What It Really Takes To Be An NFL Sports Agent with Joe Flanagan

I would literally pull out my life insurance policy

every time I was going down there

and put it in front of my wife.

Like, here we go again.

It's a wild, wild blast down there.

The dad called me and said,

there's another agent that wants to do this deal

because he's going to give me two F-150s

and he's buying me a palm tree farm.

That's sports agency in the Dominican

because that's very different than what we have here.

Welcome to Dealer Out of Office.

We're your hosts.

I'm Frank Zambo.

I'm Jake Burkle.

And we are here to talk to you

about dealer's interests outside of the office.

Now watch this draft.

What is up, everybody?

Welcome back to another episode of Dealer Out of Office.

As always, I'm your host, Jacob Burkle,

alongside my good buddy, Frank Zambo.

And we have a cool one today another friend of the show a friend of Frankie because when you're in

NFL superstar you have some connections in the world

But we are happy to bring on Joe Flanagan Frank's is it former agent?

Oh, how would I would be classified? Guess he's still my agent. You never know. Did he fire you Joe?

No, no. All right. So then yes

My counter contract ran out my inspiration to play football and then teams no longer cared about if I wanted to play football anymore

So then yeah, we just kind of fizzled there is a our professional relationship beautiful Joe

Thank you for joining dealer out of office, man. How are you? We're yet good. Good. I appreciate it Jacob

Good, I'm up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That's my home base and

I've been here now for about 20 years

Working out of here after starting the company in Chicago. So had a long last several weeks including coming up to see Frank and one of his

protege is at Central Michigan

The last three weeks have been pro-days every week. I think I hit 11 cities in 14 days and

Finally got back last Wednesday or last Thursday after the Indiana pro-day

Saw Mendoza thrown in person, which is really cool

legit and then got back for Good Friday and Easter and this is the first week

I don't have to travel so it's nice to be home. I have a plethora of questions. Yeah, how did you know track right off the bat?

But how did he look?

Ridiculous, I mean so good. It's he's throw such a catchable ball

His motion is effortless. It was really really impressive. I was standing

Five yards in front of the Oakland Raiders or the Vegas Raiders scouts who were obviously looking at him

So I had the exact same vantage point basically as they

It was unreal. I mean, he's he's legit. There was a one-drop

That hit the hit the guy in the hands and was a little bit much too much of a fastball, I guess in a mid-range throw

Maybe put that on Fernando a little bit

One long one to Sarat that went like a deep ball

off the fingertips

But I thought Elijah kind of slowed down a little bit

I don't think it was on Fernando, but he was basically like 38 out of 40 or whatever it was. It was sick and

Really really good balls and effortless and I mean he did not have to do that

He did that for his receivers and his running backs basically

Yeah, I'm looking and a couple of the guys look really really good because of it

so and one thing about that whole thing is

There's a lot of bubble guys and Mendoza helps those guys. I had the same type of situation to talk about my pro day

We had Dan the fever and Antonio Brown everyone probably knows Antonio Brown Dan the fever

Yeah, was like he was up there with like Tim Tebow and it came to stats, right?

Matt conference at Central Michigan

Tim Tebow being at Florida got a lot more press but Dan was like running gunning. He was doing his thing

So we had all 32 teams represented at Central Michigan's pro day

Which we're like a mid-tier max school like

Unless you have some dogs on your team like you don't normally get all 32 teams and then for me

I was kind of a bubble guy whether I was gonna get drafted undrafted

So that benefited me to have a really good pro day in front of all those 32 teams and I remember

I

Was named Charlie Weiss who was at which the head coach of the chiefs at that point came to me after the end of that

Prote's like, I don't know who you are. I came here for the quarterback

But tell me more about you like kind of and I was doing like the more you can do the harder

It is to cut you like I was doing tight end work. I was doing

You know

outside linebacker I was doing everything I could show and you know, we were just at Mount Pleasant for Central Michigan's pro day for one of

my

For for a player that I've been working with since high school same area. I'll talk more about Jordan

but

It was cool to go back there and and I remember that feeling of like I need to PR

I need to do my best I can do in it for me

I did my personal best on that day whether it was bench press reps my 40-yard dash

Adrenaline is a real and it's like that kicked in at just that right time and it was like time to perform

And again, that's what those guys those scouts are looking for in that moment

It's the lights around like it's time to perform

This is like your whole career your college career, you know

High school career coming down to like one day to perform for these scouts

How are you gonna do? Are you gonna shit down your leg or you're gonna freaking go out there and kill it?

I love how Joe. We're gonna get real derailed and enough about Frank because we could talk. Oh, that's okay

Yeah, it's perfect. I mean, it's a great example. It's exactly what the produce are all about

Yeah, I know but I'm generally curious because I want to get back like Mendoza and like what you guys look for and everything

but I'm curious of like I

Think everyone in some way like man, it would be so cool to be a sports agent

That's a cool job to have like when you're you know, you know, you want to be a firefighter to astronaut

Whatever like a sports agent. I think it's kind of one of those ones. So like how does that start?

Where do you kind of like how does that even begin into a position and like?

Start us a start us at day one kind of yeah, I mean I would say stick with firefighter

The you know, I kind of fell into it accidentally. I did not know I wanted to do this

I mean, I didn't have plans to do this. I went to I

Was a baseball player and I don't do one scholarships

And a lot of offers to play baseball

Ultimately, I took an academic scholarship to go to Notre Dame

And and and decided to you know to to just focus on school at that point

I happened to you know Notre Dame was a that was the Lou Holtz era. So this was in 1989 when I was a freshman

In high school or in college

Kind of just started, you know getting into you know, dude, you know being around the Notre Dame community

You know at Notre Dame, they put the football players in with the general population and the dorms

And so just kind of started to meet people that played the game, right?

Became really good friends with a couple of them

also

Started boxing that Notre Dame they'd have this thing called bangles bangle bouts, which is a

Big basically university wide boxing tournament to benefit the Catholic missions in Bangladesh and it's still tradition today

So I decided to do like things outside like the box that way and I met my my current business partner boxing with him

So and then we would go back to this other dorm

Where do you remember Monty Williams the coach the basketball coach?

