April 9, 2025 • 19 mins
Amie Wells, Rhett Bryan, and Dave McGinnis talk to Titans GM Mike Borgonzi about the color system he's implemented with the scouting department on the OTP.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the OTP. I'm Amy Wells. Every spring we
spend a lot of time talking about the evaluation process
and how each team goes about the business of selecting
the roster for the upcoming season. We compare measurements and statistics,
We watch people jump and run and throw and catch.
We lay out their history both on and off the field.
(00:34):
But there's one area that we don't talk about much.
That's the language of scouting. You see, every draft room
across the league speaks its own language. It's the way
they communicate to one another what they are seeing when
they look at a certain prospect. General manager Mike Borgonzi
made reference to that language on his very first day
as a Titan, and then again with our own Retbrian
(00:56):
at the NFL Scouting combine in Indianapolis. That a portion
of that conversation right here on the OTP.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I want to go back to one of your first
availabilities as general manager of the Titans, and you mentioned
about generational talent. It's clear that there's some generational talent
I think that everybody agrees on near the top of
this thing. And with the number one pick, obviously that's
you said that and everybody ran and wrote columns about
it and all those kinds of things. But you mentioned
something that harkens back to a conversation that coach Mack
(01:26):
and Amy had in a previous podcast a few years
ago with Mike Giddings junior with the pro scout stuff
that his dad did back in the seventies, and you
mentioned blue players, and without giving away trade secrets, I
want to ask you about the color coded system and
obviously it sounds like you use a modified version of
that and how that works.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
You know, the first time I was introduced to that
was in Kansas City when John Dorsey came from Green Bay.
So we do use that color code system, Blue being
the highest level player. That's what we call a raar
player in the league. Generational player League. It's a rare
skill set of physical talent, character makeup that all goes
(02:06):
into making that player a blue player, And basically we
just go down there's four different levels of starters. There's
a Red player, which is an impact player, a Gold
player which is a good starter, and then you have
starters with limitations, and then you have backups. So we've
kind of tweaked that skill a little bit over the
years is the leagues evolved a little bit, just to
add a little bit more definition into the scale. But
(02:28):
that's something that I took back. I guess it was
twenty thirteen when I really started working with that scale.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
But you guys, you speak your own language with that,
because it's like when you're talking to another evaluator. You're
talking about all right, I see a linebacker. He's got
blue feet, right, So that we want to speak the
same language.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
So we're in the room. This is a red player,
this is a black player, you know, so we want
to be on the same page and speak the same
language when we're in that room. That's all part of
the process and setting up a new system and it's
a little bit new to these guys now. And you know,
we went through it for this past like three weeks
and meetings, but that's the only way to teach it
is actually go through the meetings and you watching tape. Okay,
this is what a blue player looks like. This is
(03:06):
what a red player looks like. So everybody's on the
same page when we're discussing the evaluation of the player.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
That's uh, he mentioned Amy. I know, Mike gettings very well,
you know the time I've been in the league and Gibs,
when they started putting that that that thing out, I
was pretty I understand that that language. What's important about
that he is, as you say, when you're bringing everybody
else together and we're gonna have we're gonna have gettings on.
I think, you know, with with what we've we've talked
(03:34):
about before, that's uh that that's very important and it's
very interesting too. I was glad to hear that.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yeah, no, he I mean he invented that whole scale,
and it's carried on into the league and different organizations
and people have kind of tweaked it a little bit,
and we did in Kansas City a little bit, but
it was really you know, he really started that that
whole system, and it's something that's carried over for years.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
How long does it take to instill that in a
new group because it is a little different language, a
little different code. Does it take a minute to kind
of get the reps under you and get refamiliar with
what each thing means?
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Sure, I think it's just like being out in the
field in practice. When you're practice in place, it's the
same thing. So when we go through the process that
we had to stop a couple times for discussions about
this is what this means in the process, this is
how we this is how we evaluate this position. This
is what a blue means, this is what a red means.
