Post by Purple Pain on Aug 16, 2020 0:01:23 GMT -6
How college football cancellations impact the 2020 NFL season and 2021 NFL draft
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theathletic.com/1990049/2020/08/12/how-college-football-cancellations-impact-the-2020-nfl-season-and-2021-nfl-draft/
For more than three months, the NFL’s scouting and agent community have watched the college football world wondering what the 2020 season might look like, or if there would even be one.
And now, those answers are finally coming.
College football as we know it won’t happen in the fall, with the Big Ten on Tuesday becoming the first Power 5 conference to postpone the season until the spring. The Pac-12 soon followed later Tuesday afternoon. The Mountain West and the MAC previously made similar decisions.
As of publish time of this story on Wednesday morning, the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 are still scheduled to start their seasons in September.
The ripples of these major college football decisions will make significant waves in the NFL. Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of events, said the league is still on track to start its season on Sept. 10. The biggest changes for the NFL are expected to come in the form of the fall schedule, with the NFL likely moving into some of the prime Saturday broadcast slots previously occupied by college games, and to how NFL teams prepare for the 2021 NFL draft.
The NFL needs to decide whether to stick to its traditional offseason scouting schedule, with all-star games in January, the scouting combine in February and the draft in late April, or if it might move some or all of those events to accommodate changes to college football.
A league spokesman on Monday said the league would not comment at this time about that calendar, and considering the way the NFL has proceeded in 2020, moving forward as scheduled throughout the pandemic, it would not be surprising if the draft remains as scheduled, from April 29-May 1 in Cleveland.
But that hardly means it’ll be offseason business as usual for the NFL, and the changes are already underway.
“We’re prepared on a number of different fronts to attack this, but I think we have to be very flexible, too, because things will change,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said Monday. “There’s going to be a draft. We’re going to have to acquire players. So we’re just going to have to do it in a few different ways.”
Evaluating 2021 draft prospects
Many college players have been united in saying on social media that they want to play (under the #WeWantToPlay hashtag). But it will be critical to watch how many of those same players still want to play in the spring, or opt out and play prospective pro events like The Spring League, which is planning to play in Las Vegas this fall.
As of Tuesday afternoon, nearly 30 FBS players had announced they would opt out of the upcoming football season, but with the official cancellation of fall games in the Big Ten and Pac-12, NFL scouts and officials expect that number to climb in coming days and weeks.
“Spring football is feasible for (colleges), but it’s not feasible if you’re a draft-eligible prospect,” said Jim Nagy, a longtime NFL scout who now is the executive director of the Reese’s Senior Bowl. “If you’re even a Day 3 prospect, you’re not playing spring football. Even if you might be a priority free agent, you’re getting ready for the draft.”
Nagy estimated that major programs like Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State and LSU could see as many as 10-15 draft-eligible players pull out of the season, sign with agents and begin preparing for the draft.
Indeed, several players who have already announced their college exit started that process. University of Miami defensive lineman Gregory Rousseau and cornerback Caleb Farley from Virginia Tech will be represented by Rosenhaus Sports. The agency will pay training costs and other expenses for the next nine months.
“It is an increased expenditure, so we will be selective with the players that we sign,” Drew Rosenhaus told The Athletic in a text message.
Agencies frequently spend a minimum of $25,000 to prepare a prospect for the draft, and likely first-round picks can cost two to three times that much. Facing a much longer timeline, many agents might not be as willing, or able, to front that sort of money to draft prospects this early.
This was a concern a number of agents shared with The Athletic’s Ben Standig in June, and now is coming to fruition.
“This will be the first year where it’s really the haves versus the have nots in the agent community where agencies that are willing to throw money at players regardless of round projection or skill set are going to be able to sign a lot of players,” an agent told The Athletic on Tuesday. “A lot of college kids will sign with agents for all the wrong reasons.”
That agent cautioned that players could get bad information on their potential draft status this far out from the 2021 draft, and with many players more than nine months removed from their last college games.
”The hard part is going to be getting the right info to these players to let them know where they stand,” Nagy said.
Typically players who are considering leaving college early and declaring for the draft will request an assessment from a draft advisory board, which will try to provide a predicted draft range, from first round, to mid-rounds, to late rounds or even undrafted. Any assessments for 2021 prospects who don’t play this fall will now be based off film from 2019.