He was a Notre Dame basketball player at the time

So we'd go back and hang out with him and his next-door neighbor who is Jim Flanagan

Jim Flanagan was a

Defensive tackle from Wisconsin or a linebacker actually coming out of Wisconsin and he's a freshman and we were sophomores

So we started hanging out. That was our crew. So Jim Flanagan my current business partner Brad Leshnach and and I

And we we became just super tight friends. So we matriculated go through Notre Dame

I go to law school in Chicago Brad ends up going to getting his MBA at Northwestern and Jim ends up getting drafted by the Bears

So

Yeah, so now we had a seat. He was a third round pick. I think he was 74th overall

While I was a first-year law school

So I was a year ahead of him

But he was I was in my first year of law school when he was drafted by the Bears were finishing his senior year

so we had a CPA and MBA a lawyer and a football player as three best friends and

You know, I went the typical route. I did practice law. I took a job at a big giant law firm in Chicago

to pay off the bills basically

Brad took Brad was in graduate school. The one-year program at Kellogg, which is a super super highly

You know respected program less than a hundred people get in

But we kind of just looked at each other and we're like, you know, if we're gonna try something entrepreneurial

We should do it now. We're not married. We have no kids

Not to date you but like what what era kind of where we this would have been so I graduated college in 93

graduated law school in 96 and so and

So we started kind of contemplating this toward the end of law school

We started dipping our toes in the water Jim was playing for the Bears and doing a good job and

Was a popular guy Notre Dame, you know Irish kid from

In Chicago can do pretty well and he was he was playing very well, especially early in his career

So we actually started by putting doing his taking over his like create helping him create his foundation

and his charitable foundation, which was about literacy and

That's kind of how we got our work the first thing that we did that was fully involved with an NFL football player was that so we ran

It's 501 C3

We built it up from the ground up while I was working as a lawyer

I was actually still bartending on weekends. We were both certified personal trainers Brad and I so we were doing that as well

All with the idea of

Creating seed money for the sports agency that we went wanted to do

So with Jim we took that the his foundation

And we ended up partnering with Disney and UPS and

Delivered seven and a half million dollars worth of books to underprivileged kids across five states

And Jim became the NFL man of the year from that venture

And so it was at that point that we just said, you know, hey, we have a lot of value

We met a lot of people in the industry

We think we can do bring a lot to the table for for football players, you know outside of the charitable arm

And so that's kind of how we we decided, you know what we're gonna we're gonna do this and so we

I still worked our first two years. We were both working

And we but we drive to Notre Dame Northwestern anywhere. We could that was close by and try to

Pretend like we knew what we're doing enough to get a client and that's what we did

so we got a couple un-drafted kids from Notre Dame and

Would have been like 1999

1998 when we started in representation

and then that they weren't great football players, but they were great dudes and

They made a lot of good references for us and you know soon enough

We picked up a couple of draft picks from Notre Dame in Northwestern and all of a sudden

We said, you know what?

Let's go full board and quit our other jobs and do this full time

And so that was almost 30 or 28 29 years ago

Well one thing I respect most about it was just like that early grind like I hope people understand like though

I just imagine you're you're talking about what you really like three or four different jobs at that point your personal training

You do whenever you can to just scrape by and do it

Yeah, and you know good for you. You made a career out of it and a good one and the relationships you made built a family with it

And yeah, yeah, I mean the point was let's get out of debt as quickly as possible so that we could focus on

Doing this right so as soon as we both felt comfortable enough in our financial situation to take another shot

Of course, we immediately went into debt paying for people's combine training and stuff like that

But we've gotten out of our student debts

We'd kind of untethered ourselves from that and still didn't have you know kids or a family to so we're like

we're just putting ourselves on the line and it felt like the right time to do it and

It turned out great. We did not cut our teeth on Jim. By the way, he was with Tom Condon

You know CAA at the time so he had a really good agent

But you know Jacob one of the important things that I guess I didn't say it was a really unique situation is

Jim was playing for the Bears Jerry Angelo. I don't know if you guys remember Jerry Angelo

he was he was the GM of the box and the Bears during that era and

Jerry was kind of that old-school Youngstown, Ohio mafia football guy, you know, and and it's a true thing

That's a cradle of coaches. That's a little area where a ton of good coaches and football men have come from and so

We asked Jim we're just like hey

Can you get us in the building and meet with Jerry and kind of do

Informational Q&A to see like is this something we want to do

So we did get that access through Jim. We had an informational meeting with Jerry Angelo

Sat down and we basically just asked him all kinds of questions and he was like you guys are too smart and too honest

Do not go into sports agency

Stick with being a lawyer, you know, you go be an investment banker. You'd be much more happy

Of course, we did the opposite, right? So that was what he told us not to do

But what Jerry did for us and to this day is he was

Instrumental in our career and again, this was kind of serendipity that we made happen, right? So we were friends

We were networking we were trying to be active in the industry

But we were very lucky that our best friend played for the Bears

We were very lucky that Jerry took the interview and then he liked us enough to where he said, you know what?

I'm gonna bring an area scout in to introduce himself to you guys and he's gonna he's gonna find you guys sleepers for the next couple years and

It was named his name is Jeff Shiver. He's in the coaching Hall of Fame and

Are the scouting Hall of Fame and he's one of the oldest tenured bear scouts and he was in fact recruited Jim or just

Scouted Jim when he was coming out of Notre Dame

So Jeff, you know gave us a couple of guys to get that were cheaper and and and had potential

And that was a big deal to us and he'd be he's still a valuable resource for me

In fact, I saw him at the IU pro day in the parking lot

Last week so I have I have two questions and one that's been sticking with what was your boxing record at Notre Dame. I

Lacerated my kidney and I did and so I was oh no, I got yeah

I was I was peeing blood to two days before my first match and the doctors

Wouldn't let me fight before you even threw a punch out. Well, no, I

Did all the six weeks I did all the six weeks of training and I went from 210 pounds to and I was gonna fight at 168

I need to get a boxing plan. You're

It was the best weight loss plan I ever been it

I sent Joe or we had a pot. We had a peptide conversation. I sent him our

Are you on him? No, Frank Frank sold me though. I'm gonna try to get some blood

I know he's like I keep asking him and he keeps like holding this one really close to the chest. I won't tell me

my price

My offer

My second question is so you guys are relatively new right you're getting into this, you know early 90 early 2000s

Like and you're going up against GM's who have been doing this for

Years right like what is that learning curve like to understand the industry?

Like yeah, you think you know, but you don't really know until you're in there

So what was that like the first like kind of oh shit moment and you obviously we don't want to put names out there

But yeah, how do you come back to that?

Well, there's a lot of different facets to representation that most people don't think of people think about the transactions, right?

The contract negotiations, that's what I think about so there's anything behind off of that

I mean, you do if you're lucky you do two of those for one player, right?

You do a draft one and you do a big unrestricted deal

So those things are milestones and of course of the goals of what you want to do and they are life-changing for the player

And can be for the agent to a degree, right?

But it's all the stuff in between that's the really the craziness and the grind of it, you know what I mean?

It's dealing with injuries. It's dealing with moms and and

Girlfriends and wives. It's dealing with off the field issues that might come up

And then there's of course the whole process that leads up to a person being selected and or getting an unrestricted free agent contract

So there's all the dead quote-unquote dead time in between is actually very very layered and a lot of work

and so

You know in that process, I think early on the biggest thing that I would say and I hate to say it this way but

The biggest surprise and the biggest oh shit was

And it was a repeated. Oh shit is man. I can't really trust what people say at face value

It's a very highly competitive

Environment of full of alpha males, you know willing to slit your throat and

You have to understand that and it's not that they're malicious. It's just that the job is a very very difficult job, right?

