SumerSports President of Football Operations and former Atlanta Falcons General Manager, Thomas Dimitroff, interviews SumerSports scout and former Chicago Bears Director of Player Personnel, Bobby DePaul for the Sumer Scout Deep Dive series. In this series, Thomas Dimitroff sits down with his scouting staff to discuss their football journey and how they evaluate positions in the NFL.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome everyone to SUMER Scout Deep Dives with the most
esteemed guests that we've had so far, and that is
Bobby de Paul, the Bobby de Paul that everyone in
this league knows. Bobby de Paul, very very talented football man,
incredibly conversing in all elements of football. And Bobby, by
the way, I'm I'm beyond excited about having you on
(00:26):
this staff as we've worked together since you know we
kick this off, right, I mean, it was something to
bring in really talented football people to discuss football, to
get evaluations, but also to get really good feedback on
the direction of our organization at SUMER Sports. Let's talk
background of football first, though, Bobby, because I think that's
invaluable for the listeners to hear. What first interested you
(00:49):
in football?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, when I grew up, it was in the suburbs
of Washington, d C. Okay, and fortunately for me, our
next door neighbor's dad actually you know, went to University
of Alabama and you know, he was a football night. Okay,
so it was my ended up being my first football coach.
But you know, he as soon as we could walk,
(01:14):
you know, we're out there playing football in new Yard, Okay,
And you know that's how we started. We started training
early and often, and you know whenever when you were
young growing up, I mean you ring the bell, you
went in for dinner. You know, that was when the
game was over, you know. So, but I'll never forget
My first exposure to the NFL was that if you
(01:37):
recall that maculate reception by the Steelers, you know, frank o'harris,
you know what I'm saying. So my actual first jersey,
or one of my first jersey's recollection is number thirty two.
That's why I wore number thirty two because of that
immaculate reception, and that was my you know, we got
called in, Hey you got to see this? No no, no, no,
(01:59):
we go in. We see it and it was unbelievable,
you know, just watching it bounce back and then Franko
running in. But that was my jersey number, and that's
how it all started. And so I was probably like,
you know, six years old, you know something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Well you think about that. Did you know that defense
was your passion or offense was just playing everything? Did
you play both ways? Coming up through high school? Grade
school and high school? Were you just a football fiend,
Like we did. You just love the sport as you
were growing up through the years.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, I, you know, I was always bigger than everybody else,
and so I always had to play with guys that
were like three years older than me. I mean, for
whatever reason, I'm like, I was like five to eleven,
you know, right out of the gate. And so the competition,
it wasn't the kids that I grew up with, it
was the older kids. And you know, I played both ways.
(02:54):
You know why I had thirty two I played. I
always envisioned myself being, you know, five to eleven, two
hundred pounds playing running back, you know, coming up, but
I played linebacker and full back. Ended up being a
full back.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I got recruited at a public school eighth grade. I
was too big to play boys club back then, your tenth, eleventh,
and twelfth was public school high school. So I'm sitting
here and you know, heading in the ninth grade without
the ability to play football. It's too big, you know,
for the boys club. So I got recruited to a
Catholic high school, you know in Washington, d C. And
(03:30):
then if you're familiar with the Washington, D C. Area,
that's the top football, you know, the Catholicic, the MATHA
high school. You hear about Chase Young, you hear, you know,
Saint John's, that's these are all the powerhouses. And my
high school was Archbishop Carroll High School. The coach there
he was like Bear Bryant, you know, six decades. So
that's where you know, I kind of jumped up the
(03:52):
next level. Uh, you know, I can't graduated. You know,
we went four straight championships in the Catholicic. That's hard
to do. Uh. And in the modern day, uh, you
know around here, you know, I still keep track of it.
Four straight years. We only lost one game in four years.
I mean we you know, we were a pretty good team.
(04:14):
And I always you know, Mike Mayock, he's he's one
of the guys that you know, we work with here.
And his roommate at Boston College is with older brother,
one of the kids that played quarterback. And we got
recruited at the Boston College. You know, when I was
sophomore and went to Boston College and Doug Flutie and
that type of thing. So I had a lot of
(04:36):
great players up there, and Barry Gallup and you might
remember Barry Gallup. You know, he recruited us. We stayed
at his house. Okay, he was young, you know, he's
a young recruiter. We stayed at his house. You know,
he got us a case of beer. We all passed
out at you know, Heartbreak Hill, you know, the marathon
and stuff. So it's a great high school experience. I
ended up, you know, heading the University of Maryland and uh,
(04:58):
you know Bobby Ross who was former NFL coach and
special teams coach and ended up going back into the
NFL for the Chargers. So you know, it's just one
of those things you just happened to be at the
right place at the right time, and and it was
a good fit. We talked about it all the time,
what's the best fit? And I was the best fit
in high school, went to college, started a middle linebacker.
(05:21):
You know, my teams we went three ACC championships, Boomers Siazon,
had great quarterbacks. We just happened to be throwing the
ball more when everybody else was running. You know, at
the time it was us into Miami Hurricanes that were
throwing the ball back then, and uh, you know that's
that's how that's how it all started. You know, it's
it's it's been a it was a fun ride as
(05:42):
a player, right and uh, you know, just moved into
coaching scouting, and you know it's been been a long ride.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So tell me about that a little first aside, bear
with me on this strong Italian family. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Half Irish half Italian? That's a rough all the time.
You know, you got the best of both worlds. You
got the lucky the Irish during the day and you
know you got the Italian lover at night. Okay, so
she's happy.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
No, I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
So thinking about that, you ate, well, you were always
you were always primed and ready to go when you
were playing all the way. Of course, as you said,
you were a bigger guy, so you were always on
the top end of everything. So anyway, I find that
interesting because I love digging into the background of people
and how they managed through their neighborhoods and the food
they ate and the kids they invited over to their
house to eat some really good food at your house,
(06:34):
et cetera, et cetera. I'm sure that was the case
as you moved through the ranks of the NFL. Can
you talk about that ascension fairly briefly about you know
where you landed at first? I think you said San Diego, correct, Well.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Bobby Ross was the head ended up being at San
Diego as the head football coach. I what happened to
me when I went to University of Maryland. There were
you know, I was just like any other kid. I
thought I was playing in the NFL. Okay, Yeah, you
play high school, you start three years, you're the best player, uh,
coming out of the Washington d C. Maryland, Virginia area.
(07:07):
You know, you get the big award, you get a scholarship,
you go to college. I'm starting as a you know,
true sophomore, and uh, you know you're thinking you're going
to the NFL. And a lot of people thought that
at the time. But then I had a career in
the ending knee injury, okay, and that kind of sets
you back. You know, you don't that's something you don't
plan for, you know, you just kind of accept it.
(07:28):
Bobby Ross was great about it. Was heading into my
senior year and he made me an undergraduate assistant coach
my senior year. So that's kind of how I got
into coach. And I remember reading John Madden Book, and
he said, you know, if you can't live without football,
become a coach. You know. So that's what I did.
You know. I was just a typical kid growing up.
(07:49):
Never we never my dad was a mailman. I actually
saw my dad graduate from high school. You know. He
was a poor kid, married my mom fortunately moved to Washington,
d C. From New Jersey one hundred percent of Italian,
you know, just kind of worked his way up. I mean,
worked two jobs. So you know, we were we had
my mom raised four boys, so you know it was sports.
She needs she needed to get us, you know, doing something,
(08:11):
you know. And uh so that's what we did. Uh.
And I got into coaching. And when I was at Maryland.
Uh two former you know, two NFL coaches sons played
at Maryland, Richie Pattabaum and Dan Henny all right, you
might m him and he was at the Atlanta Falcons
at one time. But so I didn't want to be
(08:32):
a GA when I graduated, I wanted to coach. So
I went to Catholic University. I started coaching. It was
a Division three program, white in Rushington, d C. Right
down the street from my high school. I got a
call one day out of the blue, you know, laying
in bed. My roommates say, hey, Bobby Bethard's on the phone.
I'm like Bobby Bethard, he's a general manager of the Redskins,
you know. So he calls over. He says, I want
(08:55):
you to hire my son, Kurk Kirk Bethar and uh,
you know, do him a favor. So I hied. And
then a couple of years later, I got a call
for Bobby Bethett again. He goes, hey, we need a
young coach. He goes, you're interested. You know, he's wanted
to return the favor. So I go from Division III
right uh, to the Washington Redskins at the time, and
you know, and I grew up. I'm a third generation Washingtonian,
(09:18):
so you know, I'm you're a Redskin fan. It was
the heyday. You know, you got the Hogs and everybody.
You know, you're you're thinking super Bowl, you know, right
out of the gate. I mean that's if you're in.
You're not in the Super Bowl. It's a failure around
there at the time, you know. So I was twenty
six years old. I was one of the youngest assistant
coaches in the National Football League at the time, So
(09:38):
you know I got That's how I got in it.
And uh, you know, it was just being at the
right place at the right time, doing the right things,
staying out of trouble and working. And I remember when
I interviewed with Joe Gibbs, he goes, we had no computers.
He goes, how's your printing. I looked at him and said,
my printing. He says, yeah, you got to print the
game plan for us, for the coaches and stuff, and
(10:01):
then xeroxy and ended having on the sidelines. So I
was one of the prerequisites, is Mike printing. That's how
far back I go in the late eighties, you know,
at the beginning. So just uh, you know, you look
back at it, it's just like I can't believe it happened,
you know. You know, anybody you know that works in
(10:23):
the NFL understands it's a privilege, and uh, you know,
you you take it, you run with it as far
as you can go.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And Bobby, as you moved through the ranks in the NFL,
so you were in coaching for a number of years,
and you can take us through that as well, and
then tell us about that transition into scouting and how
why and how you became you know, immersed in the
in the player personnel side of the NFL.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Well, I coached for five years. Joe Gibbs retired at
a young age. You know. I mean we when I
worked there for five years, I slept on a cop
for five years. I didn't go home, you know. And uh,
and he worked. We worked at it and uh, and
that that's how it was back in the day. Guy
just worked. We didn't make a lot of money, but
we loved it, you know. And uh and and we
(11:12):
knew how to compete, and we just outworked the opponents.
You know. Joe Gibbs said, I'm not a genius. I
just you know, I just outworked guys, you know. So
that was kind of our mentality. You know, we just
outworked the other guys, you know, in our minds. Obviously
we had great players too, but you know, when you
get at that level, you got to have you know,
you got to have some strategy involved at some point.
(11:33):
But so I started off coaching. I thought I was
going to be a coach, just like I thought I
was going to be a player. Uh, Joe up and
d you know, retired. I thought I could hang on there.
And it was funny because I spent my whole life
in Washington, d C. I never left, you know. I
got recruited Maryland. I stayed at Maryland. You know, I'm
now I'm coaching Catholic, which is in d C. Then
(11:55):
I go over to Washington. I never left, never left
the DC area. So they made a change with the
head coach, Richard Pattabone, who was an interim coach for
one year, and they hired North Turner. And I remember
going to Charlie Castley and I said, hey, I said, Charlie,
you think George Allen's rolling over in his grave right now?
(12:15):
I said, I'm I'm a Washingtonian here. You're hiring a
Dallas cowboy. You're running all the Redskins out of here.
So I left. I packed my office. I had no job.
I walked out and Larry Peccatello was the whole time
Redskins coach and NFL coach for thirty years. He was
heading the Cincinnati and you know, I just jumped on
(12:37):
the you know, jumped in my car and went to
Cincinnati with Larry Pecatella and Dave Shuler was a young coach,
you know. So I can remember when my first trip
to the Combine, it was all these old guys and
it was Jeff Fisher and Dave Shuler, right, So when
I jumped at the opportunity to go work with Dave,
I mean he was like thirty two year olds at
(12:58):
the time. He was the youngest guy, you know. I
was only like twenty eight, twenty nine. So I went
with Peck and you know, I started coaching at the Bengals,
and you know, I kind of you was working with
the defense line Tim Krummer. I was a player coach
type guy. So we were working together and we became
good friends. And it's just a really great experience because
(13:21):
what happened was in Cincinnati. As you know, Thomas, they
didn't have a lot of scouts. You know, Mike Brown
put it all on us. I mean, when season's over,
we were on the road. I was in Palo Alto
at the East Restaurant at the time. It was in
San Francisco. We were going and we were on the
road from that right to the Senior Bowl, right to
the Combine, and then we were working guys out across.