So we went through all that in those meetings, and
(04:29):
it's important to have patience in the process too when
you're doing it, because you want to teach it the
right way, to make sure everybody's on the same page,
everybody speaking the same language, so we can make the
best decisions for the team.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Taking that time to really be all football all the
time with the same group of people day in and
day out, not only from an evaluation standpoint, but just
from a team standpoint. Getting to understand how the other
guys in the room approach things, how they talk. That
has to be so beneficial too.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
It is and for our so you know, we played sports,
it's it's like being in the locker room. You know,
that's where you build that camaraderie and that bond and
that you know, that togetherness is when you're going through
those meetings, it's it's very similar to you know, for
me and for a lot of people that played, it's
like being in the locker room, and and that's where
you really start to get that rapport with everybody else
on the team, and you start to become a team
(05:21):
when you're going through that process.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
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Rock Royalty to rap superstars R and B to country
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of Nissan Stadium. Little Caesars is the official pizza partner
(05:45):
of your Tennessee Titans. Download the Little Caesars app and
get your favorites delivered today. Delivery fees apply. Now back
to the OTP. So where do these terms come from?
What's the genesis of this system of colors and numbers? Well,
thank you for asking. The answer is Mike Gettings and
(06:08):
a company called pro Scout Incorporated. We had the chance
to talk with his son, Mike Gettings Junior, who is
the current president of pro Scout, to get a better
understanding of this system, the business and the impact that
they have had on the NFL. Here's my conversation with
Mike Gettings Junior, joined by the great Dave McGinnis, better
(06:29):
known as Coach Mac. I guess I'm just going to
start with Pro Scout Incorporated. That is your business, and
I'm kind of wondering what exactly that is and the
genesis of that whole industry of scouting.
Speaker 6 (06:42):
My father started the company back in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
He was the former coach in the NFL.
Speaker 6 (06:49):
And he came up with the idea of Pro Scout
when there was a competing league called the World Football League,
and he was the head coach GM of the Hawaii
team and the World Football League started before the NFL
and the NFL had their final cuts. About halfway through
the season of the World Football League, he added about
ten players who got cut and it turned.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Around their season.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
So he came up the thought was, Wow, there are
guys that get cut at the end of the season
that have the ability to play in the league. Maybe
there was an abundance of players at the position or
a wrong fit. After the World Football League folded, he
went to the Denver Broncos as the offensive line coach
and first club director of pro personnel and stayed there
(07:37):
for a year and had this idea for the company,
and it started off with six teams back in nineteen
seventy seven, and we've had his mini at sixteen.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I came on board after playing at Illinois.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
In nineteen eighty eight and kind of the color system
that most team used for players pro Scott and Bennett
back in nineteen seventy seven, So instead of using numbers,
we identified players as blue, red, purple, orange players instead
of using numbers. And it's first started off with to
(08:13):
upgrade the bottom of the roster. Then came Plan B,
then came the free agency, became the salary cap, and.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
It's evolved into.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Kind of helping teams make their rosters analytics heightweight, and
forty times and kind of identifying maybe players who are declining.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So you don't make a fiscal mistake with them gains.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
This is so interesting again. I came into the league
in nineteen eighty six with the Bears, and and you
know when I was first exposed, you know, to the
Gettings Book. And let me just say this, and I
think I'm not speaking anything out of school here. The
Gettings Book was something very valuable to teams because the
information was not shared. It was not shared, and you guys,
(09:00):
you guys sold it exclusively to clubs that were willing
to not only purchase it, but to be within that realm.
But you never you never went public with it. You
never went public with it. And so when you when
you had access to this, it really especially back back then.
As I said, I came in in eighty six and
it opened up a whole new world. You know, I
(09:20):
learned a lot of how to just evaluate National Football
League players, you know, you know from that, and to
me it was fascinating because then when I told Amy,
I want to get Mike gettings on for two reasons.
First of all, he's a great dude. Second of all,
he's a good friend of myself and Jeff Fisher's. And
third of all, what he and his dad did, I said,
(09:41):
people don't really know about because now you've got all
these scouting services, you got everything on the internet, you've
got everything that's out there that's available, and everybody is
an expert. Now, okay, but you guys truly were the
ones that could boil it down for an NFL team.
And as you said, just what you said to identified
declining players. So you didn't make a fiscal mistake on
(10:03):
somebody off of reputation. Only talk to me a little
bit about how your dad came up with that color
system and how you guys have refined it.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
It was interesting, you know, he went to count and Max.
He was one of those guys that you remember the
old days you had to, you know, draw up the
cards and the hill boards. He could draw the perfect
circles and squares in lines, in zags, and his printing
was impeccable.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
It was it was like it was like computer generated.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
Right, So every coach was in love, like, okay, we
know who were doing the cards.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Nobody liked doing the cards.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
And he got the idea from you remember the old
ram scout John Math.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 6 (10:50):
And so John Math kind of goes like I, I
you know back you know the zero printing out staffs
and things like I hate look at numbers, goes, why
don't you use colors? So we do use a number
system to evaluate and it correlates to a color. So
the book and in the old days, you know, we
used to hand color.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Of the books.