Evaluating draft prospects has always been far from an exact science, and in 2021 it will be more difficult than ever.
“Speaking with teams as well as the agent industry, it’s going to kind of be a year where the draft hit rate and success rate, is going to be the lowest ever,” said Eric Galko, the CEO of Optimum Scouting, which provides pro football scouting services. “You’re going to see guys that most years might have used their final season and the NFL combine to be a third-round pick go undrafted; you might see guys that were going to go undrafted if they had a final season and a poor combine going the third round. … I know some teams that are kind of bracing for this kind of thought to say, ‘Hey, you know what, how can we use this time to maybe be more efficient or be more analytically focused, to kind of help us out with this limited information.'”
Multiple NFL scouts who spoke to The Athletic this week cited Joe Burrow as an example of how much opinions on a player can change in one year. Burrow wasn’t considered to be a Top 100 prospect a year ago. Then he turned in one of the best statistical seasons in college football history, led LSU to a national championship and went No. 1 overall to the Cincinnati Bengals in April’s draft.
Burrow’s jump last year is an extreme example, but scouts said it’s not uncommon for evaluation on a player, or their potential draft grade, to change after one more season’s worth of games.
“There’s always a handful of seniors that get drafted in first two-three rounds, and a lot of it is because they got better, or were in a better situation,” a scout said. “And there are also guys that really solidify their spots. Take (Auburn DT) Derrick Brown, he went 7 (to Carolina). Defensive tackles can fluctuate a lot in the draft, but he got another year of film, and that really helped solidify him as a dominant player.”
Across the NFL, scouts are preparing to do much of their work for the 2021 class virtually, via video conferences and phone calls, much like they did in the final weeks of prep for the 2020 draft.
Smaller colleges have already begun hosting group video conferences for NFL scouts to speak with members of the football staff, including strength coaches, academic liaisons and athletic trainers, to gather information on 2021 prospects.
Normally, these conversations would happen in person, during on-campus visits throughout the fall, and on the sidelines before college games on Saturdays. Some college programs have told scouts they would open their outdoor practices to NFL personnel this season, but in-person, indoor meetings are prohibited. Scouts are still trying to figure out what sort of access they’ll have on game days, and the scouts who spoke to The Athletic this week said they expect to travel much less, if at all, this season.
Those in-person meetings are critical to the background information teams gather on prospects. Crucial details about a prospect’s character, how he interacts with staff, his relationships with women and any off-field concerns might be harder to glean virtually, several scouts said.
“The biggest thing is it’ll hurt younger scouts. If you’ve been it in a long time, you establish relationships, but it’s going to be tough for those new guys and in those places where there are new (college) coaching staffs,” a longtime scout told The Athletic. “They might not feel good about giving out that information over the phone.”
And then there is another new concern creeping into the NFL scouting community: Will their jobs even be safe this year?
Another NFL scout told The Athletic on Wednesday that he worried that in absence of a normal college football season, if he and his peers could become, at least temporarily, expendable by NFL teams looking to save money.
“To be honest, I just hope I’m still working. There’s still going to be a draft, but with no college football in my area, I just don’t know what that means for me,” the scout said. “It’s something I think about a lot. A lot of people in the country have been furloughed at some point because of the pandemic and I hope I’m not next. But there’s a ripple effect with all of these decisions.”
And now, those answers are finally coming.
College football as we know it won’t happen in the fall, with the Big Ten on Tuesday becoming the first Power 5 conference to postpone the season until the spring. The Pac-12 soon followed later Tuesday afternoon. The Mountain West and the MAC previously made similar decisions.
As of publish time of this story on Wednesday morning, the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 are still scheduled to start their seasons in September.
The ripples of these major college football decisions will make significant waves in the NFL. Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of events, said the league is still on track to start its season on Sept. 10. The biggest changes for the NFL are expected to come in the form of the fall schedule, with the NFL likely moving into some of the prime Saturday broadcast slots previously occupied by college games, and to how NFL teams prepare for the 2021 NFL draft.
The NFL needs to decide whether to stick to its traditional offseason scouting schedule, with all-star games in January, the scouting combine in February and the draft in late April, or if it might move some or all of those events to accommodate changes to college football.
A league spokesman on Monday said the league would not comment at this time about that calendar, and considering the way the NFL has proceeded in 2020, moving forward as scheduled throughout the pandemic, it would not be surprising if the draft remains as scheduled, from April 29-May 1 in Cleveland.