(13:42):
I mean I would leave and my wife was like,
it's got two young kids. I'm on the road for
three straight months. We wouldn't come back until the draft
to set our board and draft. But you know, that's
when I really started get in getting into scouting, you know,
in transitioning and Dave obviously we didn't you know, we
finished five hundred, got fired. Uh, I left, got thrown
(14:06):
out with Dave, and so I ended up at the
Philadelphia Eagles in the front office. And back then it
was a lot different the coaches who got fired. They
put him in the front office. You know what I mean,
to just watch the UFAs you know, we were kind
of moving into the free agent market. So I was
watching tape and I had I found a love for scouting.
(14:30):
And of course when I was trying to get a
scout a job, they oh, you're a coach, you know,
you know you're just doing this. I said, no, I
want to do it, and uh, you know, we got lucky.
We hired Andy Reid. We had tremendous success with Andy
right out of the gate. And you know, of course
the front office has changed over. So I had a transition.
I got lucky again. I got Jerry Angelo, you know,
(14:53):
hit me up. I didn't even know. Jerry Angelo hits
me up, you know, takes me the Chicago as the director.
You know. He was like, I had nobody to hire.
It seemed like, you know, it's like I was the
only guy you can hire, you know. So I said, well,
I'm just an interview with Marty Shott and hire her,
and you know, and uh, you know, I'm in the office.
(15:15):
I was actually in the office at Washington John Schneider.
I said, hey, I said, John, do you know Perry
Injeley goes, Yeah, he just got the Chicago Bears job.
I said, he's calling me, man, it's double my salary.
He goes, Usually we like to keep a guy around
for a year or two. He says, we can't fait
that kind of money. I said, I'm going to leave
(15:35):
and I'm gonna call you back. So calling him back,
I said, hey, I'm going to Chicago. So so that's
that's kind of, you know, kind of how it all happened.
It just got lucky, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
So, I mean amazing. You've been around some big time
football people, and I know it's tough to narrow down
on this, Bobby, but when you think about your ascension
through the NFL. Take take aside the high school coaching
and maybe even college coaching. Who was the most influential
leader that you took leadership principles and approach to football
(16:07):
away from during your ascension through the NFL. And if
you could share with the listeners, what was the salient
piece of advice that you would give along pass along
from whoever led you the most obviously the most influential
leader in your career in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, like I said, I had a dual career. So
in coaching, obviously I was the right hand man for
Joe Gibbs, you know what I mean. He was the
offensive coordinator, the head football coach. He had to handle
the owner, he had handled the media. So they had
a role where I was called the administrative assistant assistant
defensive line coach. Okay, so I had to handle the
(16:45):
basically in today's world it's called daily football operations, you know, schedules,
just you know, I'd handle the uh, you know, the
notes for the meetings. You know, back then we had
overhead projection screens. You know, I'd had the things made
up so he could go right through all his meetings.
So I was taught the administrative things, you know, from him,
(17:07):
you know what I mean, working with him. But I
was also on the defensive side of the ball. So
back then, you know, my first day on the job,
I was called into the defensive coordinator's office, Richie Potted Bone,
and he says, hey, you know, I'm going to introduce
you to somebody who's going to look out for you.
That's how it was. So incomes Emma Thomas. Okay, who's
(17:29):
Mma Thomas Hall of Fame corner for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Played for Hank Strand back in the old day. So
brings in Emmett. He said, Emmett, this is my guy,
look out for him. Me and Emmett walk out. We're
there working together for five years. We broke all the
takedown together. Off season, we played golf every day, and
(17:50):
you know, off season in the NFL back then, at
twelve o'clock you were out of the building playing golf
with the players right battling, you know, competing, always competing.
So me and Emmett were always out there, and I
the same age as all the players, so you know,
we all got along great. So Emmett really, you know,
had that impact on me as a football coach, understanding
(18:11):
defense in the NFL, designing coverages that are being used today.
Matter of fact, the award for the top NFL secondary
coach in the National Football League is named the Emma
Thomas Award. Okay, so that guy had a tremendous impact
across a lot of people, not only me in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Bobby, Bobby, let me just interject because I love that
because Emmett, as you well know, I mean, shed light
on so many things for you in your transition, probably
just talking about football, defensive secondary, et cetera, et cetera. Right,
we know that, and an amazing guy. He was with
us at Atlanta. The one thing I know he didn't
teach you how to do was travel and planes because
(18:53):
he has a disdain for being on aircrafts, right, And
we used to make light of it only because the
poor guy just hated flying. Do you remember that part
of him or not?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Well, you know, all our traveling didn't start for me
until after I left and got to Cincinnati, so we
you know when we were in uh and basically what
he was, you know, the way he was brought up
was like me at first, Hey, the scouts did all
the scouting for us. You know, Bobby Butler had a
tremendous staff, right, and they did. They told her, they
(19:26):
you know, we just told them what we were looking
for and they found him. I mean, it was great
working relationships. I mean we had Dick Daniels, I mean,
Mike Hagan. You know, we had a tremendous scouting staff.
You know, one thing about working for an owner like
Jack can Cook is that we had the best money
could buy and coaching and scouting. You're talking Bobby but
(19:48):
He's in the Hall of thing, right, so she got
him in the fall thing. So you just had an
all star cast. And so we never really traveled. You know,
we were on vacation. Season was over. I'm down in Florid,
the you know, playing golf, you know, and then we
come to the combine and you know, we would just
crosscheck and we would be good to go. The scouts
(20:09):
did everything. It was a great working relationship.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
So that scouting idea again, moving from coaching to scouting
and your passion growing and growing more and more towards
like I want to evaluate players tell us about you know,
this is often asked whether you're at a bar or
whether you're at a wedding. Who Bobby was your favorite
bang on the table football player that you scouted through
all your years.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Well, before I answer that question, I just want to
go back to the scouting situation, because, like I said,
I had a dual career, so I had these mentors
over there and then I had the college mentors. Right,
So it was Dick Daniels, it was Bobby Bethert. And
the guy you used to work with who actually gave
him a high school scholarship out of college to a
University of Marylor was Jake Hallum. Okay, so he kind
(20:53):
of transitioned to right from coaching and his you know
later years. He was a scout for the Eagles and
then he joined you guys up in New England. But
that's the guy that knew me since I was sixteen
years old, right, So if you know Jake, I mean
he's in your ear twenty four hours a day. He
never you know, got rest his soul. But this guy
was always on, you know, staying on top of me.
(21:14):
He was at Philadelphia with Emma Thomas when I transitioned
from you know, coaching to to the Eagles, you know,
in my career. But uh, you know bang the table. Okay.
You know, look, there's so many players over the years.
But you know, I was out one year and I
(21:37):
get a call from Ray Farmer. This is a great story, Okay.
Ray says, hey, I wanted you to cross check the
defensive board. So he's good. He sends me one hundred
and fifty guys. Okay. It started in like, I don't know, March,
March first, something like that. So I've got one hundred
and fifty guys. We're talking defensive line, linebackers, safeties, corners,
(21:59):
their whole dref board, and I don't know who they like, Okay.
I hear nothing, okay, and so I just start watching
the tape, so I do all the whole board. So
now you know, I would just be sending information to
Ray and the staff. Never hear anything from anybody, okay.
So I finally he got close to the draft, so
(22:21):
I said, Ray, the number one guy on my board
is Aaron Donald. Okay. They had a high pick, right,
and I'm like, this guy's you know, he's Warren Sap.
I even I even told, I told somebody, I said, well,
Lovey Smith's going to take this guy at Tampa Bay.
I said, you know, he had two guys Booge, McFarland,
Warren sap right. I'm like, he's looking at what I'm looking.
(22:43):
We had worked together in Chicago, so I'm thinking, oh, yeah,
if you don't take him, Tampa Bay is going to
take the guy. So then so you know, I'm on
the table friend. But then I but then, because I
did all the defensive players, I said, and if you
don't like this guy, okay, I said, Ray, I said,
(23:04):
the guy I really like is this receiver for Texas
A and M named Mike Evans. I said, the wrong guy.
Now you gotta remember, I don't know who they're picking.
And I said it, ray, I said, Ray, I said,
the wrong guy got the Heisman trophy. I said. Johnny
Manzieux used to drop back and just throw the ball
up in the air, and Mike Evans would come flying
(23:25):
through the air like a I even gave him a nickname.
You know, I said, he's the terrordactyl. I got a
picture of a terodactyl with the wide wingspan, and I
put I found a picture with Mike Evans, and I said,
coming soon to the Cleveland Browns. The terrordactyl, Right, because
you know, I was up there with Detroit and they
had a nickname for the great receiver. I forget the
nickname was, but he was like a weapon up there
(23:47):
for the Detroit Lions. But anyway, I literally sent him
a picture and he called finally calls me up, laughing.
You know, you know Ray, he's laughing. I said, yeah, Ray,
I said, this guy nobody could up. I watched all
the receiver, I mean, all the corners, all the safeties.
I said, this guy's unbelievable. They wrong guy, not thinking
that they were going to pick the guy. You know,
(24:09):
and obviously there's a lot of a lot of politics
involved with the owner, you know, Southeastern Conference guy, so
and you know, quarterbacks or quarterbacks, and everybody wants a quarterback.
So I get it. But boy, you talk about two
guys in that draft that you jump on the table
for and look where they are today. You know, Aaron
(24:30):
and you know they're Shue Hall of famers.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Oh those are easy, easy, And it's amazing because you've
seen some great players over your years, whether evaluating as
a scout or as a coach being involved. So to
talk about these two guys, that's a that's a really
great story thinking about how how they've affected everything. So
if you know productively right, when you think about Aaron Donald,
I mean, how many people were naysayers about Aaron Donald?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
You know?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Well everybody you know, for whatever reason, when a guy short, right,
there's an issue there for some of these guys, you know,
they want length, the defensive arned coaches, they're brought up,
they want six four sixty five. They want that length.
And I understand it because you want the length because
(25:15):
you want the versatility right to play inside and outside, right,
And that's kind of what they're looking for. But there
are exceptions, Okay, Warren Sapp, Lauri Glover, Elis Johnson. I
could go right down the line. When I was in Philadelphia,
we had a young scout, Mark Ross. He was just
learning how to scout, and you know, we were good friends.
(25:36):
And he comes to my office. We just hired Tom Modrak,
and Tom gave him a signment. You know, he was
going to be the first area guy. I felt bad
for him. I could see it, you know in his eyes,
you know, you know that look right with the young guys,
I gotta watch these defensive tackles, you know, can we
sit and watch tape together. And you know, we watched
tape together and we came across Corey Simon right a
(26:00):
Florida state and he was little, just fits that mode short.
So I know he're back from Mark Ross. And then
it's like right before the draft, he comes in my office.
He goes, I can't get him out of the second round.
I looked at him. I said, what do you mean
you can't get him out of second round? We need
this guy, we need a three technique. He goes, they
say he doesn't fit the average you know, the average
(26:22):
height weight. I said, well, what do they got over there?
He goes six five twenty pounds. I looked at him
and I said, stop right there. I said, I'm going
to give you three names right now. Leroy Glover, okay,
War's and Elis Johnson. And you tell John Goler he
just drafted Elis Johnson at the Indianapolis called okay, and
go put him on the board. Okay. So mayoelel story short.
(26:45):
Cory Simon gets drafted in the top ten with the
Philadelphia Eagles. Okay, But I realized what the problem was.
They just have the average for the height, weights and
speeds of the players, right, and that's the National Football League.
And I turned to him, I said, we're going to
fix this problem. I said. What we're going to do
is not I said, if you sit there and you
(27:08):
want to keep drafting average, you're you're gonna build an
average football team. I said, So what we're going to
do from this point forward is we're going to take
the top ten players, the Pro Bowl players at their position,
and we're going to take the average of the best
players okay, at their position. So our height, weights and
(27:28):
speech from that moment forward, we're more geared towards the
best players. So we went the average of the best
as opposed to the average, because if you do the average,
you're going to build an average football team. And that's
kind of how we do that today here at Summer Sports.