Speaker 6 (11:13):
I'd go get a bunch of my high school friends
and we'd have coloring books at the you know, the
end of the season, coloring up teams and what what
what you know? Then we created you know, some axioms
and and the color is basically what we tried to
do is is correlate it to if we were the owner,
how much would we pay what's the worth of the player?
(11:36):
So blue being the highest color, you know, the blues
should be the highest paid. And the kind of structure
that I would say, what we always tried to do.
We always thought it was our dollars or our money
if you were acquiring a player, and what was the cost,
and to not make fiscal mistakes.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
And then the other key one.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
With my dad being a coach and growing up in
that atmosphere and understanding coach language. This way, the most
frustrating thing coach mash you'll get this is, you know,
coaches have a different language than personnel people, to analytic people,
to owners and too. If you can be say multi
(12:24):
lingually in that concept. I had a GM. I sat
down on a meeting and usual it to the owner of
the GM, the head coach, and we're walking out after
the meeting. He goes It amazes me how you can
translate or switch to the dialogue to the person you're
talking to. So when I'm talking to, say, Coach Mac
(12:45):
about defense, and I go this linebacker when he scrapes off,
gets near the line of screamage, he crosses over too soon,
doesn't keep his outside armed, you know free.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Well, Coach Mack knows a gact what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Whereas a personnel guy, I would have to use different
type of language to explain why I like this linebacker,
don't like this linebacker, or you know, a pass rusher.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I go to Coach Mack. He goes Coach Mack.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
He's got that long first step, he works half the man,
and when that first move gets frunted, he can counter
because he has hand feet coordination. Coach Mac niser getting big,
because you know it's like that's that's rare, and to
to to kind of like describe and get people on
the same page. And it would be the more you
(13:34):
can sit and listen to the coach and they can
say describe, you know, the players they want, because every
Super Bowl team is different. So no one Coach Mac,
like coach Man's not gonna be real happy if I
give him an outside lineberry. The kid doesn't doesn't run
blue or red. Yeah, and and and his corners better be.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Able to play. Man, if I'm giving Coach Mac a
bunch of slow zone corner, He's gonna look at me
and go gids.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
Isn't no ways doing so understanding what the team's looking for.
And I believe in evaluation it starts with a limit.
You know, you eliminate first, So knowing what traits should
be blue, red, purple, you know, because in the perfect world, yeah,
everybody would be you know, blue, speed, strength, and ability.
(14:27):
But that's not the perfect world. And the great coaches
can tell you if he does this purple, I'm okay.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And that to an evaluator like.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
Oh okay, they don't have to be the perfect size,
you know, speed, strength, and understanding.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
That allows you to go find.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
Say the middle tier players or up the bottom end
of your roster that can fill a need and or
you know, upgrade your team in other ways than your say,
ten core blue players.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
How do you think that the evolution of scouting and
how advanced it's become with the inclusion of technology and
these big events like the NFL Scouting Combine and all
of the different data points that people are able to
collect now, how do you think that that growth has
impacted the growth of the game on the field.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
That's a great question.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
I think it's it's played a huge part when in
the old coach back will remember this one. I mean,
you know, I started off with a Kodak analyst as
a as a projector. Oh yeah, remember then we went
to the beta camp and then we went to you know,
the surface pro that you can have an computer, you
can plug it into a monitor, and I can remember
(15:48):
my first job when I started working with I would
just grab the tape and go get numbers because sometimes
it was hard to see numbers because the quality of
the of the tape wasn't good.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So you'd have to, you know, really be patient and
work hard.
Speaker 6 (16:01):
What was interesting them at the end of probably I
guess maybe what coachback seventeen years ago, twenty years ago.
You know, at the final cut, they would go like, okay,
you know, we'd love to go pick up the linebacker.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
And play special teams.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
And then the scouts would come in and go, okay,
here are the three guys.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You'd have to sit through three season.