But that hardly means it’ll be offseason business as usual for the NFL, and the changes are already underway.
“We’re prepared on a number of different fronts to attack this, but I think we have to be very flexible, too, because things will change,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said Monday. “There’s going to be a draft. We’re going to have to acquire players. So we’re just going to have to do it in a few different ways.”
Evaluating 2021 draft prospects
Many college players have been united in saying on social media that they want to play (under the #WeWantToPlay hashtag). But it will be critical to watch how many of those same players still want to play in the spring, or opt out and play prospective pro events like The Spring League, which is planning to play in Las Vegas this fall.
As of Tuesday afternoon, nearly 30 FBS players had announced they would opt out of the upcoming football season, but with the official cancellation of fall games in the Big Ten and Pac-12, NFL scouts and officials expect that number to climb in coming days and weeks.
“Spring football is feasible for (colleges), but it’s not feasible if you’re a draft-eligible prospect,” said Jim Nagy, a longtime NFL scout who now is the executive director of the Reese’s Senior Bowl. “If you’re even a Day 3 prospect, you’re not playing spring football. Even if you might be a priority free agent, you’re getting ready for the draft.”
Nagy estimated that major programs like Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State and LSU could see as many as 10-15 draft-eligible players pull out of the season, sign with agents and begin preparing for the draft.
Indeed, several players who have already announced their college exit started that process. University of Miami defensive lineman Gregory Rousseau and cornerback Caleb Farley from Virginia Tech will be represented by Rosenhaus Sports. The agency will pay training costs and other expenses for the next nine months.
“It is an increased expenditure, so we will be selective with the players that we sign,” Drew Rosenhaus told The Athletic in a text message.
Agencies frequently spend a minimum of $25,000 to prepare a prospect for the draft, and likely first-round picks can cost two to three times that much. Facing a much longer timeline, many agents might not be as willing, or able, to front that sort of money to draft prospects this early.
This was a concern a number of agents shared with The Athletic’s Ben Standig in June, and now is coming to fruition.
“This will be the first year where it’s really the haves versus the have nots in the agent community where agencies that are willing to throw money at players regardless of round projection or skill set are going to be able to sign a lot of players,” an agent told The Athletic on Tuesday. “A lot of college kids will sign with agents for all the wrong reasons.”
That agent cautioned that players could get bad information on their potential draft status this far out from the 2021 draft, and with many players more than nine months removed from their last college games.
”The hard part is going to be getting the right info to these players to let them know where they stand,” Nagy said.
Typically players who are considering leaving college early and declaring for the draft will request an assessment from a draft advisory board, which will try to provide a predicted draft range, from first round, to mid-rounds, to late rounds or even undrafted. Any assessments for 2021 prospects who don’t play this fall will now be based off film from 2019.
Evaluating draft prospects has always been far from an exact science, and in 2021 it will be more difficult than ever.
“Speaking with teams as well as the agent industry, it’s going to kind of be a year where the draft hit rate and success rate, is going to be the lowest ever,” said Eric Galko, the CEO of Optimum Scouting, which provides pro football scouting services. “You’re going to see guys that most years might have used their final season and the NFL combine to be a third-round pick go undrafted; you might see guys that were going to go undrafted if they had a final season and a poor combine going the third round. … I know some teams that are kind of bracing for this kind of thought to say, ‘Hey, you know what, how can we use this time to maybe be more efficient or be more analytically focused, to kind of help us out with this limited information.'”
Multiple NFL scouts who spoke to The Athletic this week cited Joe Burrow as an example of how much opinions on a player can change in one year. Burrow wasn’t considered to be a Top 100 prospect a year ago. Then he turned in one of the best statistical seasons in college football history, led LSU to a national championship and went No. 1 overall to the Cincinnati Bengals in April’s draft.
Burrow’s jump last year is an extreme example, but scouts said it’s not uncommon for evaluation on a player, or their potential draft grade, to change after one more season’s worth of games.
“There’s always a handful of seniors that get drafted in first two-three rounds, and a lot of it is because they got better, or were in a better situation,” a scout said. “And there are also guys that really solidify their spots. Take (Auburn DT) Derrick Brown, he went 7 (to Carolina). Defensive tackles can fluctuate a lot in the draft, but he got another year of film, and that really helped solidify him as a dominant player.”