We have to we do the top ten, top blue players,
(27:50):
the impact players, and that's the average that we use today.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, that's exactly right. We could talk on and on
about this before we go into talking about evaluation of
defensive line. I'm Bobby, give me one story that sticks
out in your mind, one scouting story for the masses
to hear from Bobby to Paul. That is unmatched. Something
that stands out in your mind doesn't have to be
the evaluation of player. It could be a travel story.
(28:15):
It could be in the building story or anything very curious.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Well, like I said, when you work for the Cleveland Brown,
I mean for the Cincinnati Bengals and Mike Brown. Anybody
that's worked for the Bengal organization, and Mike Brown knows
all about and this might be breaking news out there.
The American Express Card. Okay, Mike Brown gave each coach
an American Express Card. So my first year on the
(28:43):
road evaluating defensive armor for the Bengals, I run into
a coach named Bob Carmrilla Witzcott, rust Issol, another guy
that passed away, a great coach, and he worked for
Mike Brown. He knew about the American Express Card. Right,
and Mike is dad Paul Brown, obviously founder, one of
the founders of the NFL. He knew about sacrifices, being
(29:05):
away from your family, and he when he handed you
the car and he said, I want you to get
a good meal. I know you're traveling, you're sacrificing, you
know for me, my organization. I want you to make
sure you get a good meal, and we were always
on flights and stuff. The Bengal coaches were always the
workout guys back then, you know, because the Scouts wanted
that consistency. You know, we had a routine. So we
(29:27):
were traveling. I never had a time chance to eat.
But this one day we were down at northeast Louisiana
and Bob Carbelowick goes, you got the cart. I looked
at him. I say, I got the car. He goes,
when are you leaving? I said, I'm not leaving until
the morning. You know, it's tough to move in and
out of Louisiana. He goes, all right, he goes, let's
(29:47):
get everybody here. We're going to dinner tonight. I said,
where are we going? He goes, you ever had crawfish?
I said, never heard of crawfish. I'm from the city, man,
I'm from Washington, d C. I said, what do I
know about Maryland crabs? He goes, oh, so we had
a whole crew and he takes us to this hillbilly
hanging out. I mean right, I mean it was in
like the movies. You know, they start bringing out every
(30:10):
different crawfish meal at t Fay. You know, just I mean,
we were sitting round on a river. It was almost
like they were just reaching in and pulling out and
putting it. We had piles of craw fishing, all different meals.
Right of course we're drinking beers. I mean, it could
it had to been three four hours. Okay, out comes
the American Express card well taken care of. Everybody's happy,
(30:31):
you know. I mean we're talking a couple of scouts,
a couple of coaches from other teams, and you know,
that's just the way it was back then. When I
came up, we had great comrader It didn't matter what
team you were with. Okay, everybody kind of knew everybody.
And then you know that for the most part, today
it's pretty pretty much. But back then, you know, you know,
(30:52):
guys got alan with one another. You know, we we
rooted for each other, but we competed, but we rooted
for each other because we like people. It was a
people business. Okay, probably more back then than it is now,
you know, but what a great experience having it. You know,
oh those crawfish things, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Well, you're so right. The fraternity then was so strong
as we all grew up in it. I mean, you
and I I was in it. I'm in twenty eight
years in the NFL, and I think about it, and
I think about all the names you're bringing up. Some
of our listeners may maybe many of them don't know.
John Gohler, God rest his soul, right, prematurely has cardiac
arrests and obviously passes on. There are some great personnel
(31:35):
men and gms over the years that we all knew
we worked with on the road. They became successful. Others
maybe not as successful, But no doubt about the people
that became Those guys you know in those leadership roles
at the core, were really solid football men evaluators. Right,
So I get your point on that. It's heartwarming. Again.
(31:55):
I've said this a number of times. My dad was
one of those guys that was on the road for
many many years, passed away way too young. I don't
think the business beats you up that much. I do, however,
think there is an importance for balance today. Maybe there's
more of an understanding of balance versus going out and
eating crawfish and drinking beers with your buddies and ice
cream or whatever else they did back in the day.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
The reality is things are changing of course, speaking of changing,
I mean I'd like to change the topic here a
little bit more Bobby too. Let's let's focus on evaluations.
Let's focus on for you. And I've mentioned this to
our listeners. Like everyone in the NFL, who are really
really good at adept scouts know how to evaluate every position.
(32:39):
And we also most times and more times than not,
we have a position that we are kind of known
to focus on outside of our regular being. You know,
in the season, at least as a college scout, your
focus and your love and your passion definitely is defensive line.
When did you realize that's where you're kind of focus
and where your passion was? Was that something all three
(33:00):
year years of coaching or did that happen as a scout?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well, when I was in high school, I played middle linebacker,
but we had a defense where I dropped down and
played defensive tackle from like a five to three to
a six two. Okay, so I played a little defensive
tackle and but but my career was a linebacker, So
I've always been on defense. My very first year at Washington,
(33:24):
they another veteran Togy Turgasen and me played for the
Detroit Lions with Dick Lebou and those guys, so great
stories from him and George Allen. Uh So he taught
me defensive line play, and uh back then they called
him a rushman. That was a George Allen name that
(33:46):
and it's true today you know, you think about today, Hey,
we're just looking for pass rushers, right, Well, back then
George Allen was looking for interior rushman and exterior rushman,
you know, the edge rushers. Right, So that's what we
called him, the rushman. And uh, link was a guy
that when I was on the road with he was like,
you know, the innervator with drills and stuff. So I
got his tape, you know, so I kind of just
(34:10):
somehow I fell in, you know, a linebacker. But I
fell into defensive line in my first you know, as
a coach in the NFL. And you know, so really,
you know, whenever somebody wanted to crosscheck, I was always
doing defensive lineman. You know, it was natural for me
to do them. So I've been watching defensive lineman since
(34:31):
the late eighties. So there's a historical analysis when I
when I started looking at the player, I'm always thinking
to myself, well, who does he remind me? Of right,
it's most of these guys that come through somebody's come
before them, and there's there's a lot of similarities with
a lot of players that we talked about Aaron Donald
(34:52):
looking like Warren Stopp coming out, you know, and it
ended up being true. So you know, when I watch them,
I'm really watching until he reminds me of somebody. Because
if you can't remind me of somebody that played in
the NFL, it's probably not an NFL player, Bobby.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
That is such a good point, and we talk a
little bit. Here's our pitch on Sumer, right. We bring
together all of these incredible football people and we have
over five hundred years of experience, you being a very
important cog in the wheel, like we all are at
this at Suomer, with a lot of comparatives in our mind, right,
that pool of player to compare to. It's such an
important part of stacking boards, doing your own stacks at
(35:29):
positions your comparatives are vital. That's why we think what
we offer out in the community as a third party
is second to none, respectfully due to the other third
party companies out there, because of all the experience we have.
Right when you're a general manager picking up a Soomer
Scout report. You are reading from guys like Bobby to
Paul and Mike Mayock and Chuck Bresnahan and Phil Emery,
(35:53):
who are comparing to players that they've evaluated fifteen and
twenty years ago or two years ago. It's a vital
it's a vital win win for us. Look, how about
the must have traits for a defensive lineman? Can you
start us there? Like where do you start in that evaluation?
And work down for the listeners as far as how
you evaluate a d linman.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yeah, I'm kind of a simpleton with all of this.
I know, you know, we great traits here at Suomer Scout,
But really what I was taught years ago when I
first you know, I asked you Bobby Befer, Dick Daniels,
I said, you know, you know, how do you scout? Right?
He says, just write what you see? You know, these
(36:36):
guys were great. You know, you remember Bobby Buller and
he was like a surfer, you know, walking around with
shorts and T shirt, you know, and flip flops all
the time talking about surfing. He turns me him in,
Dick Daniels, He said, just right, what you see. You
can never be wrong when you write what you see.
So that's that's kind of how I came up through
the ranks, just right what I see a lot of times,
(36:58):
what happens is is you know that some young scouts
make the mistake of trying to figure out what everybody else.
You know, Hey, give me your opinion on what this
guy is. But that's the fatal mistake because what happens
is you start watching the tape, you start looking for
what you heard from this other guy, and it may
never be there, so you waste a lot of time.
Just get your own opinion, get your own convictions. Makes
(37:19):
it a lot easier to be able to stand on
the table and fight for somebody. So when I put
on the tape, I'm looking for a disruptor, run or
pass somebody that can create a new line of scrimmage,
get in the backfield and the rundown and get around
these big bodies that these offensive alignment and get back
(37:40):
to the pass rusher. So the first thing you're looking
for is does he have that initial movement, hand placement
and ability to be a disruptor, because that's an a
level type player for me, you know, And and those
are the guys that you're looking for, the impact type players.
And then and then the next thing I look for
(38:01):
is his range and his effort and his ability to
turn and chase the football, because defense is about gain taculing.
You know, there's a how many times you see a
defensive alignment turn and run to the sidelines, hit a
guy in the ball pops out. It's a game of turnovers, right, Defensively,
you you know, you don't stop guys in NFL. You
make them stop themselves by creating takeaways. Right, So how
(38:25):
do you get the takeaways? Guys turning and run of
the ball, right, and and and you know, hitting the
running back from the blindside and popping that ball out.
That's what you're looking for. Disruptors, effort and chase ability.
That's football.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Talk to me along those lines about you know, the
ability inside guys, the ability to you know, have that toughness,
that nastiness and the lateral leverage. My my words, you
may have a different approach to it to deal with
things coming at all sides. Right, it's a it's a
ruckous deal down inside, right, I mean, And that's a
(39:00):
legitimate area to be in of course, speak to that
if you don't mind.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Well, the number one thing you see from college to
pro okay, you know, and right away the first training
camp which we're all starting right about now, these college
players are understanding that the guys are bigger, faster, and stronger.
So technique, okay, is critical. Okay, And when I watch
(39:26):
a young player come into the league, they realize hand placement,
pad level, right is leverage. That's leveraging the National Football League.
If you've got a wide hand placement and you're standing up,
you're getting knocked on your back. I mean, it can
look bad, you know what I mean. So that's what
a lot of these young defensive the interior guys are
(39:47):
facing right now as we speak, coming into training camp
is realizing how important technique is pad level with hand placement,
and that's what you're seeing. And that's one of the
biggest things that you can okay, is hand placement, pad
level and being able to play with leverage. That's the
(40:07):
biggest difference that you see the college guys. You know,
they're bigger, faster, stronger, you know, the elite guys, and
they get away and they have lazy technique in college,
they get away with it. You see it all the time,
and when they get the NFL, they get punched in
the mouth and they learn, and then you know, they
get they start playing with more consistency, and that's how
(40:28):
you become better and make a lot of money down
the road.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Make a lot of money. So the difference in evaluating
players fifteen or twenty years ago interior d line related
to now? Can you comment on the change of evaluating
from those years of past to today.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Well, let's put it this way. When I played in
major college football, I played against Auburn University with Pad Dying. Okay,
you know the running backs were bo Jackson, Little Trained James,
and Tommy Yates. They ran the wishbone. Okay, so what
personnel was on the field. That's three running backs right
to one full back. Two running backs, one tight end.
(41:09):
Ron Middleton was the you know coach in the NFL
was the tight end I played against, and one receiver
and they ran their wishbone. Okay, fast forward today, what
do you see? Three and four wide receivers? The spread
attack right, So so defense is a game of reaction.
So now, because of the spread, what I see on
(41:30):
Saturdays and Sundays is pretty pretty similar now, so we're
getting better interior pass rushers being developed, right because of
the game game change. That's the biggest difference. It was
tight formations running the football. Now it's spread, right, So
what's the priority pass rushers? Okay, and that's what you're
(41:51):
that's what you're seeing. Uh, the biggest change. And you
got to play the run. Don't get me wrong, you
gotta play the run. But right now, seven percent of
football in the National Football League on defense is nickel personnel. Okay,
and that's four defensive linemen, two linebackers and five DB's.
Back then it was four defensive linemen, three sometimes four linebackers,
(42:16):
three deep eight man fronts, tight formations from the offense. Again,
it's a game of reaction. Now it's spread, it's spread out,
and the defensive lineman, you know, they got to get
up the middle. You know. The one thing about watching
pro football today the defenses that have that interior pressure.