Speaker 6 (16:22):
Tape, you know, going okay, let me know when he's
in the game. Let me know when he's in the game,
Whereas now in seconds they can take that player and
go here the eighty plays he played in preseason, let's
watch him. So technology I think has played a huge
part too. You know, a coach will sit down and
look at a guy for an hour, but if it's
(16:43):
going to be a four hour process, eh, maybe not.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
So kids, that's so great that you say that. The
other thing that I think you're always able to do
is is is because you were in it so long
and people begin to trust you so much, you could
kind of and coaching staffs stayed together for a long time,
you could start to match players to staffs because you
know what people wanted.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Yeah, absolutely that would you know, understanding exactly what you
liked on defense, you know, like yeah, I mean to
give say Jeff not a hard running running back. You know,
so exactly the personality of the team, and and it
would be a short period of time and exactly you
build up that trust of Okay, you know, kids and
(17:28):
pro scouts understand what we're looking for and the names
he recommends, I'll go look because it's the type of
player I want and whether you know, and it's usually
say that the backup and knowing that he's got to
play good special teams and and and and or be
you know, a guy that's not gonna make errors, you know,
(17:49):
like the third running backs got to play special teams,
all of them, and if he has to, he's got
to maybe go play a little h back, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
So I need a smart at. It's not gonna make errors. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
I know he's not as physically gifted as my number one,
but this is what I want as my number three.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Awesome, Well, Mike, getting thank you so much for taking
some time to chat with us. This has been Mac
has just been incredible.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Well, I told you kids would be great, because I
mean he is. I mean he and his dad. There
are icons in this business.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
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(18:42):
which we work and live. Ashley the official furniture provider
of the Tennessee Titans. Now back to the OTP. So
there it is a little insight into the system that
scouts use right here in Nashville to describe their evaluation
of play. I hope you found this peek into the
history of the NFL enjoyable, informative, or you know, at
(19:06):
the very least entertaining. It's all part of the service
we provide here on the Official Titans Podcast. We hope
that you will join us next time as we continue
to get closer and closer to the NFL Draft. A
big thank you to Mike Borgonzi, RTT, Brian Coach Mack,
and Mike Gettings Junior for their participation in this edition
of the OTP. Thanks for listening and we'll see you
(19:29):
next time.
Welcome to the OTP. I'm Amy Wells. Every spring we
spend a lot of time talking about the evaluation process
and how each team goes about the business of selecting
the roster for the upcoming season. We compare measurements and statistics,
We watch people jump and run and throw and catch.
We lay out their history both on and off the field.
(00:34):
But there's one area that we don't talk about much.
That's the language of scouting. You see, every draft room
across the league speaks its own language. It's the way
they communicate to one another what they are seeing when
they look at a certain prospect. General manager Mike Borgonzi
made reference to that language on his very first day
as a Titan, and then again with our own Retbrian
(00:56):
at the NFL Scouting combine in Indianapolis. That a portion
of that conversation right here on the OTP.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I want to go back to one of your first
availabilities as general manager of the Titans, and you mentioned
about generational talent. It's clear that there's some generational talent
I think that everybody agrees on near the top of
this thing. And with the number one pick, obviously that's
you said that and everybody ran and wrote columns about
it and all those kinds of things. But you mentioned
something that harkens back to a conversation that coach Mack
(01:26):
and Amy had in a previous podcast a few years
ago with Mike Giddings junior with the pro scout stuff
that his dad did back in the seventies, and you
mentioned blue players, and without giving away trade secrets, I
want to ask you about the color coded system and
obviously it sounds like you use a modified version of
that and how that works.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
You know, the first time I was introduced to that
was in Kansas City when John Dorsey came from Green Bay.
So we do use that color code system, Blue being
the highest level player. That's what we call a raar
player in the league. Generational player League. It's a rare
skill set of physical talent, character makeup that all goes
(02:06):
into making that player a blue player, And basically we
just go down there's four different levels of starters. There's
a Red player, which is an impact player, a Gold
player which is a good starter, and then you have
starters with limitations, and then you have backups. So we've
kind of tweaked that skill a little bit over the
years is the leagues evolved a little bit, just to
add a little bit more definition into the scale. But
(02:28):
that's something that I took back. I guess it was
twenty thirteen when I really started working with that scale.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
But you guys, you speak your own language with that,
because it's like when you're talking to another evaluator. You're
talking about all right, I see a linebacker. He's got
blue feet, right, So that we want to speak the
same language.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
So we're in the room. This is a red player,
this is a black player, you know, so we want
to be on the same page and speak the same
language when we're in that room. That's all part of
the process and setting up a new system and it's
a little bit new to these guys now. And you know,
we went through it for this past like three weeks
and meetings, but that's the only way to teach it
is actually go through the meetings and you watching tape. Okay,
this is what a blue player looks like. This is
(03:06):
what a red player looks like. So everybody's on the
same page when we're discussing the evaluation of the player.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
That's uh, he mentioned Amy. I know, Mike gettings very well,
you know the time I've been in the league and Gibs,
when they started putting that that that thing out, I
was pretty I understand that that language. What's important about
that he is, as you say, when you're bringing everybody
else together and we're gonna have we're gonna have gettings on.