And so you quickly learn that you know and even as players Frank Frank can tell you this too

You might be super tight with a coach, but and he'll say I love you like a son in the next day

They cut your ass

And that doesn't necessarily mean that coach didn't mean it

It just means that it's a really really hardcore cutthroat business

And so I think for me learning as a very trusting loyal

honest straightforward guy

Learning that most people aren't like that in most industries and I'm not saying that's exclusive to sports agency

But I think it's heightened in sports agency to a certain degree because there's just so few of us that are players

There's very few players. There's very few agents and there's very few, you know NFL executives and personnel guys that have juice

So it's a very small fraternity

And so you quickly learn that you have to you know, these aren't your brothers

You can trust that I've got a ton of really good relationships and people that I would trust like if one of Frank's kids becomes a guy

You know, I will have places where I tell Frank like

We're not sending him here like no way like there's bad buildings where I wouldn't want my worst enemy

And then there's great spots, you know, like where

Super great cultures super great buildings with really good people

So, you know that part of it. I think was a bit of a slap in the face and just kind of a learning curve for me

And I've weathered it and I adjusted by by not changing who I am and not doing that and trying to be reciprocally

You know

Evasive or reciprocally dishonest. I just learned and rewarded those who were and

So in the industry when you have choices, whether it's unrestricted free agency undrafted

Whether it's seeking information and sharing information and Intel pre draft post draft free agency

I rewarded those who are good people in my industry and over 20 years plus now now almost 30

You know, I have my people and they know they can trust me and I know I can trust them

And so that weeding through that process and figuring out how to adjust to it and not becoming cynical and being a jerk

Like some of the guys are because there's you just got to choose to be one of the good ones

And then you end up with people like Frank, you know, the people that are good good agents and good players

Good men find each other and that's kind of

You know, that's my approach still today

So if I wouldn't have a if I had a recruit that I wouldn't want to sit down with dinner with my wife and daughter

I'm not representing that. Yeah

That's fair

Especially at this point like you this point of your career to prize later, you know probably early on you're like

I'll take whatever I kind of like us and now offense dealerships in some point

I mean not that we reach ever that point of like sometimes we just want to deal with the best ones

And even if you are moving a lot of vehicles, you're like if you're just a pain in the butt, like it's not worth it, right?

Yeah, it's like yeah. Yeah, well for sure

I mean, I think the ability to be selective eventually is really one of the one of the coolest

Treat others like you want to be treated. Yeah, it's funny too when I was just with Joe and we are going to see Jordan who

Joe represents Jordan out quickly he

He went to my high school that I went to when I when we won the Super Bowl 2010

I went back to my hometown and there's a picture of me and Jordan

He's just like probably my son Josh was like eight or nine years old and I'm taking like a picture with him

So then when I'm done playing football 2019

I go back to Stevenson to coach like I had my kids were really young

I was a kind of board so I'd have to work. I would like I don't know if I had a job

I'm read after football. I would just go and coach high school football and Jordan was a sophomore

And the kid was an absolute stud at my alma mater street still had Stevenson just outside of suburbs of Detroit. Shout out

Yeah, so um, I coached him there for sophomore junior senior year

Then he ends up going to Central Michigan follows kind of like where I went that I followed there in a central

Or did he he got recruited? I mean, yeah, he's he didn't need me

He's good enough player to get there and then

He was a stud for them over the last, you know, he played as a true freshman and then he

Again, he's getting done and he's like, hey, I think I have a chance. He's a lot like me too like a late round

you know undrafted type kid and

Yeah, he asked me to hey, you know, I'm looking at agents

I was like, you know reach out to Joe and he was pretty close with like two other guys before we even kind of talked about it

And then he met Joe like quick and it was like pretty yeah, he hit it off really quick. Yeah

And yeah, he's trying with him. Yeah, Jordan Kwiatkowski good really good kid. You know, he's his biggest challenge is his size

You know, he's he's you know, it's tough. They want linebackers, you know taller nowadays

So he's gonna that's gonna be that's the biggest impediment we found but from an athleticism in a production standpoint

I mean, he's he's a he's a he's a freak

He's very very good quick to diagnose linebacker and very aggressive very strong and I think he'll be

He'll make a team. He'll he might have to fight his way through practice squad for a bit

But eventually he's gonna add a ton of value on special teams that you know, pretty quickly

No, no question about it. Some things you can't like Nick Belor is another one

He played bounce around but right now he's been he's with the Washington commanders played with me at Central Michigan

He's going into like year 15. It's just like a special teams guy under size probably ran a

4840 at Central Michigan's pro day, but he's a football player

Like he just has an innate ability to just fall into a play or you know, get knock a ball out when you're not thinking about it

Like in a again, your best players aren't thinking about punching a ball

It's just something that you know, everything's happening. So it's a second instincts, right play. We have that instinctual and Jordan's a lot like that

Like we might not have the best numbers or anything

Which he did have a good and he had all the PRs that is pro day that we went to yeah

I'm driving up to pro day. I'm bringing my kids so they can see like Central Michigan's pro day

I called Joe. I'm like, hey, where you at? He's like, I've been on like three different flights

I came into this town called like Midland

Which is like right there and I'm like driving through Midland at that moment

I'm like, dude, I'm driving through and I say I try to figure out how to get to the pro day

I'm like, I'll just pick you up

My flight got delayed so bad and I flew into the smaller airport there and

so I got there after all the rental cars had closed and

So I was gonna uber all the way to Central Michigan and

It worked out Frank Frank was a much better

He's driving right through my kids were like, well, can we stop and get breakfast?

I'm like, gosh, it cost me an extra like 50 bucks just to get my kids fed but

It was worth it. It was a good time catching up with you

Joy so again as you get like as this conversation goes like you get more and more questions. So

This is gonna be another two-parter and I apologize, but are you only football?

Are you doing all is it kind of hey, whatever is out there and you have an ability and at what age are we like?

Hey, this kid might have something because

My background is hockey

And I see like some I got two young sons who I would love for them to play hockey. I love for them to do whatever

But you see some crazy hockey parents and like hey, I think my kid has it's like

Linda he's nine. Yeah

He hasn't figured out beer and girls yet like let them get through that and then maybe if he still loves hockey

So like at what age are we like, okay? This kid actually has something, you know, physically

But I mean mentally has to be a big part of it, too, right? So that's my that's my two-parter. I'll yeah

The first part to answer your question only football

Started exclusively football focused on that we did have an opportunity about

2015-16 we essentially kind of I would say sort of merged acquired a small baseball operation out of California

and the Dominican

And we I love baseball. I still play on a 50 and up national team

and

And so, you know, I wanted to get into baseball if there was an organic opportunity to do so

football or football is more attractive for anybody in the industry because

You know, you don't have to represent somebody for seven years before they get their big unrestricted deal, right?