(42:38):
And really Tony Dunjee was saying this years ago with
Lovely Smith with the Champa two. You know, so this
has been going on, but now everybody sees it. You know,
you want to deny the quarterbacks ability to step up
within the pocket, you know what I mean. So these
guys interiorly and if you you know conversely, hype is
a is a is a big deal. You know, being
able to get your hands up when you are blocked
(43:00):
be a distraction to that quarterback. You want to deny
the ability of that quarterback to step up in the
pocket and flush them.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Oftentimes people think the D line, Bobby, the interior D line.
You don't need this sound ability to have football intelligence.
You can just kind of hold the point. So debunk
that myth basically and tell tell the listeners how you
determine the intelligence lever level and or the football instincts
(43:30):
of an interior D lineman. But by the way, do
you feel that's a bunch of crap, like you need
to be smart as an interior defensive lineman football related?
I'd love your take on that.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Really, when you in terms of when I coach the
defensive line, believe it or not, because I played linebacker. Okay,
the number one thing you want to teach the defensive
guys is the pre snap breathe Right, You're teaching the
players on the defense, so you have to have you
have to have some intelligence to play this game. Okay,
(44:05):
but you know, you have guys that are high rep guys.
You got guys that don't need a lot of reps.
You got guys that you got to do walk through
to get the point across. Some guys can watch tape,
you can point it out to them. Some guys you
got to draw it on the board and show them
and then take them outside. So there when you're teaching, okay,
you're teaching all levels of intelligence. Players that are you know,
(44:26):
they're they're all learning different ways. So you learn those
techniques to teach. Okay, that's what we are, or we're
in my case as a coach, as a teacher first,
but saying that you want to have a good you
can you can watch tape during the week, and then
you could watch formations and you can pick up a
(44:46):
lot of things during the during the week that gives
you an advantage. Uh. Defensively, in the defensive line, there's
no difference from you know, in my mind, a linebacker
and a defensive alignment because if you stand them up
they can see, but down there you can see. You know,
weight on the hand, if there's a lot of weight,
as an example, if there's a lot of weight on
(45:07):
the hand in a three point stance from an offensive guard,
you think he's coming at you, or he's gonna set right.
If they're setting, it's gonna be less weight on that hand.
If he's gonna fire off the ball, there's gonna be
more weight on the hand. You can look at you know,
whether a guy's got a you know, his leg back,
his footstep back, because he's gonna he's already in a
preset alignment. So there's a lot of things intelligently that
(45:32):
you can teach a player. So when he gets out there,
you know, hey, he can see what's happening before it happens,
and that changes the front. You see these guys shifting
all the time. You see him talking to one another. Look,
these guys spend a lot of time watching tape and
learning what the guy in front of him is going
to do to them. There's a lot more going on
(45:55):
behind the scenes doing the work week than the average
fans sees. These guys do a I mean, that's why
you have an advanced scouting report, you know, and these guys,
the coaches do a great job. I mean I watched
I do the radio. I've been doing the radio for
four years in Baltimore. You know, watching the Baltimore Ravens
in one of the top defenses right now in the
National Football League. And when I watch a guy like
(46:17):
Rokwan Smith, right I'm telling you right now, there's no
way he can do the things he does unless he
studies tape all week. He is so quick in dissecting
and getting in turning and you can see him pointing
things out. And that's why, all of a sudden, when
the Ravens made that trade with the Bears, the defense
(46:38):
just got Everybody got better because of one player. And
you know you keep hearing about linebackers not having an impact, Well,
let me tell you something. Rokwand Smith the last two
years and you know in Baltimore has made everybody better.
And Justin Mattabuque is one of the top defensive tackles
(46:59):
in the National in a football league from his you know,
he got drafted in twenty twenty and here we are
twenty going into twenty twenty four. He just got a
huge contract because all of a sudden it came around
for him. There's nothing like having a player that is
like a coach on the field. Everybody plays better. And
when you find them and you can either draft them
(47:21):
or trade for them. You go get them because it
impacts everybody else and you can't put you can't put
a number on that.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Is it difficult to evaluate if you don't have that
background and defensive line, evaluate the interior d lineman's feel
for the game. Or is that something that you could
teach a young scout. I've always been curious about that
from your perspective.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Well, I think you could teach any and it's you know,
to me, I think you can teach anything. You know.
You does not have never met a coach that doesn't
think you can teach somebody, right, you know, you and
you know obviously it's a lot easier to teach somebody
who has natural feel and natural instincts. Right, But you
have a system, you know, it's a process, right, we
(48:08):
have a process. We have traits that were grading. Okay,
we we kind of simplify it the way we do
it because we're grading each trade. So our traits were
put you know, you guys put the traits together with
some highly confident people and intelligent people to simplify what
we're doing. And so when we do these traits, okay,
(48:29):
and we great them. The way we do the you
can't help but learn over time. You know, somebody asked
me one day, they said, you know, when you're dealing
with you know, if somebody asked you they were wanted
to get involved in football, what would you tell young scout.
I'd say, don't do it. And they're like, what, you
(48:49):
don't want to do it? I say, yeah, don't do it.
It's too grind. It's too much of a grind. There's
too much heartache. You can get fired. Okay, your family
is always at risk. I said, don't do it. Now.
If you want to do it, I got one book
for you. Okay, I've done seminars. I actually buy books
online and I bring the books with me. Okay. And
(49:12):
there's this one book out there written by a guy
named Malcolm Gladwell. And Malcolm Gladwell wrote this book and
I just I don't know how I found it. I
just read the whole book. I think I read it
in two days. It was so unbelievable. It's such a
big impact on me because it was called Outliers. And
in this book he studied success. Well, you're from Canada,
(49:36):
here's how he created this. You know, had the idea
to write this book. He was out of hockey game, okay,
and he was looking at the roster and he saw
everybody was born in January, February, and March. And you know,
he's like, why was this? You know, he's an intelligent guy,
He's like, so he investigated it. Right. Well, it turns
out in hockey in Canada, you start on if you're born,
(49:58):
you know, in this year, you play hockey, right, So
the guys that were born in January are competing against
guys that were born in December at the end of
the year, so their growth maturity level is greater. So
over time, what he was saying was is that guys
would fall out because they just couldn't compete. That's why
when you look at the hockey you see January, February,
(50:19):
March over all the rosters. Right. So he started studying success, right,
and you looked at the Beatles. There was a lot
of articles, you know, a lot of it written about
the hours that they put in. But anyway, make a
long story short, he came up with a number ten
thousand hours. You don't become a master of the trade
(50:39):
unless you put in ten thousand hours, Okay, you had
a number ten thousand hours. So I tell these young scouts,
I said, you want to do this, you start watching
tape right now, because it's a race against the club.
You if you're not a master until you watch ten
thousand hours worth of tape to develop your trade. Right,
So start watching tape. And it's long. It's a grind
(51:01):
because it's you learn endurance and you learn focus, and
the focus piece is what studying the traits that we
lay out there for you. So, yeah, can we train them.
We can train them, but just remember it takes ten
thousand hours before you're a master.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Fantastic commentary on everything we discussed, Bobby. I really appreciate it.
I love your insight. I love talking with you, whether
it's live at our draft meetings or whether it's on
the phone. We don't get a chance to talk that much,
of course, because you guys are so busy evaluating, and
this is a busy time for you right now before
we check off here. I know, I don't want to
(51:39):
put you on the spot about selling Soomer Sports, but
the reality of Soomer Sports and Sumer Scout is a
very big part of what we've done at Suomer Sports,
right adding the internal scouting staff. Right, we don't go
out and look for other scouts opinions from the teams.
The teams can come to the table with their own
internal scout, but they are potentially becoming clients of SUOMER
(52:03):
because they are interested in seeing what our third party
group provides as far as scouting, as far as grades,
as far as stacking of players and positions, et cetera,
et cetera. You've been in this now a year with
us at SUMER. Any commentary that you want to share
that you think is important for people to know. I
mean it could be other head coaches or general managers
(52:25):
or personnel directors. You know, as far as what you
perceive as you know, the positives of dealing with SUOMER
Sports moving forward in a personnel sort of space.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Well, as a coach, you teach your players to watch
tape during the week. Why do you do that? Because
you want them to be familiar with the opponent. You
teach them to study the opponent, So familiarity is the
key to being successful. Well that also, you know you
can say the same thing about scouting. Well, you know,
(53:01):
Chuck Bresnahan just came more on board with us and
you know, just knocking the rust off, just having chit
chat between one another. And what I tried to tell
them was is that, you know, don't try to be
right right out of the gate. A scouting report evolves
because the more information you have, the more games you watch,
(53:22):
when you get the height, weight and speed, you you know,
as this goes, especially watching the college player, because when
we first start watching the college player always is to
take We don't even know their height, weight, speed, We
don't have their character, we don't have a lot of things. Okay,
there's a lot of spokes in this wheel to figure
out what a great player is. But so you so
the report will evolve. So evolving is more familiarity with
(53:47):
the player and your grades will change. So don't fight it.
Accept it. It's part of the process. And so what
I would say to the other NFL teams is think
about what we're saying, what I'm saying right now. More
the better you are and the more familiar you are
with a player. Okay, what we bring to the table
(54:09):
is all these years of experience we can draw from
past knowledge on other players that played in the National
Football League, and we're going to bring you closer to
that familiarity with that player, so you can have the
same success of wo quand Smith has on the field
when he watches the tape and he can impact what
(54:31):
happens on the field for the Baltimore Ravens. It's the
same thing scouting, playing coaching.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Do you think there is any replacement for experience. I mean,
the reason I say that is because there are a
lot of up and coming young guys in this business
that we've all been. We've been there, We've helped people
along the way. I mean, Bobby De Paul was known
in this league for being a really good source and
a mentor for a lot of young guys.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
And you know that You've You've.
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Been real There's a lot of guys out there would
cast aside, right, I don't have time for this. You've always
taken those guys under your wing, and it's appreciated around
the league. So I appreciate that too. You and I
never got a chance to do that, of course, however,
I've heard it from a lot of guys. Some of
the people that even on our staff had dealt with
you in those early years where you were bringing them
(55:20):
along and able to edify them on the process. I
think that's fantastic. Some people out there think, well, Scout's
a scout. You had a couple of years under your belt,
or three or four years, it's the same as if
you have thirty years. Last comments not to throw darts
at anyone experience versus you know, the young passionate scout.
(55:40):
Can you comment on that as far as again, what
sumer brings to the table, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
Think in my case why I had had that reputation
is because how I was brought up. You know, the
old schools, coaches and scouts. You know, they'll tell you, look,
you can never pay me back, but you can always
pay forward. Right, And so you you can't go out
and reading a book out of scout, right. You know.
(56:09):
I know there's courses out there now and guys are
trying to bring it to you, but you know, this
isn't This is about experience, okay. And uh you know
from my standpoint, getting that, you know, working with young
people is because I'm just trying to help them be successful.
You know, the way somebody helped me be successful. You know,
(56:31):
we're we're entrusted with passing on the knowledge Okay that
we've gained over the year. The last thing I want
to do is be put six feet in the ground
without people knowing what I know because somebody taught me.
So that's you know, that's kind of a code of
our business, and that's what's you know, what you've done
(56:52):
here at Zuomer and compiling all this experience, and you've
heard me say before, I have no problem working with
anybody that wants to get better because that makes the
game better and better everybody is the more they respect
one another, you know, anythink it comes down to that,
it's just old school and it's just a matter of
(57:15):
the culture that you were brought up in, you know.
I mean, look at the look you worked for Bill Belichick.
I mean he was a young coach when I was
a young coach, believe it or not, and he was
started a little bit earlier, but you know, not too
far ahead of me, you know. So you know how
Bill is. I mean, this is this is about work.
You got to work at it. If you want to
(57:35):
be great, you got to put into time and you
got to sacrifice. And that's why I said I said
it earlier. I said, when the young coach scout comes
up to me, I said, I say, don't do it.
Don't do it. There's life, you know, now that I've
been in and out of football, you know, playing golf
every day wasn't all that bad either, there no Thomas,
you know it was. You know, It's just it's a
(57:59):
great life outside in football, you know. But don't tell
anybody that. No.
