The Scout Misperception

Never does a scout feel more powerful than this time of year.  He gets quoted in all kinds of papers and his profession gets its 15 minutes of fame.

Problem is, he isn't who you think he is, at least if you're a college football fan.

For a myriad of reasons, I think most of us grew up attaching some mystical value to scouts.  They were the mysterious guys from the next level who would visit a high school or college to eyeball the available talent.  Like some scene out of a bad sports movie, their presence has the power to dominate our thoughts by their mere presence.

Athlete Father: Johnny, I don't want to put too much pressure on you, but the Yankee scout's coming to watch you play today.  This is your big shot!

Athlete: Ok Dad!

Coach: Your old man is right, Johnny, you better impress.

Ughhhhh.

The scenario above involves baseball, but it very well could have been a conversation between a college football player and his family knowing that the Dallas Cowboys scout would be in the stands---50 years ago.

Thing is, television happened.  And personal camcorders.  And the internet.

The lone scout still wields a certain amount of power within the baseball community because television coverage is rare both of high school and college baseball.  However, he has no such power in college football.

Most (if not all) professional football teams can easily acquire plenty of video about any and all college prospects and cherry pick the in-person appearances their scouts can make.  That's all thanks to the technology changes over the years.

The result is a diffused and reduced responsibility and authority by the football scout.  His input is necessary the way any sane person seeks advice from friends, family and other sets of eye and ears before making important decisions.  But his power doesn't measure up to his reputation.  Most decisions and draft discussions are made at levels above the scout---the scouting directors, the personnel directors, the general manager, even the owner.  They are just as likely to have seen the majority of prospects as their own scouts.  Being further up the corporate ladder, they are also more likely to rely on their own intuitions than the guy paid to do nothing but observe players.

So it makes me laugh when scouts are cited in newspaper stories as some kind of great authority.  As HP has noted, scouting talent isn't uniform.  There are good scouts and bad scouts and scouts inbeteween.  There are impartial scouts and scouts with bones to pick and agendas to fill.  Good luck sorting that out behind their veil of anonymity in all these predraft stories.

I don't mean to demean the profession or the guys who work hard and spend so much time on the road doing their jobs, but the college football scout is a marginally relevant guy in the NFL draft chain-of-command.  He is but another pair of eyes, of unknown significance and authority.  Woe to the reporter who gets carried away citing scout observations and attempting to draw strong inferences from them.