You can get them out of college and immediately they're gonna get a draft contract that could be

You know relatively decent in terms of money and then you're four years away from running a strict deal

Baseball you have to get these kids in high school. Not unlike hockey

I mean hockey's a little bit different with junior hockey and

You know, you're getting them at 16 17 and then you have to hold them all the way through

You know to where they can finally get there there, you know a major league contract which takes a long time

It's a long incubation period seven to ten years. You're paying for their bats. You're paying for their equipment

You're hoping they don't get poached by another agent like that's all very unattractive to me because football is much cleaner

But what we stumbled upon was an opportunity to get into an organization that had two guys that were about to hit unrestricted free agency

So they had done all that homework and they had a and they had a Dominican pipeline of guys that were coming up

So it was a relatively low invest in terms of money

It was a high invest for sweat equity for me because I was the one going down the Dominican and put my life on the line

Because I'll tell you what I would literally pull out my life insurance policy every time

I was going down there and put it in front of my wife

I'm like, here we go again and a gun pulled on me. They drive about 130 miles per hour

There's seven lanes of traffic. You're going in the middle of jungle and all of a sudden this angel stadium opens up

I mean, it's it's a wild I'm sure you guys have seen some of those documentaries about Dominican baseball

The reality if not

Pull them up because there's some of the most fascinating things in the world

They they take 10 year olds from their homes. They put them in these clinics and they start giving them vitamins

Become grown then at 16 to get drafted. I mean, they're giving them growth hormone and all that stuff

It's a wild

But anyway, so

So we got into that because we had an opportunity. We thought it might be relatively lucrative relatively quickly

So we ended up doing two unrestricted MLB deals

But this is a really one of the coolest sports agent stories

I have is one of the players that we were representing because this is and why I left that baseball

One of the players that we were representing

Was becoming an unrestricted free agent we carried him and our guy that we essentially brought into the fold had been with him

Since he was 14 years old

So we're like, oh, we're never losing this client, right? I mean we're about to do the deal

I had already struck verbal terms with the club with whom he ended up the dad called me and said

with translator and said

There's another agent

That wants to do this deal and we're leaning towards going with him

He because he's going to give me 2f 150s and he's buying me a palm tree farm

So

That's sports agency in the Dominican because that's very different than what we have here now

You could say like Frank remember SEC football during your era

There's a lot of stuff a lot under the table payments and doing all kinds of crazy stuff, right?

So but I'd never been yeah, you know, I'd never seen somebody say hey

Can you you know, can you match this right the palm tree farm and 2f 150s?

So I could have used one of your dealers back then I guess obviously

But yeah, yeah, yeah, so I immediately hung up the phone

I told my wife I'm quitting baseball sports agency number one

But I ended up salvaging it. It took me three days to convince the family to come back. I

Essentially said look, I can't get you a palm tree farm

But I had somebody rough out the rough estimate of what it would cost to acquire

And then I did, you know, you know blue book value on a couple new f-150s. That is a rocket, you know science

So I I did the math and I said what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna cut my percentage

To this degree that'll give you let's call it a hundred thousand dollars extra in your pocket

If that's what it would cost you to buy those things

I'll give you I'll cut my feet a hundred and twenty you can pick the color and

of your f-150s and

And you can buy your own palm tree farm if you want or you can pocket the cash and so ultimately that's how I kept them

I'll did did the deal and with the it was with the brewers

Immediately turned around fired the whole everybody the next day and I'm like no more baseball. I'm out. So

So yeah, so from that day on I had conviction that I just stay in football and so it's been been so ever since

How much of it because that remind me a little bit. I'm like, oh remember the Jerry Maguire

We're like last second Jerry screwed over by the dad the same thing

I guess that I wasn't gonna go this route

How much is like Jerry Maguire kind of like the wheeling and dealing and like going to I know they're not letting guys on the field and stuff

Like that, but like you said majority of your time is spent. I remember being injured and you helping me through that whole process for the Packers

But how much of it is, you know, probably not a whole lot going to games. It's probably your busiest time right now, right?

Would you say I mean everything? Yeah, it gets busy from December until May 1st

I mean, you know between trying to close on your draft class and now of course NIL, which is a whole nother

Level of BS that I have to deal with but I enjoy the bit. I actually enjoy it

I didn't think I would but you know, it's kind of a it's a it's a

Occupation of necessity at this point because we we have to represent these men these kids younger

Or else somebody else is gonna represent them and you may never have an opportunity

So we are doing I'm in fact, I'm signing a high school kid today 17-year-old junior

So top 75 kid in the country is a Notre Dame commit. So it's just an interesting

It's an interesting evolution, but a

Lot of it is is maintaining and holding on to your clients, especially as they approach free agency

Frank like when a guy is about to get 11 million dollars a year

He becomes attractive as a target to other agents. And so trying to prevent poaching

Which is you know, all you can do is do serve your guys to the best of your ability and

Build your relationship as much as you can but if an agent comes to him and says, you know, Joe's gonna charge you X percent

I'm gonna cut that half, you know, and I'll you know, and I'm gonna give your

You know, I'm gonna introduce you to this real dude

He's gonna give your wife a job and all these different things that people pull out of their butt to entice a player to leave if that player

Is gullible enough to think that that's worth it or feels like it is worth it

You know, we've lost some people over 30 years. We've lost we've that we've been

We've you know lost people to other agents right before unrestricted free agent deals twice

Both guys if you would have said put a gun to my head and said would he ever leave you over to said no

So it's it's it's it's very much part of what we deal with Frank and it's yeah

because you took a guy for seven years and built him up into this and

And all of a sudden he bolts on you it feels like you're getting cheated on by a spouse, right or something

Yeah, it's it's really it's not cool. I didn't even think sorry

I didn't even think about this now because you were only doing like when I was playing you're only

Representing NFL athletes guys coming fresh out of college, right now. You guys are representing college kids kids because of NIL

These guys are making contract type deals

So you're representing college kids now. I have said I like I said, I have two high school kids

And college I have 17 college kids to high school kids and then all my clients in the NFL

Which is obviously really good for you because that just there's a pool of NFL players great

But now you guys just got access to a pool of college high school kids

You just got access to a whole nother sense, you know stream of revenue. Yeah, which is kind of cool completely

Yeah, completely different revenue stream and it's um, what's interesting Frank is they don't have to make the team

Yeah, they're getting me it's almost like each one of those is a guaranteed deal. So it's um, it's it's yeah

It's still an evolving industry. I don't think any of us as agents or college GM's or even the players are really

I mean, it's a lot of I mean that that transfer portal period is insanity and this past one for me was was absolutely nuts

um

and nobody likes it but um right now that's the system that we have to deal with and

You know, I was very reluctant to get into it

I got into it because one of my NFL players had a younger brother

Who was at a big school?

And being offered an NIL deal and he's like can you just look over it and see if it's appropriate?

so this was like two years ago two portals ago and I was like, yeah, sure

I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'll take a look at it and uh

I looked at it and then I said, you know, let me ask some questions about the compensation level

Let me I've got some peers that have been in this for a little bit longer

Um, and I found out that the kid was kind of getting screwed by the school because he didn't have representation

And I got him an extra six figures with basically two phone calls

um

And said, you know, he can enter the portal or you guys can pay him market value

And uh, and then his roommate was like, I need that too and I got that was my second NIL guy

So I did two NIL deals at a really big school

In 72 hours got each kid an extra hundred grand

And uh, that was my entree to college to college football representation. That's a good way to spread quickly in the locker room

Yeah, it was neat. It was neat and I've gotten a lot of good young men because of that crew

Since then and it's been building and it's uh, it's it's it's really they they do need representation. It's it's um

It's a real substantial life changing money for kids

I mean, I remember coming out of college broke as can be like I needed an agent to pay for my training and

And get me to you know, go to florida whatever it was now. It's like

These guys have money coming out like they got access to resources in a way

It's it's different than when I was coming out

These kids are loaded up. Yep. No, I mean, they're making north of I mean, I got three guys making north of $850,000

Imagine being in college with that kind of money. We'll go throw up. I'll be right back

Do you imagine?