Speaker 1 (58:03):
Look, I completely agree on the golf side. What I
would say, parting here right now, Bobby is Bobby to Paul,
another unbelievably historic figure in the National Football League. And
we carry people right those of us who have been
around a long time, and you have when I say historic,
SUMER has a lot of historic, unbelievably experienced football men
(58:25):
who are imparting their wisdom regarding coaching of course in
your case, as well as scouting. I mean to me,
it's just such a special group of people, and I
really again want to thank you for being a part
of it, because you are going to be a difference
maker and what we're doing at SUMER and what we
are doing providing the NFL. This is a league that
(58:45):
you know, is evolving, and it's a combination of subjective
scouting and the objectivity side of what we're doing at
Sumer and again I think it's a no brainer regarding
you know, joining Sumer in somewhere another, because it is
it is. It is a changer, a game changer in
my mind. Thank you, Bobby, to.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Paul okay, great talking to you. Thomas
Welcome everyone to SUMER Scout Deep Dives with the most
esteemed guests that we've had so far, and that is
Bobby de Paul, the Bobby de Paul that everyone in
this league knows. Bobby de Paul, very very talented football man,
incredibly conversing in all elements of football. And Bobby, by
the way, I'm I'm beyond excited about having you on
(00:26):
this staff as we've worked together since you know we
kick this off, right, I mean, it was something to
bring in really talented football people to discuss football, to
get evaluations, but also to get really good feedback on
the direction of our organization at SUMER Sports. Let's talk
background of football first, though, Bobby, because I think that's
invaluable for the listeners to hear. What first interested you
(00:49):
in football?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, when I grew up, it was in the suburbs
of Washington, d C. Okay, and fortunately for me, our
next door neighbor's dad actually you know, went to University
of Alabama and you know, he was a football night. Okay,
so it was my ended up being my first football coach.
But you know, he as soon as we could walk,
(01:14):
you know, we're out there playing football in new Yard, Okay,
And you know that's how we started. We started training
early and often, and you know whenever when you were
young growing up, I mean you ring the bell, you
went in for dinner. You know, that was when the
game was over, you know. So, but I'll never forget
My first exposure to the NFL was that if you
(01:37):
recall that maculate reception by the Steelers, you know, frank o'harris,
you know what I'm saying. So my actual first jersey,
or one of my first jersey's recollection is number thirty two.
That's why I wore number thirty two because of that
immaculate reception, and that was my you know, we got
called in, Hey you got to see this? No no, no, no,
(01:59):
we go in. We see it and it was unbelievable,
you know, just watching it bounce back and then Franko
running in. But that was my jersey number, and that's
how it all started. And so I was probably like,
you know, six years old, you know something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Well you think about that. Did you know that defense
was your passion or offense was just playing everything? Did
you play both ways? Coming up through high school? Grade
school and high school? Were you just a football fiend,
Like we did. You just love the sport as you
were growing up through the years.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, I, you know, I was always bigger than everybody else,
and so I always had to play with guys that
were like three years older than me. I mean, for
whatever reason, I'm like, I was like five to eleven,
you know, right out of the gate. And so the competition,
it wasn't the kids that I grew up with, it
was the older kids. And you know, I played both ways.
(02:54):
You know why I had thirty two I played. I
always envisioned myself being, you know, five to eleven, two
hundred pounds playing running back, you know, coming up, but
I played linebacker and full back. Ended up being a
full back.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I got recruited at a public school eighth grade. I
was too big to play boys club back then, your tenth, eleventh,
and twelfth was public school high school. So I'm sitting
here and you know, heading in the ninth grade without
the ability to play football. It's too big, you know,
for the boys club. So I got recruited to a
Catholic high school, you know in Washington, d C. And
(03:30):
then if you're familiar with the Washington, D C. Area,
that's the top football, you know, the Catholicic, the MATHA
high school. You hear about Chase Young, you hear, you know,
Saint John's, that's these are all the powerhouses. And my
high school was Archbishop Carroll High School. The coach there
he was like Bear Bryant, you know, six decades. So
that's where you know, I kind of jumped up the
(03:52):
next level. Uh, you know, I can't graduated. You know,
we went four straight championships in the Catholicic. That's hard
to do. Uh. And in the modern day, uh, you
know around here, you know, I still keep track of it.
Four straight years. We only lost one game in four years.
I mean we you know, we were a pretty good team.
(04:14):
And I always you know, Mike Mayock, he's he's one
of the guys that you know, we work with here.
And his roommate at Boston College is with older brother,
one of the kids that played quarterback. And we got
recruited at the Boston College. You know, when I was
sophomore and went to Boston College and Doug Flutie and
that type of thing. So I had a lot of
(04:36):
great players up there, and Barry Gallup and you might
remember Barry Gallup. You know, he recruited us. We stayed
at his house. Okay, he was young, you know, he's
a young recruiter. We stayed at his house. You know,
he got us a case of beer. We all passed
out at you know, Heartbreak Hill, you know, the marathon
and stuff. So it's a great high school experience. I
ended up, you know, heading the University of Maryland and uh,
(04:58):
you know Bobby Ross who was former NFL coach and
special teams coach and ended up going back into the
NFL for the Chargers. So you know, it's just one
of those things you just happened to be at the
right place at the right time, and and it was
a good fit. We talked about it all the time,
what's the best fit? And I was the best fit
in high school, went to college, started a middle linebacker.
(05:21):
You know, my teams we went three ACC championships, Boomers Siazon,
had great quarterbacks. We just happened to be throwing the
ball more when everybody else was running. You know, at
the time it was us into Miami Hurricanes that were
throwing the ball back then, and uh, you know that's
that's how that's how it all started. You know, it's
it's it's been a it was a fun ride as
(05:42):
a player, right and uh, you know, just moved into
coaching scouting, and you know it's been been a long ride.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
So tell me about that a little first aside, bear
with me on this strong Italian family. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Half Irish half Italian? That's a rough all the time.
You know, you got the best of both worlds. You
got the lucky the Irish during the day and you
know you got the Italian lover at night. Okay, so
she's happy.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
No, I love that.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
So thinking about that, you ate, well, you were always
you were always primed and ready to go when you
were playing all the way. Of course, as you said,
you were a bigger guy, so you were always on
the top end of everything. So anyway, I find that
interesting because I love digging into the background of people
and how they managed through their neighborhoods and the food
they ate and the kids they invited over to their
house to eat some really good food at your house,
(06:34):
et cetera, et cetera. I'm sure that was the case
as you moved through the ranks of the NFL. Can
you talk about that ascension fairly briefly about you know
where you landed at first? I think you said San Diego, correct, Well.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Bobby Ross was the head ended up being at San
Diego as the head football coach. I what happened to
me when I went to University of Maryland. There were
you know, I was just like any other kid. I
thought I was playing in the NFL. Okay, Yeah, you
play high school, you start three years, you're the best player, uh,
coming out of the Washington d C. Maryland, Virginia area.
(07:07):
You know, you get the big award, you get a scholarship,
you go to college. I'm starting as a you know,
true sophomore, and uh, you know you're thinking you're going
to the NFL. And a lot of people thought that
at the time. But then I had a career in
the ending knee injury, okay, and that kind of sets
you back. You know, you don't that's something you don't
plan for, you know, you just kind of accept it.
(07:28):
Bobby Ross was great about it. Was heading into my
senior year and he made me an undergraduate assistant coach
my senior year. So that's kind of how I got
into coach. And I remember reading John Madden Book, and
he said, you know, if you can't live without football,
become a coach. You know. So that's what I did.
You know. I was just a typical kid growing up.
(07:49):
Never we never my dad was a mailman. I actually
saw my dad graduate from high school. You know. He
was a poor kid, married my mom fortunately moved to Washington,
d C. From New Jersey one hundred percent of Italian,
you know, just kind of worked his way up. I mean,
worked two jobs. So you know, we were we had
my mom raised four boys, so you know it was sports.
She needs she needed to get us, you know, doing something,
(08:11):
you know. And uh so that's what we did. Uh.
And I got into coaching. And when I was at Maryland.
Uh two former you know, two NFL coaches sons played
at Maryland, Richie Pattabaum and Dan Henny all right, you
might m him and he was at the Atlanta Falcons
at one time. But so I didn't want to be
(08:32):
a GA when I graduated, I wanted to coach. So
I went to Catholic University. I started coaching. It was
a Division three program, white in Rushington, d C. Right
down the street from my high school. I got a
call one day out of the blue, you know, laying
in bed. My roommates say, hey, Bobby Bethard's on the phone.
I'm like Bobby Bethard, he's a general manager of the Redskins,
you know. So he calls over. He says, I want
(08:55):
you to hire my son, Kurk Kirk Bethar and uh,
you know, do him a favor. So I hied. And
then a couple of years later, I got a call
for Bobby Bethett again. He goes, hey, we need a
young coach. He goes, you're interested. You know, he's wanted
to return the favor. So I go from Division III
right uh, to the Washington Redskins at the time, and
you know, and I grew up. I'm a third generation Washingtonian,
(09:18):
so you know, I'm you're a Redskin fan. It was
the heyday. You know, you got the Hogs and everybody.
You know, you're you're thinking super Bowl, you know, right
out of the gate. I mean that's if you're in.
You're not in the Super Bowl. It's a failure around
there at the time, you know. So I was twenty
six years old. I was one of the youngest assistant
coaches in the National Football League at the time, So
(09:38):
you know I got That's how I got in it.
And uh, you know, it was just being at the
right place at the right time, doing the right things,
staying out of trouble and working. And I remember when
I interviewed with Joe Gibbs, he goes, we had no computers.
He goes, how's your printing. I looked at him and said,
my printing. He says, yeah, you got to print the
game plan for us, for the coaches and stuff, and
(10:01):
then xeroxy and ended having on the sidelines. So I
was one of the prerequisites, is Mike printing. That's how
far back I go in the late eighties, you know,
at the beginning. So just uh, you know, you look
back at it, it's just like I can't believe it happened,
you know. You know, anybody you know that works in
(10:23):
the NFL understands it's a privilege, and uh, you know,
you you take it, you run with it as far
as you can go.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And Bobby, as you moved through the ranks in the NFL,
so you were in coaching for a number of years,
and you can take us through that as well, and
then tell us about that transition into scouting and how
why and how you became you know, immersed in the
in the player personnel side of the NFL.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Well, I coached for five years. Joe Gibbs retired at
a young age. You know. I mean we when I
worked there for five years, I slept on a cop
for five years. I didn't go home, you know. And uh,
and he worked. We worked at it and uh, and
that that's how it was back in the day. Guy
just worked. We didn't make a lot of money, but
we loved it, you know. And uh and and we
(11:12):
knew how to compete, and we just outworked the opponents.
You know. Joe Gibbs said, I'm not a genius. I
just you know, I just outworked guys, you know. So
that was kind of our mentality. You know, we just
outworked the other guys, you know, in our minds. Obviously
we had great players too, but you know, when you
get at that level, you got to have you know,
you got to have some strategy involved at some point.
(11:33):
But so I started off coaching. I thought I was
going to be a coach, just like I thought I
was going to be a player. Uh, Joe up and
d you know, retired. I thought I could hang on there.
And it was funny because I spent my whole life
in Washington, d C. I never left, you know. I
got recruited Maryland. I stayed at Maryland. You know, I'm
now I'm coaching Catholic, which is in d C. Then
(11:55):
I go over to Washington. I never left, never left
the DC area. So they made a change with the
head coach, Richard Pattabone, who was an interim coach for
one year, and they hired North Turner. And I remember
going to Charlie Castley and I said, hey, I said, Charlie,
you think George Allen's rolling over in his grave right now?
(12:15):
I said, I'm I'm a Washingtonian here. You're hiring a
Dallas cowboy. You're running all the Redskins out of here.
So I left. I packed my office. I had no job.
I walked out and Larry Peccatello was the whole time
Redskins coach and NFL coach for thirty years. He was
heading the Cincinnati and you know, I just jumped on
(12:37):
the you know, jumped in my car and went to
Cincinnati with Larry Pecatella and Dave Shuler was a young coach,
you know. So I can remember when my first trip
to the Combine, it was all these old guys and
it was Jeff Fisher and Dave Shuler, right, So when
I jumped at the opportunity to go work with Dave,
I mean he was like thirty two year olds at
(12:58):
the time. He was the youngest guy, you know. I
was only like twenty eight, twenty nine. So I went
with Peck and you know, I started coaching at the Bengals,
and you know, I kind of you was working with
the defense line Tim Krummer. I was a player coach
type guy. So we were working together and we became
good friends. And it's just a really great experience because
(13:21):
what happened was in Cincinnati. As you know, Thomas, they
didn't have a lot of scouts. You know, Mike Brown
put it all on us. I mean, when season's over,
we were on the road. I was in Palo Alto
at the East Restaurant at the time. It was in
San Francisco. We were going and we were on the
road from that right to the Senior Bowl, right to
the Combine, and then we were working guys out across.
