Getting to Know the Front Office/Understanding the Scouting Process

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by Daseal

Smoot,

Best post of the past two years. Love this. Good job with the write up and helping us understand the organization and processes a bit better. Much appreciated!

I have a few questions about scouts. During the season I can't imagine how they can hit all the small schools. Wouldn't they spend most of their time at the major conference in the area? For instance, I thought Morris was more based off the Senior Bowl than scouting. Isn't it difficult, especially the South, to not focus on the SEC?

Do these guys live in their particular area all year and then come back to DC to work with the other scouts and Scott Campbell? Kinda curious what their life is actually like. I feel like most of what they do they can get off of film and the rest of the time is digging up personal stuff about the people.

Yeah, Morris was heavily based off of the Senior Bowl on top of the scouting during done the season. I was really just using his name as an example.

The life of a scout is extremely grueling. Most of these guys are former HS/College players and coaches who have decided this is the path they want to take. Some scouts want to work their way up to GM, others really just love scouting.

Where they scout has nothing do with where they live. They could live in San Antonio and be responsible for scouting the NE. The scouts all meet up in July (I think) and with Campbell they map out their schedules. Then it's off on the road. I'd say on average they're on the road maybe 10 out of 14 days or more. And then they go home, they rarely come back to Redskins Park during the season.

They'll see multiple schools a day some times. They hit the D1 schools first and then squeeze in the smaller schools as they fit (usually geographically). So a scout might be visiting Maryland and Virginia, but he'll swing by Georgetown.

There are also times when Allen or Campbell or even Shanahan will say "hey we're in Dallas this weekend so we're going to catch the Texas A&M game tonight and scout these guys so you can skip this and go scout this other smaller school"