Well, you know, who's really pissed is my guys that just missed the window where they got like I had a fourth rounder last year

um

For the jaguars jack kaiser was a captain at Notre Dame

Middle green dot linebacker super smart

highest one of the highest character

Young man, you'll ever meet like really really captain america. It's just a wonderful young man

Um and a stud football player, but he kind of jack missed that window of the super compensation

You know, so every time I talk to him. I'm like jack

I said, you don't want to know what the guys at Notre Dame are getting now man. Yeah. Oh god

Who who controls like the window of when it opens because my biggest gripe and I love college football more than than the nfl probably but like

Full game start and the portal has been open for a week

So guys are sitting out because they don't want to get hurt and I kind of understand that because now they're you know, they're

They're commodity seven

You know

Eight figure athletes, right and then they don't want to get hurt

But like they're still I think they've ruined college sports in terms of like the

You know the love of the university a little bit, right? How much longer do you think this is actually going to go on?

But there's got to be some more

Regulations

Something's going to change. Well, I just I was like I said I was at iUs pro day

I have a couple clients there. I was at Notre Dame's pro day the week prior

Talked about the gms for extensive period of time. And I'm like, have you heard any, you know, right?

Any any rumblings about the system changing at all, you know

Or the timing of the portal like you were saying jacob like the timing of the portal last year made absolutely no sense

right

If you're going to do only one portal you don't do it right in the middle of bowl games

You don't do it right in the middle of I mean, you know

Guys college football playoffs are trying to decide should I you know go or play or you know, like it's it

It screws up so much. I mean even think about it this way. They do the rankings, right?

They do this the selection by the way, my alma mater Notre Dame got left out. It shouldn't have been left out

for the record

They would have beat they could have beaten anybody in that whole crew

uh in the whole in the whole pool but um

You know, you did it at a point

Imagine the the college football playoffs selection committee is choosing based on the rosters that played the games all previous fault, right?

the whole fault

And all of a sudden, you know, how many guys are going to not play in these games or now the playoffs did a better job

Most of those there were they most the kids play

um, but you do have people that are either moving transferring or

Or holding out because they don't want to get hurt

So the rosters ended up playing, you know, the game day rosters are substantially different than those that were

Played during the fall a lot of times and that's part of the thing that bothers me, too

It's like how are you choosing these teams?

Based on the roster and who played when some of those guys aren't even gonna be

available

It's just a problem situation and from a scouting perspective like all right. So, you know, indiana plays the and i mean

I think it was the first play against uh, ohio state where

um, he gets rock or for now it gets rocked right and we're like, okay

Like he's he's done he comes back and and finishes the game and that obviously went a national championship, right?

Right. But is there anything like in my mind that kid stock was like, okay, this guy's a gamer

Right and his his stock his his stock skyrocketed

Does it have the adverse effect if there's a stud?

He's been a stud all year long and then it's like this guy's not a team guy

He's not showing up for his boys because he's afraid of getting hurt. Is that a real barometer of these guys?

I mean some scouts look at some scouts will hold against you some of the older school guys, you know

Some of the blue collar guys are gonna say, you know, I don't want a guy that's not willing to die for his brothers, right?

Um

And maybe you put, you know, you put every scout will value certain things like those are intangibles

Fernando's a true leader just same way he threw it the pro day was purely for the benefit of others

He's a super giving guy by all accounts like multiple guys on the indiana team

Both in this draft and for n il and they're they're to a man

You can't find anybody say a bad word about fernando

So I think it helps people like fernando

But you know, if you're a top 15 pick and and you've got I mean, that's a lot of money on the line

Um, and your team isn't that good and you're playing in a crappy bowl game

You know, I would probably advise you to sit out too, you know, so it just depends

But you you wouldn't there was nobody that would convince fernando a guy like fernando to not play right?

He's gonna play one way or the other speaking of that kid. We just met with ryan suck up memory kicker

Yeah in city he was on our podcast the last one and he talked about brady and

I mean this kid this man does a kid. He's like the full package

I mean, like you said, he could throw he can run but then he's like that locker room guy that we

Do we all talk about like what made erin rogers different when I play with him or what made

Tom brady different what ryan says is he was looking out for the people around him too

And it didn't matter if you were the equipment manager this, you know, the kicker or you're starting running back

Like he treated everybody with respect and knew it took the whole team

Yep

Not just your star guys that you're in the media all the time, but it took the whole organization

To to win those games and uh, you know

Football NFL games especially are separated most of the time by three points or whatever it is

And it takes a little bit of that extra

Whatever like why is it that the kinsley cheese the green bay packers?

The the the patriots when it comes to those close games

Maybe it's luck or maybe it's just you know

Everyone being together to just give you that little bit of an edge because that's what it takes because the

Margin for erin the NFL especially because the talent pool is so

identical

What separates those those those those teams and it is the culture that is built by your leaders

Um, so yeah, you see it. Yeah, he's that guy. He can do that for the raiders and the raiders need that

I know they need that big time. That's what's been hurting them for so long, right? They don't have that established culture

Yeah, now they'll have a transitional guy with kirk there too, which is uh, you know an interesting situation

I'm surprised they did that deal, but it's essentially a one-year deal for 20 million bucks. And if you have a mentor a mentor

Yeah, you need a lot of times like even like a good buddy of mine chase daniel

um, who was in the in can city like he was a

You know backup type player, but chase was the most dialed when it came to taking notes

Yeah, no in the playbook

His study habits were coat like when you bring in a young quarterback

He may bring it back like that to kind of mentor, you know, you're paying this quarterback this

Might be can pay more money than the starter when they're young like that

But he was teaching them the right habits to become a franchise quarterback and chase was

Not that he was not a great quarterback

Not great avid, but the extra stuff is what made him add maybe another five six career years to his career at the

Sure. Yeah, I have a guy john wolford who did the same thing

He basically was the smartest guy on the team everywhere. He went and he made he made baker may feel better, you know

immediately down in tampa and uh

He was essentially an assistant coach, you know

Yeah, and you don't want guys in a locker room too like or like in a if you got your backup quarterback watching more film

And taking better notes and answering questions before your starter and it's a competitive everything's competitive the nfl

All of a sudden that guy that kid that you know, maybe he is guaranteed all this money

He's the franchise guy, but you got somebody showing you up in the meeting rooms every day

You're like, all right, I'm gonna get going too. So now I'm gonna watch more film than him and then it just brings your whole room

Um

Yeah, exactly. I got a feeling zombo did some of that to his teammates. Yeah, right internal competition. We do it here all the time

Yeah, um, so oh, yeah

You had your other question about age because that was your like what age do you see? Yeah? No?