(13:42):
I mean I would leave and my wife was like,
it's got two young kids. I'm on the road for
three straight months. We wouldn't come back until the draft
to set our board and draft. But you know, that's
when I really started get in getting into scouting, you know,
in transitioning and Dave obviously we didn't you know, we
finished five hundred, got fired. Uh, I left, got thrown
(14:06):
out with Dave, and so I ended up at the
Philadelphia Eagles in the front office. And back then it
was a lot different the coaches who got fired. They
put him in the front office. You know what I mean,
to just watch the UFAs you know, we were kind
of moving into the free agent market. So I was
watching tape and I had I found a love for scouting.
(14:30):
And of course when I was trying to get a
scout a job, they oh, you're a coach, you know,
you know you're just doing this. I said, no, I
want to do it, and uh, you know, we got lucky.
We hired Andy Reid. We had tremendous success with Andy
right out of the gate. And you know, of course
the front office has changed over. So I had a transition.
I got lucky again. I got Jerry Angelo, you know,
(14:53):
hit me up. I didn't even know. Jerry Angelo hits
me up, you know, takes me the Chicago as the director.
You know. He was like, I had nobody to hire.
It seemed like, you know, it's like I was the
only guy you can hire, you know. So I said, well,
I'm just an interview with Marty Shott and hire her,
and you know, and uh, you know, I'm in the office.
(15:15):
I was actually in the office at Washington John Schneider.
I said, hey, I said, John, do you know Perry
Injeley goes, Yeah, he just got the Chicago Bears job.
I said, he's calling me, man, it's double my salary.
He goes, Usually we like to keep a guy around
for a year or two. He says, we can't fait
that kind of money. I said, I'm going to leave
(15:35):
and I'm gonna call you back. So calling him back,
I said, hey, I'm going to Chicago. So so that's
that's kind of, you know, kind of how it all happened.
It just got lucky, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
So, I mean amazing. You've been around some big time
football people, and I know it's tough to narrow down
on this, Bobby, but when you think about your ascension
through the NFL. Take take aside the high school coaching
and maybe even college coaching. Who was the most influential
leader that you took leadership principles and approach to football
(16:07):
away from during your ascension through the NFL. And if
you could share with the listeners, what was the salient
piece of advice that you would give along pass along
from whoever led you the most obviously the most influential
leader in your career in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Well, like I said, I had a dual career. So
in coaching, obviously I was the right hand man for
Joe Gibbs, you know what I mean. He was the
offensive coordinator, the head football coach. He had to handle
the owner, he had handled the media. So they had
a role where I was called the administrative assistant assistant
defensive line coach. Okay, so I had to handle the
(16:45):
basically in today's world it's called daily football operations, you know, schedules,
just you know, I'd handle the uh, you know, the
notes for the meetings. You know, back then we had
overhead projection screens. You know, I'd had the things made
up so he could go right through all his meetings.
So I was taught the administrative things, you know, from him,
(17:07):
you know what I mean, working with him. But I
was also on the defensive side of the ball. So
back then, you know, my first day on the job,
I was called into the defensive coordinator's office, Richie Potted Bone,
and he says, hey, you know, I'm going to introduce
you to somebody who's going to look out for you.
That's how it was. So incomes Emma Thomas. Okay, who's
(17:29):
Mma Thomas Hall of Fame corner for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Played for Hank Strand back in the old day. So
brings in Emmett. He said, Emmett, this is my guy,
look out for him. Me and Emmett walk out. We're
there working together for five years. We broke all the
takedown together. Off season, we played golf every day, and
(17:50):
you know, off season in the NFL back then, at
twelve o'clock you were out of the building playing golf
with the players right battling, you know, competing, always competing.
So me and Emmett were always out there, and I
the same age as all the players, so you know,
we all got along great. So Emmett really, you know,
had that impact on me as a football coach, understanding
(18:11):
defense in the NFL, designing coverages that are being used today.
Matter of fact, the award for the top NFL secondary
coach in the National Football League is named the Emma
Thomas Award. Okay, so that guy had a tremendous impact
across a lot of people, not only me in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Bobby, Bobby, let me just interject because I love that
because Emmett, as you well know, I mean, shed light
on so many things for you in your transition, probably
just talking about football, defensive secondary, et cetera, et cetera. Right,
we know that, and an amazing guy. He was with
us at Atlanta. The one thing I know he didn't
teach you how to do was travel and planes because
(18:53):
he has a disdain for being on aircrafts, right, And
we used to make light of it only because the
poor guy just hated flying. Do you remember that part
of him or not?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Well, you know, all our traveling didn't start for me
until after I left and got to Cincinnati, so we
you know when we were in uh and basically what
he was, you know, the way he was brought up
was like me at first, Hey, the scouts did all
the scouting for us. You know, Bobby Butler had a
tremendous staff, right, and they did. They told her, they
(19:26):
you know, we just told them what we were looking
for and they found him. I mean, it was great
working relationships. I mean we had Dick Daniels, I mean,
Mike Hagan. You know, we had a tremendous scouting staff.
You know, one thing about working for an owner like
Jack can Cook is that we had the best money
could buy and coaching and scouting. You're talking Bobby but
(19:48):
He's in the Hall of thing, right, so she got
him in the fall thing. So you just had an
all star cast. And so we never really traveled. You know,
we were on vacation. Season was over. I'm down in Florid,
the you know, playing golf, you know, and then we
come to the combine and you know, we would just
crosscheck and we would be good to go. The scouts
(20:09):
did everything. It was a great working relationship.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
So that scouting idea again, moving from coaching to scouting
and your passion growing and growing more and more towards
like I want to evaluate players tell us about you know,
this is often asked whether you're at a bar or
whether you're at a wedding. Who Bobby was your favorite
bang on the table football player that you scouted through
all your years.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Well, before I answer that question, I just want to
go back to the scouting situation, because, like I said,
I had a dual career, so I had these mentors
over there and then I had the college mentors. Right,
So it was Dick Daniels, it was Bobby Bethert. And
the guy you used to work with who actually gave
him a high school scholarship out of college to a
University of Marylor was Jake Hallum. Okay, so he kind
(20:53):
of transitioned to right from coaching and his you know
later years. He was a scout for the Eagles and
then he joined you guys up in New England. But
that's the guy that knew me since I was sixteen
years old, right, So if you know Jake, I mean
he's in your ear twenty four hours a day. He
never you know, got rest his soul. But this guy
was always on, you know, staying on top of me.
(21:14):
He was at Philadelphia with Emma Thomas when I transitioned
from you know, coaching to to the Eagles, you know,
in my career. But uh, you know bang the table. Okay.
You know, look, there's so many players over the years.
But you know, I was out one year and I
(21:37):
get a call from Ray Farmer. This is a great story, Okay.
Ray says, hey, I wanted you to cross check the
defensive board. So he's good. He sends me one hundred
and fifty guys. Okay. It started in like, I don't know, March,
March first, something like that. So I've got one hundred
and fifty guys. We're talking defensive line, linebackers, safeties, corners,
(21:59):
their whole dref board, and I don't know who they like, Okay.
I hear nothing, okay, and so I just start watching
the tape, so I do all the whole board. So
now you know, I would just be sending information to
Ray and the staff. Never hear anything from anybody, okay.
So I finally he got close to the draft, so
(22:21):
I said, Ray, the number one guy on my board
is Aaron Donald. Okay. They had a high pick, right,
and I'm like, this guy's you know, he's Warren Sap.
I even I even told, I told somebody, I said, well,
Lovey Smith's going to take this guy at Tampa Bay.
I said, you know, he had two guys Booge, McFarland,
Warren sap right. I'm like, he's looking at what I'm looking.
(22:43):
We had worked together in Chicago, so I'm thinking, oh, yeah,
if you don't take him, Tampa Bay is going to
take the guy. So then so you know, I'm on
the table friend. But then I but then, because I
did all the defensive players, I said, and if you
don't like this guy, okay, I said, Ray, I said,
(23:04):
the guy I really like is this receiver for Texas
A and M named Mike Evans. I said, the wrong guy.
Now you gotta remember, I don't know who they're picking.
And I said it, ray, I said, Ray, I said,
the wrong guy got the Heisman trophy. I said. Johnny
Manzieux used to drop back and just throw the ball
up in the air, and Mike Evans would come flying
(23:25):
through the air like a I even gave him a nickname.
You know, I said, he's the terrordactyl. I got a
picture of a terodactyl with the wide wingspan, and I
put I found a picture with Mike Evans, and I said,
coming soon to the Cleveland Browns. The terrordactyl, Right, because
you know, I was up there with Detroit and they
had a nickname for the great receiver. I forget the
nickname was, but he was like a weapon up there
(23:47):
for the Detroit Lions. But anyway, I literally sent him
a picture and he called finally calls me up, laughing.
You know, you know Ray, he's laughing. I said, yeah, Ray,
I said, this guy nobody could up. I watched all
the receiver, I mean, all the corners, all the safeties.
I said, this guy's unbelievable. They wrong guy, not thinking
that they were going to pick the guy. You know,
(24:09):
and obviously there's a lot of a lot of politics
involved with the owner, you know, Southeastern Conference guy, so
and you know, quarterbacks or quarterbacks, and everybody wants a quarterback.
So I get it. But boy, you talk about two
guys in that draft that you jump on the table
for and look where they are today. You know, Aaron
(24:30):
and you know they're Shue Hall of famers.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Oh those are easy, easy, And it's amazing because you've
seen some great players over your years, whether evaluating as
a scout or as a coach being involved. So to
talk about these two guys, that's a that's a really
great story thinking about how how they've affected everything. So
if you know productively right, when you think about Aaron Donald,
I mean, how many people were naysayers about Aaron Donald?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
You know?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Well everybody you know, for whatever reason, when a guy short, right,
there's an issue there for some of these guys, you know,
they want length, the defensive arned coaches, they're brought up,
they want six four sixty five. They want that length.
And I understand it because you want the length because
(25:15):
you want the versatility right to play inside and outside, right,
And that's kind of what they're looking for. But there
are exceptions, Okay, Warren Sapp, Lauri Glover, Elis Johnson. I
could go right down the line. When I was in Philadelphia,
we had a young scout, Mark Ross. He was just
learning how to scout, and you know, we were good friends.
(25:36):
And he comes to my office. We just hired Tom Modrak,
and Tom gave him a signment. You know, he was
going to be the first area guy. I felt bad
for him. I could see it, you know in his eyes,
you know, you know that look right with the young guys,
I gotta watch these defensive tackles, you know, can we
sit and watch tape together. And you know, we watched
tape together and we came across Corey Simon right a
(26:00):
Florida state and he was little, just fits that mode short.
So I know he're back from Mark Ross. And then
it's like right before the draft, he comes in my office.
He goes, I can't get him out of the second round.
I looked at him. I said, what do you mean
you can't get him out of second round? We need
this guy, we need a three technique. He goes, they
say he doesn't fit the average you know, the average
(26:22):
height weight. I said, well, what do they got over there?
He goes six five twenty pounds. I looked at him
and I said, stop right there. I said, I'm going
to give you three names right now. Leroy Glover, okay,
War's and Elis Johnson. And you tell John Goler he
just drafted Elis Johnson at the Indianapolis called okay, and
go put him on the board. Okay. So mayoelel story short.
(26:45):
Cory Simon gets drafted in the top ten with the
Philadelphia Eagles. Okay, But I realized what the problem was.
They just have the average for the height, weights and
speeds of the players, right, and that's the National Football League.
And I turned to him, I said, we're going to
fix this problem. I said. What we're going to do
is not I said, if you sit there and you
(27:08):
want to keep drafting average, you're you're gonna build an
average football team. I said, So what we're going to
do from this point forward is we're going to take
the top ten players, the Pro Bowl players at their position,
and we're going to take the average of the best
players okay, at their position. So our height, weights and
(27:28):
speech from that moment forward, we're more geared towards the
best players. So we went the average of the best
as opposed to the average, because if you do the average,
you're going to build an average football team. And that's
kind of how we do that today here at Summer Sports.
