This is something I'm curious about, in general. I was thinking about this during some of the heated discussions on player rankings during the draft.
I have heard several references in the past to particular scouting services providing info to multiple NFL teams. I assume they charge some price, and give their analysis on all the players they've looked at to whichever teams pay (as opposed to, say, taking a "contract" to analyze some particular set of players for a team). I would guess that teams use this as a filter to identify players to take closer looks at, or maybe to provide some independent views from their own scouts, or whatever.
I'm wondering how this is set up for most teams. Does anyone know:
1) Do most teams pay some outside scouting service (or use a free service)?
2) How many teams do these services give info to?
3) How many such services do teams usually pay for?
4) Do teams ever contract out their scouting to outside firms, or do all teams do the majority of their scouting in-house?
5) How do teams use this information? How does it tie in with what their own scouts say?
I'm just curious. We hear a lot about how teams have different rankings, and every year there is at least one "Huh?" draft pick (e.g. Jax drafting the punter in the 3rd), that presumably comes from the differences in scouting reports and team needs. We also see plenty of cases where a player drops from what the public rankings would show, and I wonder if this is due to every team independently coming to the same conclusion, some confidential information (e.g. failed drug test) that is passed on to all teams, or possibly some scouting service that is widely used by teams propagating the same evaluation to everyone.
Also, I wonder whether teams relying too heavily on their own scouts could lead to a bunch of other problems. As one example, rmartin65 pointed out that the Texans drafted a lot of Big 10 players this year. This seems like it could indicate that their Big 10 scout was just generous on his player rankings this year, relative to say the SEC scout.
Does anyone know details about how teams actually handle all this?
I have heard several references in the past to particular scouting services providing info to multiple NFL teams. I assume they charge some price, and give their analysis on all the players they've looked at to whichever teams pay (as opposed to, say, taking a "contract" to analyze some particular set of players for a team). I would guess that teams use this as a filter to identify players to take closer looks at, or maybe to provide some independent views from their own scouts, or whatever.
I'm wondering how this is set up for most teams. Does anyone know:
1) Do most teams pay some outside scouting service (or use a free service)?
2) How many teams do these services give info to?
3) How many such services do teams usually pay for?
4) Do teams ever contract out their scouting to outside firms, or do all teams do the majority of their scouting in-house?
5) How do teams use this information? How does it tie in with what their own scouts say?
I'm just curious. We hear a lot about how teams have different rankings, and every year there is at least one "Huh?" draft pick (e.g. Jax drafting the punter in the 3rd), that presumably comes from the differences in scouting reports and team needs. We also see plenty of cases where a player drops from what the public rankings would show, and I wonder if this is due to every team independently coming to the same conclusion, some confidential information (e.g. failed drug test) that is passed on to all teams, or possibly some scouting service that is widely used by teams propagating the same evaluation to everyone.
Also, I wonder whether teams relying too heavily on their own scouts could lead to a bunch of other problems. As one example, rmartin65 pointed out that the Texans drafted a lot of Big 10 players this year. This seems like it could indicate that their Big 10 scout was just generous on his player rankings this year, relative to say the SEC scout.
Does anyone know details about how teams actually handle all this?