Yeah, if we want to go back to that one. I mean you have a 17 year old

but again like

You know, there's so many people that think like oh my kid has it my kid has it my kid has it and maybe they do but

you know maturity like still 17 18 like

That kid's not full. You know, that's not a fully developed brain, right? Right. No, I don't know. No, there's that that's very difficult question

I mean, it's a difficult question and I think it's a unique, you know answer to every athlete and family

Um, I think what's different now is in the old days

I would have said I will disregard what a 16 year old's doing because we've all known

That 16 year old who was dominant and just kicked everybody's ass all day long up and down

Whether it was the basketball court the football field on the baseball field that dude that was just a stud that ended up

You know, he's now driving a truck or whatever because he just didn't have the motivation to perfect his craft or

Got hurt or other things, right? There's a lot of things that you can't control

And there are a lot of things that you can control and all of those things can be decided or changed drastically by the time you're

Uh, you know a fully cooked athlete at 22 years old ready to go into the nfl, right? So

But what's interesting about again talking, you know today

If you have a 14 year old who's a stud and you can find a way to make him by the time

He's a 16 year old is a five star or four star recruit

Regardless of what you think he's going to incubate into or turn it develop into at 22 when he might be drafted

Kid can get paid going into college, right? So now there's a completely different analysis going on

It's not just can my young can my son get a scholarship as an athlete

But can he also potentially get a quarter million bucks to go to a school?

Um on top of it. So now these are life changing sums of money if you're a high enough level recruit

And I can guarantee you there are kids that are getting paid

250 500 a million bucks going into colleges right now that'll never play on an nfl field

so

We basically have a minor league system now that allows them to be compensated so it's you know

The 16 year old talent is more relevant than it was

You know before the nil system some of those kids now are staying in like some of them

Maybe before would have come out as juniors to go try to make money because I don't want to get hurt my senior

Yeah, they're like no, I want money in miami. I'm gonna stick around even sanders son

Sure sanders. He's sitting around his senior year because he's making six million a year or whatever

Yeah, he made way more at colorado than he would have by going into the draft

Let's get there making more than some of the coaches. Yeah

Almost yeah, it's it's it is and I agree with you jacob like it kind of has quote unquote ruined it, right?

It's ruined what it changes was

You know like frank coming in to see central michigan with that class of dudes and saying okay in the next four years

We're going to develop as athletes and in this culture as brothers. We got each other's backs

We're here, you know, we're gonna beat michigan state

All the stuff and so having all that commitment and that and that time to develop as a family and and you know

That does that's gone away to a large degree because the transactional nature

You just don't know who you're you know, there's just so much roster turnover. So much now

Talking to central michigan's coach

I think all of their start it was like all of their starters are now they

Complete turnover so all the starters they went into battle with last year are all gone because if you did very good at central michigan

Now, wisconsin's gonna give you 400k or you know, like some there now those guys are gone

So like it's hard. It's hard

It's hard on the central michigan's of the world because

You can go out and scout and and recruit the best best kids kind of diamonds in the rough

And now as soon as they show themselves on a big stage

Like in the bowl game, I you know, like jordan stood out right in the bowl game

He did a really good job and clearly looked like he belonged at a different level right to play to play with them

He could have played linebacker for northwestern very easy. I think he did better than they did

Now the team beat you guys pretty good

But at the same time, you know, my point is like if a young man from central michigan has a good game against the power school

You know, it's gonna be very difficult to retain him. Yeah, like what in tonio brown down the fever those guys would not

Oh, they would have made millions. They would not have been

But then how can you also if it's there and i'm putting myself in their shoes? I'm loyal to central michigan

I love central michigan. Great. What if someone's gonna give me how you turn out 400k for a year?

Like and it's it's it's really

I had several of those instances last year with guys that frank with just the same same guys as

type of guys as me and you okay

Guys that were like value loyalty and and honesty and brotherhood and all of that to a very high degree family, right?

But when some of the opportunities that I found for them, I presented to them they were like

Well, I can't this is undeniable like this is life change. This is life changing. I don't want to leave this school

I came here and I made a full commitment

But I'm just like, you know, I mean I had one

situation

Where a school was offering about half less than half of what?

I ended up getting this guy

But I called him. I you know, I it was it was I don't want to mention the schools because it's just

Yeah, I tried to drive it, but um

He I would have bet 99% sure I would have been 99% sure he would not leave his school that he was at

Okay, he grew up wanting to go to the school. All his friends were there. They had just done really well last year

He was going to be a captain all that type of thing

but

I started negotiating with the school and they were underbidding him and I had already been in talks with a couple other

Places and I knew what I could get and I I was trying to be honest with the school as much as I could

And like you're you're really under under bidding and it's good. You could lose this kid

They presumed the same things you did like he he ain't going anywhere

He'd never leave you know the school and all of a sudden, you know

These two other schools stepped up and I had to call the kid and his family

I'm like you guys sitting down because I got to tell you what you're being offered

And they they literally like silent on the other end of line because they were like

Not only were they blown away by the the dollar figure, but they're like, oh, shit now

I got to really consider leaving the place that I never wanted. Oh, it's real. Yeah

Yeah, it's like they probably got so much of that school gear

They were at those games Saturdays just cheering you you've been with that team for three years

You're they're gonna be the captain of the team like those are your brothers

But then also you're presented with a half a million whatever it is and you also think in your head like I could get hurt tomorrow

And my football career is done

But I have this half a million dollars that I can start my life with yeah, like that's a freaking moral dilemma that I don't

know

Single kid for any of that

It was so stressful

It was very stressful because I ended up playing counselor to them

You know and just trying to be like I mean I was exhausted that whole the whole Christmas December 22nd

I started, you know, basically got super hot and heavy into it

And all the way through January through to the portal closing

I basically was on the phone 14 to 16 hours a day. I took half the Christmas Eve off Christmas day

Other than that, I basically barely didn't see my family and

Because I was trying to massage all these things for the family

It's not only negotiate the best deals, but try to talk them through

Good decision-making, you know, how are we going to make what's valuable to you?

What's the most valuable thing to you guys as a family and as a player?

What, you know, you want to play more? Do you want to be the dude? Do you want to get more money?

And then all of those factors combined

How do we stack them on a priority list and how do you make a good informed decision that you can sleep at night with?

You know when you're doing that with 17 different guys, it's exhausting and it was

But it was well worth it and everybody's happy right now. So I can't complain

Yeah, there's there is something I want I want to get to because this is going to come out around the draft

So I want I do want to talk draft before before time is up because I think that's a huge

I mean everyone loves a draft day, but

I'm curious from your perspective. What do you think nil needs to do to change and make it like?

I mean, there's got to be some regulations. So in joe, you know, playing against the perfect world. What would those changes be?

You know, I will say

The the the timing of the portal

To protect the integrity

Of the of the college football playoff system needs to be changed now

There's a lot of different opinions on where you could put it

um and why

And I really don't care

To be honest as long as we have a landmark that makes sense and it's not creating additional volatility

Across the entire system because last year's timing was garbage

um

Again, I talked to two gms the Notre Dame in indiana and they're like they've heard nothing

That's that it's probably going to be the same thing next year, which is insane. But um

So it is what it is. So I would say the timing of the portal is probably the most important thing to change

um, I'd like to see more two-year, you know

deals

um being done

Not necessarily as an agent because I like the opportunity to

Frank imagine if we could hit under strict restrictions every year

Every year straight

So as an agent, hey, it's to my benefit and to the client's benefit to regain leverage every year, right?