We have to we do the top ten, top blue players,
(27:50):
the impact players, and that's the average that we use today.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Yeah, that's exactly right. We could talk on and on
about this before we go into talking about evaluation of
defensive line. I'm Bobby, give me one story that sticks
out in your mind, one scouting story for the masses
to hear from Bobby to Paul. That is unmatched. Something
that stands out in your mind doesn't have to be
the evaluation of player. It could be a travel story.
(28:15):
It could be in the building story or anything very curious.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Well, like I said, when you work for the Cleveland Brown,
I mean for the Cincinnati Bengals and Mike Brown. Anybody
that's worked for the Bengal organization, and Mike Brown knows
all about and this might be breaking news out there.
The American Express Card. Okay, Mike Brown gave each coach
an American Express Card. So my first year on the
(28:43):
road evaluating defensive armor for the Bengals, I run into
a coach named Bob Carmrilla Witzcott, rust Issol, another guy
that passed away, a great coach, and he worked for
Mike Brown. He knew about the American Express Card. Right,
and Mike is dad Paul Brown, obviously founder, one of
the founders of the NFL. He knew about sacrifices, being
(29:05):
away from your family, and he when he handed you
the car and he said, I want you to get
a good meal. I know you're traveling, you're sacrificing, you
know for me, my organization. I want you to make
sure you get a good meal, and we were always
on flights and stuff. The Bengal coaches were always the
workout guys back then, you know, because the Scouts wanted
that consistency. You know, we had a routine. So we
(29:27):
were traveling. I never had a time chance to eat.
But this one day we were down at northeast Louisiana
and Bob Carbelowick goes, you got the cart. I looked
at him. I say, I got the car. He goes,
when are you leaving? I said, I'm not leaving until
the morning. You know, it's tough to move in and
out of Louisiana. He goes, all right, he goes, let's
(29:47):
get everybody here. We're going to dinner tonight. I said,
where are we going? He goes, you ever had crawfish?
I said, never heard of crawfish. I'm from the city, man,
I'm from Washington, d C. I said, what do I
know about Maryland crabs? He goes, oh, so we had
a whole crew and he takes us to this hillbilly
hanging out. I mean right, I mean it was in
like the movies. You know, they start bringing out every
(30:10):
different crawfish meal at t Fay. You know, just I mean,
we were sitting round on a river. It was almost
like they were just reaching in and pulling out and
putting it. We had piles of craw fishing, all different meals.
Right of course we're drinking beers. I mean, it could
it had to been three four hours. Okay, out comes
the American Express card well taken care of. Everybody's happy,
(30:31):
you know. I mean we're talking a couple of scouts,
a couple of coaches from other teams, and you know,
that's just the way it was back then. When I
came up, we had great comrader It didn't matter what
team you were with. Okay, everybody kind of knew everybody.
And then you know that for the most part, today
it's pretty pretty much. But back then, you know, you know,
(30:52):
guys got alan with one another. You know, we we
rooted for each other, but we competed, but we rooted
for each other because we like people. It was a
people business. Okay, probably more back then than it is now,
you know, but what a great experience having it. You know,
oh those crawfish things, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Well, you're so right. The fraternity then was so strong
as we all grew up in it. I mean, you
and I I was in it. I'm in twenty eight
years in the NFL, and I think about it, and
I think about all the names you're bringing up. Some
of our listeners may maybe many of them don't know.
John Gohler, God rest his soul, right, prematurely has cardiac
arrests and obviously passes on. There are some great personnel
(31:35):
men and gms over the years that we all knew
we worked with on the road. They became successful. Others
maybe not as successful, But no doubt about the people
that became Those guys you know in those leadership roles
at the core, were really solid football men evaluators. Right,
So I get your point on that. It's heartwarming. Again.
(31:55):
I've said this a number of times. My dad was
one of those guys that was on the road for
many many years, passed away way too young. I don't
think the business beats you up that much. I do, however,
think there is an importance for balance today. Maybe there's
more of an understanding of balance versus going out and
eating crawfish and drinking beers with your buddies and ice
cream or whatever else they did back in the day.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
The reality is things are changing of course, speaking of changing,
I mean I'd like to change the topic here a
little bit more Bobby too. Let's let's focus on evaluations.
Let's focus on for you. And I've mentioned this to
our listeners. Like everyone in the NFL, who are really
really good at adept scouts know how to evaluate every position.
(32:39):
And we also most times and more times than not,
we have a position that we are kind of known
to focus on outside of our regular being. You know,
in the season, at least as a college scout, your
focus and your love and your passion definitely is defensive line.
When did you realize that's where you're kind of focus
and where your passion was? Was that something all three
(33:00):
year years of coaching or did that happen as a scout?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well, when I was in high school, I played middle linebacker,
but we had a defense where I dropped down and
played defensive tackle from like a five to three to
a six two. Okay, so I played a little defensive
tackle and but but my career was a linebacker, So
I've always been on defense. My very first year at Washington,
(33:24):
they another veteran Togy Turgasen and me played for the
Detroit Lions with Dick Lebou and those guys, so great
stories from him and George Allen. Uh So he taught
me defensive line play, and uh back then they called
him a rushman. That was a George Allen name that
(33:46):
and it's true today you know, you think about today, Hey,
we're just looking for pass rushers, right, Well, back then
George Allen was looking for interior rushman and exterior rushman,
you know, the edge rushers. Right, So that's what we
called him, the rushman. And uh, link was a guy
that when I was on the road with he was like,
you know, the innervator with drills and stuff. So I
got his tape, you know, so I kind of just
(34:10):
somehow I fell in, you know, a linebacker. But I
fell into defensive line in my first you know, as
a coach in the NFL. And you know, so really,
you know, whenever somebody wanted to crosscheck, I was always
doing defensive lineman. You know, it was natural for me
to do them. So I've been watching defensive lineman since
(34:31):
the late eighties. So there's a historical analysis when I
when I started looking at the player, I'm always thinking
to myself, well, who does he remind me? Of right,
it's most of these guys that come through somebody's come
before them, and there's there's a lot of similarities with
a lot of players that we talked about Aaron Donald
(34:52):
looking like Warren Stopp coming out, you know, and it
ended up being true. So you know, when I watch them,
I'm really watching until he reminds me of somebody. Because
if you can't remind me of somebody that played in
the NFL, it's probably not an NFL player, Bobby.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
That is such a good point, and we talk a
little bit. Here's our pitch on Sumer, right. We bring
together all of these incredible football people and we have
over five hundred years of experience, you being a very
important cog in the wheel, like we all are at
this at Suomer, with a lot of comparatives in our mind, right,
that pool of player to compare to. It's such an
important part of stacking boards, doing your own stacks at
(35:29):
positions your comparatives are vital. That's why we think what
we offer out in the community as a third party
is second to none, respectfully due to the other third
party companies out there, because of all the experience we have.
Right when you're a general manager picking up a Soomer
Scout report. You are reading from guys like Bobby to
Paul and Mike Mayock and Chuck Bresnahan and Phil Emery,
(35:53):
who are comparing to players that they've evaluated fifteen and
twenty years ago or two years ago. It's a vital
it's a vital win win for us. Look, how about
the must have traits for a defensive lineman? Can you
start us there? Like where do you start in that evaluation?
And work down for the listeners as far as how
you evaluate a d linman.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yeah, I'm kind of a simpleton with all of this.
I know, you know, we great traits here at Suomer Scout,
But really what I was taught years ago when I
first you know, I asked you Bobby Befer, Dick Daniels,
I said, you know, you know, how do you scout? Right?
He says, just write what you see? You know, these
(36:36):
guys were great. You know, you remember Bobby Buller and
he was like a surfer, you know, walking around with
shorts and T shirt, you know, and flip flops all
the time talking about surfing. He turns me him in,
Dick Daniels, He said, just right, what you see. You
can never be wrong when you write what you see.
So that's that's kind of how I came up through
the ranks, just right what I see a lot of times,
(36:58):
what happens is is you know that some young scouts
make the mistake of trying to figure out what everybody else.
You know, Hey, give me your opinion on what this
guy is. But that's the fatal mistake because what happens
is you start watching the tape, you start looking for
what you heard from this other guy, and it may
never be there, so you waste a lot of time.
Just get your own opinion, get your own convictions. Makes
(37:19):
it a lot easier to be able to stand on
the table and fight for somebody. So when I put
on the tape, I'm looking for a disruptor, run or
pass somebody that can create a new line of scrimmage,
get in the backfield and the rundown and get around
these big bodies that these offensive alignment and get back
(37:40):
to the pass rusher. So the first thing you're looking
for is does he have that initial movement, hand placement
and ability to be a disruptor, because that's an a
level type player for me, you know, And and those
are the guys that you're looking for, the impact type players.
And then and then the next thing I look for
(38:01):
is his range and his effort and his ability to
turn and chase the football, because defense is about gain taculing.
You know, there's a how many times you see a
defensive alignment turn and run to the sidelines, hit a
guy in the ball pops out. It's a game of turnovers, right, Defensively,
you you know, you don't stop guys in NFL. You
make them stop themselves by creating takeaways. Right, So how
(38:25):
do you get the takeaways? Guys turning and run of
the ball, right, and and and you know, hitting the
running back from the blindside and popping that ball out.
That's what you're looking for. Disruptors, effort and chase ability.
That's football.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Talk to me along those lines about you know, the
ability inside guys, the ability to you know, have that toughness,
that nastiness and the lateral leverage. My my words, you
may have a different approach to it to deal with
things coming at all sides. Right, it's a it's a
ruckous deal down inside, right, I mean, And that's a
(39:00):
legitimate area to be in of course, speak to that
if you don't mind.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Well, the number one thing you see from college to
pro okay, you know, and right away the first training
camp which we're all starting right about now, these college
players are understanding that the guys are bigger, faster, and stronger.
So technique, okay, is critical. Okay, And when I watch
(39:26):
a young player come into the league, they realize hand placement,
pad level, right is leverage. That's leveraging the National Football League.
If you've got a wide hand placement and you're standing up,
you're getting knocked on your back. I mean, it can
look bad, you know what I mean. So that's what
a lot of these young defensive the interior guys are
(39:47):
facing right now as we speak, coming into training camp
is realizing how important technique is pad level with hand placement,
and that's what you're seeing. And that's one of the
biggest things that you can okay, is hand placement, pad
level and being able to play with leverage. That's the
(40:07):
biggest difference that you see the college guys. You know,
they're bigger, faster, stronger, you know, the elite guys, and
they get away and they have lazy technique in college,
they get away with it. You see it all the time,
and when they get the NFL, they get punched in
the mouth and they learn, and then you know, they
get they start playing with more consistency, and that's how
(40:28):
you become better and make a lot of money down
the road.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Make a lot of money. So the difference in evaluating
players fifteen or twenty years ago interior d line related
to now? Can you comment on the change of evaluating
from those years of past to today.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Well, let's put it this way. When I played in
major college football, I played against Auburn University with Pad Dying. Okay,
you know the running backs were bo Jackson, Little Trained James,
and Tommy Yates. They ran the wishbone. Okay, so what
personnel was on the field. That's three running backs right
to one full back. Two running backs, one tight end.
(41:09):
Ron Middleton was the you know coach in the NFL
was the tight end I played against, and one receiver
and they ran their wishbone. Okay, fast forward today, what
do you see? Three and four wide receivers? The spread
attack right, So so defense is a game of reaction.
So now, because of the spread, what I see on
(41:30):
Saturdays and Sundays is pretty pretty similar now, so we're
getting better interior pass rushers being developed, right because of
the game game change. That's the biggest difference. It was
tight formations running the football. Now it's spread, right, So
what's the priority pass rushers? Okay, and that's what you're
(41:51):
that's what you're seeing. Uh, the biggest change. And you
got to play the run. Don't get me wrong, you
gotta play the run. But right now, seven percent of
football in the National Football League on defense is nickel personnel. Okay,
and that's four defensive linemen, two linebackers and five DB's.
Back then it was four defensive linemen, three sometimes four linebackers,
(42:16):
three deep eight man fronts, tight formations from the offense. Again,
it's a game of reaction. Now it's spread, it's spread out,
and the defensive lineman, you know, they got to get
up the middle. You know. The one thing about watching
pro football today the defenses that have that interior pressure.