I think, you know, with with what we've we've talked
(03:34):
about before, that's uh that that's very important and it's
very interesting too. I was glad to hear that.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yeah, no, he I mean he invented that whole scale,
and it's carried on into the league and different organizations
and people have kind of tweaked it a little bit,
and we did in Kansas City a little bit, but
it was really you know, he really started that that
whole system, and it's something that's carried over for years.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
How long does it take to instill that in a
new group because it is a little different language, a
little different code. Does it take a minute to kind
of get the reps under you and get refamiliar with
what each thing means?
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Sure, I think it's just like being out in the
field in practice. When you're practice in place, it's the
same thing. So when we go through the process that
we had to stop a couple times for discussions about
this is what this means in the process, this is
how we this is how we evaluate this position. This
is what a blue means, this is what a red means.
So we went through all that in those meetings, and
(04:29):
it's important to have patience in the process too when
you're doing it, because you want to teach it the
right way, to make sure everybody's on the same page,
everybody speaking the same language, so we can make the
best decisions for the team.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Taking that time to really be all football all the
time with the same group of people day in and
day out, not only from an evaluation standpoint, but just
from a team standpoint. Getting to understand how the other
guys in the room approach things, how they talk. That
has to be so beneficial too.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
It is and for our so you know, we played sports,
it's it's like being in the locker room. You know,
that's where you build that camaraderie and that bond and
that you know, that togetherness is when you're going through
those meetings, it's it's very similar to you know, for
me and for a lot of people that played, it's
like being in the locker room, and and that's where
you really start to get that rapport with everybody else
on the team, and you start to become a team
(05:21):
when you're going through that process.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
This summer, Seat Geek has your ticket to the best
live concerts in Nashville at Nissan Stadium. See Geek has
the best seat your seat for an unforgettable summer. From
Rock Royalty to rap superstars R and B to country
find it all on Sea Geek the official ticketing partner
of Nissan Stadium. Little Caesars is the official pizza partner
(05:45):
of your Tennessee Titans. Download the Little Caesars app and
get your favorites delivered today. Delivery fees apply. Now back
to the OTP. So where do these terms come from?
What's the genesis of this system of colors and numbers? Well,
thank you for asking. The answer is Mike Gettings and
(06:08):
a company called pro Scout Incorporated. We had the chance
to talk with his son, Mike Gettings Junior, who is
the current president of pro Scout, to get a better
understanding of this system, the business and the impact that
they have had on the NFL. Here's my conversation with
Mike Gettings Junior, joined by the great Dave McGinnis, better
(06:29):
known as Coach Mac. I guess I'm just going to
start with Pro Scout Incorporated. That is your business, and
I'm kind of wondering what exactly that is and the
genesis of that whole industry of scouting.
Speaker 6 (06:42):
My father started the company back in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
He was the former coach in the NFL.
Speaker 6 (06:49):
And he came up with the idea of Pro Scout
when there was a competing league called the World Football League,
and he was the head coach GM of the Hawaii
team and the World Football League started before the NFL
and the NFL had their final cuts. About halfway through
the season of the World Football League, he added about
ten players who got cut and it turned.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Around their season.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
So he came up the thought was, Wow, there are
guys that get cut at the end of the season
that have the ability to play in the league. Maybe
there was an abundance of players at the position or
a wrong fit. After the World Football League folded, he
went to the Denver Broncos as the offensive line coach
and first club director of pro personnel and stayed there
(07:37):
for a year and had this idea for the company,
and it started off with six teams back in nineteen
seventy seven, and we've had his mini at sixteen.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I came on board after playing at Illinois.
Speaker 6 (07:50):
In nineteen eighty eight and kind of the color system
that most team used for players pro Scott and Bennett
back in nineteen seventy seven, So instead of using numbers,
we identified players as blue, red, purple, orange players instead
of using numbers. And it's first started off with to
(08:13):
upgrade the bottom of the roster. Then came Plan B,
then came the free agency, became the salary cap, and.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
It's evolved into.