So if we could do but if I was a college team, I would try to be pushing more two-year deals

That require, you know, essentially, you know staying longer and creating some roster stability

um

But that's just not happening across the board right now

There are teams that are trying to address some of the things by putting balloon payments

After the portal period opens so that if you leave you don't get paid that last big lump sum

So they're trying to create punitive clauses in there. Uh, but I think if it was standardized across the board

um

Some sort of contract, you know, kind of regulations like we have in the nfl

A framework it doesn't mean we still shouldn't be able to negotiate, you know

The highest level deal that we can get

Um from a free market or from a market value standpoint

But I think the colleges would benefit substantially if they knew like at least every two, you know

I don't have to recruit this guy every year because that's what's basically happening right now

Is you're having to re-recruit your own players while you're going to try to recruit high school kids. It's like it's

So many coaches that I know in college football are like, Joe, can you please get me to the nfl?

I just got to get out of this like I'd rather just

Work in a system where I don't have to recruit the players that I'm coaching

On top of go, you know to five different states in six days to try to close on high school kids

So it's very stressful for them too. So

Um, okay

So speaking of that too, like I remember my college coach recruited me out of high school with a nicest guy

Jeff Quinn great great guy

There's no name guy, you know a coach in our name of Brian Kelly and stuff like that

Anyway, nicest guy then when I got to central Michigan the first time

Like then he knew he got me for five years like back then you weren't going anywhere

It was like something changed and all of a sudden he was like

Me to me like

I'm just like he was a coach. He was now he's my coach and he was like

You're like, I like the salesman guy better. Yeah, I like the salesman guy

That's coming to my house and boosting me up all the time and then when I finally got my ass

He was like he wasn't as nice anymore. Yeah

Well and think and think about that dynamic frank and and and Jacob like

Now you've got you can't piss off your prima donnas or you're gonna lose them

So even as a coach, you know coaches love authority. They let they're the alpha alpha, right?

They're the general they're the general

But now you're having insurgency because you a guy who's a high level quarterback or a pass rusher or you know

Wide receiver and he's the dude and you piss him off. You know, you're like I guarantee coaches are in their coaches

I mean, he's like do not piss that

17 or they're that 19 year old sophomore off like they've never had to do that

So that deference that ability like that's that's tough on coaches because they're not used to having to kiss the ass

They're on players

I think that's why Sabin got out of it like his whole mentality of how to grow a program

You know growing your younger guys now he could try to bring his stock up

And if you're not technically a starter as a sophomore as a junior and then they're bouncing out to different schools

Like that's what made him so good is his whole program and building his flock underneath

Yep, you know his starters and all that stuff and now those guys could all jet

Yeah, that's why he retired as soon as nl came available. He's out

I lose my advantage that goes against him for sure. He won a championship or two. He's fine. Yeah, he's doing okay

Let's talk about draft day. Yes, we already got we got a little bit of time left. I'm good. Yeah as long as he gets need

Yeah, yeah, so

You know, it's got to be the best day worst day for some of these kids, right? Like, you know Frankie undrafted but

You know your story is different. I guess I don't even really totally know where I want to go with this

but I kind of from your perspective like

What is it leading up to it? What is it during the day? What is it kind of after like what is you know, what is that?

Life cycle look like for you. I come almost Joe

Let me start like the whole and I'll go high level of like your football season ends

January

Then what Jordan just got done through is that's when you start you sign with your agent as soon as your season's over

Then Joe is responsible for finding your training and you're now you just care about the bench press

40-yard dash your explosiveness for your just vertical jump combine stuff

and we just saw that with the

NFL combine and you're just doing you're it's kind of a fun time because like three hours a day all you're doing is training

You have no responsibilities. You're 20 years old 21 years old. You're just working out

Eating sleeping training. Yeah, and you're doing it for one day either pro day or the combine

And then you get to that point. You're hoping you performed well. You hope, you know, you shook hands with the right scouts

Your agents, you know in the background kind of asking, you know, you know, kind of maybe put plug in you a little bit here

There with his connections and now it's draft day and like I remember being a nervous wreck

And I remember a few folks reaching out and being like, you know

Raiders or the Lions like sixth seventh round and I knew the first day wasn't yeah

It wasn't you know cards for me

So it's like you're just kind of watching you kind of jealous of the dudes who are going first, you know first

You know draft early round draft picks, you know, then

Second day goes through I think for me it was only was that that wasn't only two days Joe days back then

Yeah, yeah, it was the first and second round. I think that's how old were yeah, right

And by the end of it, I remember thinking like oh, I could go sixth round

I could go seventh round remember the Lions having like a rape pick you're interested

And nothing and then I get a phone call

from Kevin Green

Who's a hall of fame

you know rest in peace

Hall of Fame linebacker and he was an intense dude

That's what he made his whole career on intense human being and he called me and everything was kind of a blur

And it was like, are you ready to play with all your heart fire desire?

And and and and I'm just like yes, sir. Yes, you know, yes, sir

And then after that, you know, um, I remember my family going out and getting all this like packer gear

And I'm still like an undretched fridge at that point. I'm like, I don't even know if I'm gonna make this roster

They're going to waste all the money, right? My family was so excited. Me. I was like kind of disappointed. I wasn't drafted

Realized I had a uphill battle uphill battle as an undretched fridge and you were like

Scratching a claw and then just make a practice squad, you know, and um, I remember going to like

a rookie minicamp

For three days and I was if there was 90, you know, there's they're bringing all the rookies

I was probably the last guy they brought in where I'm like, oh gosh, you know

And there was kids that were undrafted guys that were in my same position

Who were getting the starter reps with the rookies where I'm still taking the third by the end of that three days

I was the starter over the the guys who were just freshman undrafted or rookie undrafted guys

Then you go

Then you go to OTA and now the whole roster comes in your back as number 90 on the roster

Because you look at the special teams death chart and you can see your guys and then you see

You trickle down five deep on the pump team and you're like, oh gosh

And you know, they had clay mat today at studs

And then you just and then all of a sudden you see those some of those guys as undrafted guys that were with you

Start now they get all of a sudden you find out he got cut he got cut

Now you go through your port to training camp in the fall. Oh shoot the other guy

I was rooming with an undrafted guy that I was competing with he didn't even make it to the first day

um, I was so now I'm in a room by myself

And uh, then all of a sudden a couple guys get hurt. So now you got to get starter reps

And you got to basically make the best out of those reps because as an undrafted guy, you don't get a lot of reps

But with guys get hurt now your numbers call they're gonna see how you do

Well, for me luckily it was a third preseason game against Indianapolis Colts

Peyton Manning's playing third three quarters

And everybody's hurting for example, he's got to start and play

And I ended up getting ten tackles a sack fumble on Peyton Manning and all of a sudden you're making the Green Bay roster

So it was like that was my journey of

Didn't even know if I was gonna play football

You know it's kind of banged up my senior year to just all these different challenges as you go through it

And it really came down to

When it was your time to perform

Are you gonna be a gamer or are you gonna shit down your leg and I felt like for me

Whether it was the pro day or whether it was mini camp whether it was training camp whether it was now you got third preseason game

Boom, you're there now all sudden second third game of the season as a guy from central michigan. You're starting against the Bears

Boom second j cutler now all sudden it's the Super Bowl 2010

Six seven months prior to that. I didn't even know I'm freaking

Playing you know, I didn't know if I'm playing football anymore. Now you're going super like it was just a surreal

There's my experience Joe talk about. I don't know. I wouldn't really know. I mean, and that's

It that's the perfect scenario for an for an undrafted free agent to

Become a bonafide and it takes some of those things you notice we're outside of Frank's control, right?