Across the NFL, scouts are preparing to do much of their work for the 2021 class virtually, via video conferences and phone calls, much like they did in the final weeks of prep for the 2020 draft.
Smaller colleges have already begun hosting group video conferences for NFL scouts to speak with members of the football staff, including strength coaches, academic liaisons and athletic trainers, to gather information on 2021 prospects.
Normally, these conversations would happen in person, during on-campus visits throughout the fall, and on the sidelines before college games on Saturdays. Some college programs have told scouts they would open their outdoor practices to NFL personnel this season, but in-person, indoor meetings are prohibited. Scouts are still trying to figure out what sort of access they’ll have on game days, and the scouts who spoke to The Athletic this week said they expect to travel much less, if at all, this season.
Those in-person meetings are critical to the background information teams gather on prospects. Crucial details about a prospect’s character, how he interacts with staff, his relationships with women and any off-field concerns might be harder to glean virtually, several scouts said.
“The biggest thing is it’ll hurt younger scouts. If you’ve been it in a long time, you establish relationships, but it’s going to be tough for those new guys and in those places where there are new (college) coaching staffs,” a longtime scout told The Athletic. “They might not feel good about giving out that information over the phone.”
And then there is another new concern creeping into the NFL scouting community: Will their jobs even be safe this year?
Another NFL scout told The Athletic on Wednesday that he worried that in absence of a normal college football season, if he and his peers could become, at least temporarily, expendable by NFL teams looking to save money.
“To be honest, I just hope I’m still working. There’s still going to be a draft, but with no college football in my area, I just don’t know what that means for me,” the scout said. “It’s something I think about a lot. A lot of people in the country have been furloughed at some point because of the pandemic and I hope I’m not next. But there’s a ripple effect with all of these decisions.”
...
Other potential ripples for the NFL
Developmental league: The NFL has been able to keep upstart leagues like the XFL and Alliance of American Football at a distance because it had a robust feeder system in college football. These leagues have previously served more as a place for post-collegiate players or former NFL practice squad players to try to get into the league.
The 2020 season has the potential to change that. Could the XFL, which is being purchased by Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital, fill that void to truly become a viable developmental league and provide an alternative to the NCAA?
If there was a large, young talent pool there, with college-aged athletes choosing that league rather than NCAA, it could change the football landscape permanently.
TV: If the SEC, ACC and Big 12 wind up following the Big Ten and Pac-12 and pushing football to the spring, the NFL could alter its schedule to fill holes in the sports television lineup, on Saturday afternoons or evenings. CBS, Fox and ESPN, the major television networks carrying college football, all are NFL rights holders (as is NBC, which broadcasts a limited number of college games.)
NFL ratings on Sundays typically well out-perform college games on Saturdays, but broadcasting standalone NFL games in typical college broadcast windows would likely do well nationally, said Neal Pilson, the former head of CBS Sports.
“Still, without college football, the ratings will be good and the added inventory should be marketable,” Pilson said.
Developmental league: The NFL has been able to keep upstart leagues like the XFL and Alliance of American Football at a distance because it had a robust feeder system in college football. These leagues have previously served more as a place for post-collegiate players or former NFL practice squad players to try to get into the league.
The 2020 season has the potential to change that. Could the XFL, which is being purchased by Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital, fill that void to truly become a viable developmental league and provide an alternative to the NCAA?
If there was a large, young talent pool there, with college-aged athletes choosing that league rather than NCAA, it could change the football landscape permanently.
TV: If the SEC, ACC and Big 12 wind up following the Big Ten and Pac-12 and pushing football to the spring, the NFL could alter its schedule to fill holes in the sports television lineup, on Saturday afternoons or evenings. CBS, Fox and ESPN, the major television networks carrying college football, all are NFL rights holders (as is NBC, which broadcasts a limited number of college games.)
NFL ratings on Sundays typically well out-perform college games on Saturdays, but broadcasting standalone NFL games in typical college broadcast windows would likely do well nationally, said Neal Pilson, the former head of CBS Sports.
“Still, without college football, the ratings will be good and the added inventory should be marketable,” Pilson said.
theathletic.com/1990049/2020/08/12/how-college-football-cancellations-impact-the-2020-nfl-season-and-2021-nfl-draft/
... and neither is this Chris guy.