Speaker 6 (08:24):
Kind of helping teams make their rosters analytics heightweight, and
forty times and kind of identifying maybe players who are declining.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
So you don't make a fiscal mistake with them gains.
Speaker 5 (08:38):
This is so interesting again. I came into the league
in nineteen eighty six with the Bears, and and you
know when I was first exposed, you know, to the
Gettings Book. And let me just say this, and I
think I'm not speaking anything out of school here. The
Gettings Book was something very valuable to teams because the
information was not shared. It was not shared, and you guys,
(09:00):
you guys sold it exclusively to clubs that were willing
to not only purchase it, but to be within that realm.
But you never you never went public with it. You
never went public with it. And so when you when
you had access to this, it really especially back back then.
As I said, I came in in eighty six and
it opened up a whole new world. You know, I
(09:20):
learned a lot of how to just evaluate National Football
League players, you know, you know from that, and to
me it was fascinating because then when I told Amy,
I want to get Mike gettings on for two reasons.
First of all, he's a great dude. Second of all,
he's a good friend of myself and Jeff Fisher's. And
third of all, what he and his dad did, I said,
(09:41):
people don't really know about because now you've got all
these scouting services, you got everything on the internet, you've
got everything that's out there that's available, and everybody is
an expert. Now, okay, but you guys truly were the
ones that could boil it down for an NFL team.
And as you said, just what you said to identified
declining players. So you didn't make a fiscal mistake on
(10:03):
somebody off of reputation. Only talk to me a little
bit about how your dad came up with that color
system and how you guys have refined it.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
It was interesting, you know, he went to count and Max.
He was one of those guys that you remember the
old days you had to, you know, draw up the
cards and the hill boards. He could draw the perfect
circles and squares in lines, in zags, and his printing
was impeccable.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
It was it was like it was like computer generated.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
Right, So every coach was in love, like, okay, we
know who were doing the cards.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Nobody liked doing the cards.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
And he got the idea from you remember the old
ram scout John Math.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 6 (10:50):
And so John Math kind of goes like I, I
you know back you know the zero printing out staffs
and things like I hate look at numbers, goes, why
don't you use colors? So we do use a number
system to evaluate and it correlates to a color. So
the book and in the old days, you know, we
used to hand color.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Of the books.
Speaker 6 (11:13):
I'd go get a bunch of my high school friends
and we'd have coloring books at the you know, the
end of the season, coloring up teams and what what
what you know? Then we created you know, some axioms
and and the color is basically what we tried to
do is is correlate it to if we were the owner,
how much would we pay what's the worth of the player?
(11:36):
So blue being the highest color, you know, the blues
should be the highest paid. And the kind of structure
that I would say, what we always tried to do.
We always thought it was our dollars or our money
if you were acquiring a player, and what was the cost,
and to not make fiscal mistakes.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
And then the other key one.
Speaker 6 (12:00):
With my dad being a coach and growing up in
that atmosphere and understanding coach language. This way, the most
frustrating thing coach mash you'll get this is, you know,
coaches have a different language than personnel people, to analytic people,
to owners and too. If you can be say multi
(12:24):
lingually in that concept. I had a GM. I sat
down on a meeting and usual it to the owner of
the GM, the head coach, and we're walking out after
the meeting. He goes It amazes me how you can
translate or switch to the dialogue to the person you're
talking to. So when I'm talking to, say, Coach Mac
(12:45):
about defense, and I go this linebacker when he scrapes off,
gets near the line of screamage, he crosses over too soon,
doesn't keep his outside armed, you know free.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Well, Coach Mack knows a gact what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Whereas a personnel guy, I would have to use different
type of language to explain why I like this linebacker,
don't like this linebacker, or you know, a pass rusher.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
I go to Coach Mack. He goes Coach Mack.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
He's got that long first step, he works half the man,
and when that first move gets frunted, he can counter
because he has hand feet coordination. Coach Mac niser getting big,
because you know it's like that's that's rare, and to
to to kind of like describe and get people on
the same page. And it would be the more you
(13:34):
can sit and listen to the coach and they can
say describe, you know, the players they want, because every
Super Bowl team is different. So no one Coach Mac,
like coach Man's not gonna be real happy if I
give him an outside lineberry. The kid doesn't doesn't run
blue or red. Yeah, and and and his corners better be.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Able to play. Man, if I'm giving Coach Mac a
bunch of slow zone corner, He's gonna look at me
and go gids.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
Isn't no ways doing so understanding what the team's looking for.