The Packers didn't even that I guarantee you that wasn't the Packers plan for you to be playing

That much that year. No, but what happened was things opportunities that arose

And you took advantage of them. You stayed physically healthy. You played well when you had your opportunities

You got snaps which out of out of you know required

Kind of necessity because people in front of you and then you got preseason reps

So you could make a team and you're not only trying to make the Packers when you're in a preseason game

We're trying to make any team

So, you know an undrafted kid like some of the other guys you probably came in with Frank that didn't get at other positions

Or your position

They didn't they might be decent football players

But if they never got on the field to get reps nobody knows and they're invisible and they're gone

And so that really is

The the the perfect story of how it can work out for an undrafted free agent

And then there's the other scenarios where all those other dudes never got hurt and you

You know the team knew you were pretty talented, dude

But if you never got the reps you would have been on the street too. So it's uh, it's there's a lot of

I wouldn't say it's luck, but there's a lot of

Factors outside of your control to try to make a team as an undrafted free agent

And that's what helps having a good agent too because you can when you're an undrafted guy

You know if you're a draft pick a first round draft pick your agent you're probably negotiating deals

That's way easier way. Yes way easier

This is like now you're trying to evaluate rosters to see where is frank going to get the most possible reps

Whereas they don't have eight established guys in that room where their one two three death

Is already filled out where i'm not going to get any reps

It's like you've got to kind of find out where they're looking for if they had any

Early draft picks at that position group stay away from there because those guys are pretty much

You're gonna get all the rest and they're gonna make the team you're gonna get all exactly so

Your value the art of undrafted free agency

I mean honestly the undrafted free agent process is the most important thing I do

I know you asked jakem about draft day. Well, it's three days now

First two you're just kind of sitting and observing

But you're updating the depth chart and I prepare for every draft as if all of my players are going to go undrafted

I don't care if somebody says joey's the third rounder

I've had it happen where guys fall all the way out of the draft

Okay, there could be an injury situation an off the field situation somehow that I didn't know about there could be

Just things that happen across in you know, the draft is a permutation upon a permutation upon a permutation, right?

So every pick affects the next one and a team who all of a sudden is picking

They like my linebacker in the fourth round, but

Somehow this dude that they has a second rounder is available. Well, they're not taking my guy

They're taking that guy right even though they had my guy rated as a fourth rounder

They had this guy rated as the second rounder. They call me like joe. Sorry. We that's who we went with the guy

We had higher rated

So there's so much that's outside your control in the draft and then what we can control is what frank was talking about

And I that's the literally the most important process I do

Is preparing essentially a dossier on each team in each position for each of my players

And I have a color-coded system red yellow green now that I've developed over the last 20 years, you know, 30 years

Um, and and as a team makes a selection

So like in jordan kwiakowski's case if I'm looking at, you know

An inside backer situation or maybe a weak sidebacker situation and those depth charts

And if a team takes a guy in the second round on the fifth round and they're interested in signing him

And they also sign an unrestricted free agent in the off season

There's no opportunity for jordan to get reps and so it's a dead

It's a debt. It's a job that's dead in the water

So I take that team and I crumple that piece of paper up and they're off the board

And so hopefully by day three

I've got a good

Four to six teams that are interested in my player and among those four to six

There's two or three where that depth chart situation

And the economic situation allows for the young man to win on merit because if he can't win reps and he can't win a job on merit

It's not a good job

And I don't even care if they're offering them 100,000 to sign where another team that's got an open job for

They're offering 5,000

I'm like, let's go to where you can make the job in september because

Right now doesn't matter you got it. And so that's kind of how how I approach it

It is literally the most important thing I do

For in my fiduciary duty to young, you know draft eligible

More you know, I I mean

My only perception of agents is like the show ballers

You know what I mean? Like that's kind of where I

No, the whole the whole industry at least for me, you know

Is a very work a day blue collar industry probably no different than what you guys do

It's it's trying to build relationships over years so that you have good information and good market understanding

Um, it's it's it's trying to develop relationships with people with whom you can trust

So that if they say hi, hey, jordan, you know, he's gonna need a year on the practice squad

If you send him here, joe, I'm gonna give him that year to develop on the p squad

You know, who's who's told me those things in the past and followed through for the last 30 years and who hasn't

So all of those factors go into into my decision making with trying to place a player because it's really I've become a placement agent

More than anything

Keep your receipts. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's uh, it's it's it's really it's it's it's very blue collar and and

Process oriented more than it is, you know, the first and second rounders. That's cool and it's glamorous and it's fun

Um, but I'm like good. You're done and off the table. I don't have to worry about you. I'll talk to you on monday

Congrats. I got other dudes. I got to worry about so

That's crazy

Joe, this has been incredibly insightful. I know we're over time and we appreciate you sticking on with us a little bit

This is probably I could

Yeah, this is another one like there's a few we've had so far. I'm like we could continue this conversation for a while

Yeah, um, and I would I would love to see if we maybe get you back on after the draft

I don't know if you're if you're you know, I know it's your busy time and everything

I'd be happy to because I think I can it's honestly in retrospect. It's it can be more interesting to see how things played out

Um, you know, I have jordan vandenberg

Who is basically just put up the best defensive tackle workout maybe in pro day history? Um out of george attack

Um, he scored a 10 out of 10 on the raskill, which is a relative athletic score. Um

What was your score? He literally

If you if you haven't looked that up look it up. It's an interesting metric. Um, did they have that when I was playing

No, no

But yeah, I mean a defensive tackle who jumped 36 inches did 35 on the bench jumped 9 11 on the broad

Ran a 4 1 9 short shuttle, which is essentially like a db. It's a scary

Just absolutely insane

literally

Half the scouts afterwards were calling me and they're like, Joe, I've never seen a defensive tackle do the things he did

He was a rugby player from south africa didn't play football till his sophomore year in high school still figuring out the game

But his his grandfather placed sixth. I think in the mr. Olympia

And losing to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, so it's just a mutant. Yeah, so

He's a really interesting guy and he just got like a cent

He was a non-combine guy and I kind of knew he was gonna do this and now

He's on 30 visits all he's every day. He's been on a visit to a team

So, um, it'll be really interesting to see. I think he's gonna end up going higher than most people think

I love that. Sweet. What the following?

Yeah, I would love to to see if we can get you back on after because I don't think there's a dealership

We've ever talked to that somehow football or some sort of sporting

Sports in general doesn't come up. So we'll follow Jordan's career to Jordan's path. Yeah, we got two Jordans for sure. Yeah, awesome

Joe again, the time is incredibly appreciated. We, um, you know, love the insight and yeah

I would love to have you back on and uh, you know after the draft and some of the dust settles

I appreciate it guys. No, anytime you let me know Frank

Whatever frank needs he gets

Thanks, Joe

All right, fellas, take care. Have a good rest of the day

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What It Really Takes To Be An NFL Sports Agent with Joe Flanagan

About this episode

Top 15 pick

margin for error

culture that is built by your leaders

timing of the portal

college football playoff system

special teams death chart

draft is a permutation upon a permutation

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