice was over, while places like Kansas State did it after its Pro Day. Everybody has a different way of doing it.
Iowa strength and conditioning coach Chris Doyle has been putting together Junior Days for a while, so perhaps it's better if he explains what happens:
"We start at 12:30 p.m.," Doyle said. "I meet with the pro scouts and just run down the list of who our draft eligible guys are. I give them an athletic background, a profile of each player, and information about the history of the players' physical development over their four years.
"Then we go to the weight room and the seniors are there waiting. At that time, we do measurables (height and weight, hand size and reach). Then we go to our indoor facility, go through a warm up, they run a 40-yard dash, complete with times for the first 10 yards and the entire distance. After that we have the players run a short shuttle, which gives the scouts a chance to judge their change of direction. After that, we give the guys 20 minutes to shower and change, and they take the Wonderlic test. That's pretty much Junior Day."
The skinny
You didn't think we were going to tell you about all of this without sharing some information, did you? We've spoken to a lot of people, and here are 64 names of players teams are talking about now. Write these names down, commit them to memory or bookmark this page and come back to it later, but here are 64 guys (in alphabetical order) you should keep an eye on during the upcoming football season. Besides, by this time next year, one or more of these guys could be on your favorite pro football team.
Jason Anderson WR Wake Forest Derek Anderson QB Oregon State Alex Barron OT Florida State David Bass OG Michigan Cedric Benson RB Texas Michael Boley LB Southern Miss Jamaal Brimmer S UNLV C.J. Brooks OT Maryland Elton Brown OG Virginia James Brown OT Oklahoma Ronnie Brown RB Auburn Kevin Burnett LB Tennessee James Butler S Georgia Tech Chris Canty OG Virginia Brian Casey TE Kansas State Mark Clayton WR Oklahoma Dan Cody DE Oklahoma Shawn Cody DE Southern Cal Chris Colmer OT N.C. State Dustin Colquitt P Tennessee Anthony Davis RB Wisconsin Adell Duckett DE Texas Tech Braylon Edwards WR Michigan Charles Fredrick WR Washington Charlie Frye QB Akron Fred Gibson WR Georgia David Greene QB Georgia Marques Harris LB Colorado Anttaj Hawthorne DT Wisconsin Reggie Herrell WR TCU Cedric Houston RB Tennessee Jonathan Jackson DE Oklahoma Marlin Jackson CB Michigan Derrick Johnson LB Texas Marcus Johnson OG Mississippi Eric King CB Wake Forest Geoff McArthur WR Cal Lance Mitchell LB Oklahoma Kyle Morrison LB San Diego State Michael Munoz OT Tennessee Terrence Murphy WR Texas A&M Jonathan Nichols K Mississippi Donte Nicholson S Oklahoma Doug Nienhuis OT Oregon State Dan Orlovsky QB Connecticut Kyle Orton QB Purdue Mike Patterson DT Southern Cal Antonio Perkins KR Oklahoma Rob Petitti OT Pittsburgh David Pollack DE Georgia Walter Reyes RB Syracuse Antrel Rolle CB Miami (Fla.) Matt Roth DE Iowa Marcus Spears DE LSU Darren Sproles RB Kansas State Bill Swancutt DT Oregon State Adam Terry OT Syracuse Craphonso Thorpe WR Florida State Andrew Walter QB Arizona State Corey Webster CB LSU Jason White QB Oklahoma Ben Wilkerson C LSU Carnell Williams RB Auburn Darren Williams CB Oklahoma State