And I believe in evaluation it starts with a limit.
You know, you eliminate first, So knowing what traits should
be blue, red, purple, you know, because in the perfect world, yeah,
everybody would be you know, blue, speed, strength, and ability.
(14:27):
But that's not the perfect world. And the great coaches
can tell you if he does this purple, I'm okay.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
And that to an evaluator like.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
Oh okay, they don't have to be the perfect size,
you know, speed, strength, and understanding.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
That allows you to go find.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
Say the middle tier players or up the bottom end
of your roster that can fill a need and or
you know, upgrade your team in other ways than your say,
ten core blue players.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
How do you think that the evolution of scouting and
how advanced it's become with the inclusion of technology and
these big events like the NFL Scouting Combine and all
of the different data points that people are able to
collect now, how do you think that that growth has
impacted the growth of the game on the field.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
That's a great question.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
I think it's it's played a huge part when in
the old coach back will remember this one. I mean,
you know, I started off with a Kodak analyst as
a as a projector. Oh yeah, remember then we went
to the beta camp and then we went to you know,
the surface pro that you can have an computer, you
can plug it into a monitor, and I can remember
(15:48):
my first job when I started working with I would
just grab the tape and go get numbers because sometimes
it was hard to see numbers because the quality of
the of the tape wasn't good.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So you'd have to, you know, really be patient and
work hard.
Speaker 6 (16:01):
What was interesting them at the end of probably I
guess maybe what coachback seventeen years ago, twenty years ago.
You know, at the final cut, they would go like, okay,
you know, we'd love to go pick up the linebacker.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
And play special teams.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
And then the scouts would come in and go, okay,
here are the three guys.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
You'd have to sit through three season.
Speaker 6 (16:22):
Tape, you know, going okay, let me know when he's
in the game. Let me know when he's in the game,
Whereas now in seconds they can take that player and
go here the eighty plays he played in preseason, let's
watch him. So technology I think has played a huge
part too. You know, a coach will sit down and
look at a guy for an hour, but if it's
(16:43):
going to be a four hour process, eh, maybe not.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
So kids, that's so great that you say that. The
other thing that I think you're always able to do
is is is because you were in it so long
and people begin to trust you so much, you could
kind of and coaching staffs stayed together for a long time,
you could start to match players to staffs because you
know what people wanted.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
Yeah, absolutely that would you know, understanding exactly what you
liked on defense, you know, like yeah, I mean to
give say Jeff not a hard running running back. You know,
so exactly the personality of the team, and and it
would be a short period of time and exactly you
build up that trust of Okay, you know, kids and
(17:28):
pro scouts understand what we're looking for and the names
he recommends, I'll go look because it's the type of
player I want and whether you know, and it's usually
say that the backup and knowing that he's got to
play good special teams and and and and or be
you know, a guy that's not gonna make errors, you know,
(17:49):
like the third running backs got to play special teams,
all of them, and if he has to, he's got
to maybe go play a little h back, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
So I need a smart at. It's not gonna make errors. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
I know he's not as physically gifted as my number one,
but this is what I want as my number three.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Awesome, Well, Mike, getting thank you so much for taking
some time to chat with us. This has been Mac
has just been incredible.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Well, I told you kids would be great, because I
mean he is. I mean he and his dad. There
are icons in this business.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Hey, Titans fans, With a Kroger Boost membership, you'll score
big with double fuel points, free delivery, and lots more.
Go to Kroger dot com slash boost for details. Kroger
the official grocer of the Tennessee Titans. Tight Enough Home
is the forefront of all we do. It's why we're
so committed to caring for the places and spaces in
(18:42):
which we work and live. Ashley the official furniture provider
of the Tennessee Titans. Now back to the OTP. So
there it is a little insight into the system that
scouts use right here in Nashville to describe their evaluation
of play. I hope you found this peek into the
history of the NFL enjoyable, informative, or you know, at
(19:06):
the very least entertaining. It's all part of the service
we provide here on the Official Titans Podcast. We hope
that you will join us next time as we continue
to get closer and closer to the NFL Draft. A
big thank you to Mike Borgonzi, RTT, Brian Coach Mack,
and Mike Gettings Junior for their participation in this edition
of the OTP. Thanks for listening and we'll see you
(19:29):
next time.
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