(42:38):
And really Tony Dunjee was saying this years ago with
Lovely Smith with the Champa two. You know, so this
has been going on, but now everybody sees it. You know,
you want to deny the quarterbacks ability to step up
within the pocket, you know what I mean. So these
guys interiorly and if you you know conversely, hype is
a is a is a big deal. You know, being
able to get your hands up when you are blocked
(43:00):
be a distraction to that quarterback. You want to deny
the ability of that quarterback to step up in the
pocket and flush them.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Oftentimes people think the D line, Bobby, the interior D line.
You don't need this sound ability to have football intelligence.
You can just kind of hold the point. So debunk
that myth basically and tell tell the listeners how you
determine the intelligence lever level and or the football instincts
(43:30):
of an interior D lineman. But by the way, do
you feel that's a bunch of crap, like you need
to be smart as an interior defensive lineman football related?
I'd love your take on that.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Really, when you in terms of when I coach the
defensive line, believe it or not, because I played linebacker. Okay,
the number one thing you want to teach the defensive
guys is the pre snap breathe Right, You're teaching the
players on the defense, so you have to have you
have to have some intelligence to play this game. Okay,
(44:05):
but you know, you have guys that are high rep guys.
You got guys that don't need a lot of reps.
You got guys that you got to do walk through
to get the point across. Some guys can watch tape,
you can point it out to them. Some guys you
got to draw it on the board and show them
and then take them outside. So there when you're teaching, okay,
you're teaching all levels of intelligence. Players that are you know,
(44:26):
they're they're all learning different ways. So you learn those
techniques to teach. Okay, that's what we are, or we're
in my case as a coach, as a teacher first,
but saying that you want to have a good you
can you can watch tape during the week, and then
you could watch formations and you can pick up a
(44:46):
lot of things during the during the week that gives
you an advantage. Uh. Defensively, in the defensive line, there's
no difference from you know, in my mind, a linebacker
and a defensive alignment because if you stand them up
they can see, but down there you can see. You know,
weight on the hand, if there's a lot of weight,
as an example, if there's a lot of weight on
(45:07):
the hand in a three point stance from an offensive guard,
you think he's coming at you, or he's gonna set right.
If they're setting, it's gonna be less weight on that hand.
If he's gonna fire off the ball, there's gonna be
more weight on the hand. You can look at you know,
whether a guy's got a you know, his leg back,
his footstep back, because he's gonna he's already in a
preset alignment. So there's a lot of things intelligently that
(45:32):
you can teach a player. So when he gets out there,
you know, hey, he can see what's happening before it happens,
and that changes the front. You see these guys shifting
all the time. You see him talking to one another. Look,
these guys spend a lot of time watching tape and
learning what the guy in front of him is going
to do to them. There's a lot more going on
(45:55):
behind the scenes doing the work week than the average
fans sees. These guys do a I mean, that's why
you have an advanced scouting report, you know, and these guys,
the coaches do a great job. I mean I watched
I do the radio. I've been doing the radio for
four years in Baltimore. You know, watching the Baltimore Ravens
in one of the top defenses right now in the
National Football League. And when I watch a guy like
(46:17):
Rokwan Smith, right I'm telling you right now, there's no
way he can do the things he does unless he
studies tape all week. He is so quick in dissecting
and getting in turning and you can see him pointing
things out. And that's why, all of a sudden, when
the Ravens made that trade with the Bears, the defense
(46:38):
just got Everybody got better because of one player. And
you know you keep hearing about linebackers not having an impact, Well,
let me tell you something. Rokwand Smith the last two
years and you know in Baltimore has made everybody better.
And Justin Mattabuque is one of the top defensive tackles
(46:59):
in the National in a football league from his you know,
he got drafted in twenty twenty and here we are
twenty going into twenty twenty four. He just got a
huge contract because all of a sudden it came around
for him. There's nothing like having a player that is
like a coach on the field. Everybody plays better. And
when you find them and you can either draft them
(47:21):
or trade for them. You go get them because it
impacts everybody else and you can't put you can't put
a number on that.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
Is it difficult to evaluate if you don't have that
background and defensive line, evaluate the interior d lineman's feel
for the game. Or is that something that you could
teach a young scout. I've always been curious about that
from your perspective.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Well, I think you could teach any and it's you know,
to me, I think you can teach anything. You know.
You does not have never met a coach that doesn't
think you can teach somebody, right, you know, you and
you know obviously it's a lot easier to teach somebody
who has natural feel and natural instincts. Right, But you
have a system, you know, it's a process, right, we
(48:08):
have a process. We have traits that were grading. Okay,
we we kind of simplify it the way we do
it because we're grading each trade. So our traits were
put you know, you guys put the traits together with
some highly confident people and intelligent people to simplify what
we're doing. And so when we do these traits, okay,
(48:29):
and we great them. The way we do the you
can't help but learn over time. You know, somebody asked
me one day, they said, you know, when you're dealing
with you know, if somebody asked you they were wanted
to get involved in football, what would you tell young scout.
I'd say, don't do it. And they're like, what, you
(48:49):
don't want to do it? I say, yeah, don't do it.
It's too grind. It's too much of a grind. There's
too much heartache. You can get fired. Okay, your family
is always at risk. I said, don't do it. Now.
If you want to do it, I got one book
for you. Okay, I've done seminars. I actually buy books
online and I bring the books with me. Okay. And
(49:12):
there's this one book out there written by a guy
named Malcolm Gladwell. And Malcolm Gladwell wrote this book and
I just I don't know how I found it. I
just read the whole book. I think I read it
in two days. It was so unbelievable. It's such a
big impact on me because it was called Outliers. And
in this book he studied success. Well, you're from Canada,
(49:36):
here's how he created this. You know, had the idea
to write this book. He was out of hockey game, okay,
and he was looking at the roster and he saw
everybody was born in January, February, and March. And you know,
he's like, why was this? You know, he's an intelligent guy,
He's like, so he investigated it. Right. Well, it turns
out in hockey in Canada, you start on if you're born,
(49:58):
you know, in this year, you play hockey, right, So
the guys that were born in January are competing against
guys that were born in December at the end of
the year, so their growth maturity level is greater. So
over time, what he was saying was is that guys
would fall out because they just couldn't compete. That's why
when you look at the hockey you see January, February,
(50:19):
March over all the rosters. Right. So he started studying success, right,
and you looked at the Beatles. There was a lot
of articles, you know, a lot of it written about
the hours that they put in. But anyway, make a
long story short, he came up with a number ten
thousand hours. You don't become a master of the trade
(50:39):
unless you put in ten thousand hours, Okay, you had
a number ten thousand hours. So I tell these young scouts,
I said, you want to do this, you start watching
tape right now, because it's a race against the club.
You if you're not a master until you watch ten
thousand hours worth of tape to develop your trade. Right,
So start watching tape. And it's long. It's a grind
(51:01):
because it's you learn endurance and you learn focus, and
the focus piece is what studying the traits that we
lay out there for you. So, yeah, can we train them.
We can train them, but just remember it takes ten
thousand hours before you're a master.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Fantastic commentary on everything we discussed, Bobby. I really appreciate it.
I love your insight. I love talking with you, whether
it's live at our draft meetings or whether it's on
the phone. We don't get a chance to talk that much,
of course, because you guys are so busy evaluating, and
this is a busy time for you right now before
we check off here. I know, I don't want to
(51:39):
put you on the spot about selling Soomer Sports, but
the reality of Soomer Sports and Sumer Scout is a
very big part of what we've done at Suomer Sports,
right adding the internal scouting staff. Right, we don't go
out and look for other scouts opinions from the teams.
The teams can come to the table with their own
internal scout, but they are potentially becoming clients of SUOMER
(52:03):
because they are interested in seeing what our third party
group provides as far as scouting, as far as grades,
as far as stacking of players and positions, et cetera,
et cetera. You've been in this now a year with
us at SUMER. Any commentary that you want to share
that you think is important for people to know. I
mean it could be other head coaches or general managers
(52:25):
or personnel directors. You know, as far as what you
perceive as you know, the positives of dealing with SUOMER
Sports moving forward in a personnel sort of space.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Well, as a coach, you teach your players to watch
tape during the week. Why do you do that? Because
you want them to be familiar with the opponent. You
teach them to study the opponent, So familiarity is the
key to being successful. Well that also, you know you
can say the same thing about scouting. Well, you know,
(53:01):
Chuck Bresnahan just came more on board with us and
you know, just knocking the rust off, just having chit
chat between one another. And what I tried to tell
them was is that, you know, don't try to be
right right out of the gate. A scouting report evolves
because the more information you have, the more games you watch,
(53:22):
when you get the height, weight and speed, you you know,
as this goes, especially watching the college player, because when
we first start watching the college player always is to
take We don't even know their height, weight, speed, We
don't have their character, we don't have a lot of things. Okay,
there's a lot of spokes in this wheel to figure
out what a great player is. But so you so
the report will evolve. So evolving is more familiarity with
(53:47):
the player and your grades will change. So don't fight it.
Accept it. It's part of the process. And so what
I would say to the other NFL teams is think
about what we're saying, what I'm saying right now. More
the better you are and the more familiar you are
with a player. Okay, what we bring to the table
(54:09):
is all these years of experience we can draw from
past knowledge on other players that played in the National
Football League, and we're going to bring you closer to
that familiarity with that player, so you can have the
same success of wo quand Smith has on the field
when he watches the tape and he can impact what
(54:31):
happens on the field for the Baltimore Ravens. It's the
same thing scouting, playing coaching.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Do you think there is any replacement for experience. I mean,
the reason I say that is because there are a
lot of up and coming young guys in this business
that we've all been. We've been there, We've helped people
along the way. I mean, Bobby De Paul was known
in this league for being a really good source and
a mentor for a lot of young guys.
Speaker 2 (54:58):
And you know that You've You've.
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Been real There's a lot of guys out there would
cast aside, right, I don't have time for this. You've always
taken those guys under your wing, and it's appreciated around
the league. So I appreciate that too. You and I
never got a chance to do that, of course, however,
I've heard it from a lot of guys. Some of
the people that even on our staff had dealt with
you in those early years where you were bringing them
(55:20):
along and able to edify them on the process. I
think that's fantastic. Some people out there think, well, Scout's
a scout. You had a couple of years under your belt,
or three or four years, it's the same as if
you have thirty years. Last comments not to throw darts
at anyone experience versus you know, the young passionate scout.
(55:40):
Can you comment on that as far as again, what
sumer brings to the table, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
Think in my case why I had had that reputation
is because how I was brought up. You know, the
old schools, coaches and scouts. You know, they'll tell you, look,
you can never pay me back, but you can always
pay forward. Right, And so you you can't go out
and reading a book out of scout, right. You know.
(56:09):
I know there's courses out there now and guys are
trying to bring it to you, but you know, this
isn't This is about experience, okay. And uh you know
from my standpoint, getting that, you know, working with young
people is because I'm just trying to help them be successful.
You know, the way somebody helped me be successful. You know,
(56:31):
we're we're entrusted with passing on the knowledge Okay that
we've gained over the year. The last thing I want
to do is be put six feet in the ground
without people knowing what I know because somebody taught me.
So that's you know, that's kind of a code of
our business, and that's what's you know, what you've done
(56:52):
here at Zuomer and compiling all this experience, and you've
heard me say before, I have no problem working with
anybody that wants to get better because that makes the
game better and better everybody is the more they respect
one another, you know, anythink it comes down to that,
it's just old school and it's just a matter of
(57:15):
the culture that you were brought up in, you know.
I mean, look at the look you worked for Bill Belichick.
I mean he was a young coach when I was
a young coach, believe it or not, and he was
started a little bit earlier, but you know, not too
far ahead of me, you know. So you know how
Bill is. I mean, this is this is about work.
You got to work at it. If you want to
(57:35):
be great, you got to put into time and you
got to sacrifice. And that's why I said I said
it earlier. I said, when the young coach scout comes
up to me, I said, I say, don't do it.
Don't do it. There's life, you know, now that I've
been in and out of football, you know, playing golf
every day wasn't all that bad either, there no Thomas,
you know it was. You know, It's just it's a
(57:59):
great life outside in football, you know. But don't tell
anybody that. No.
Speaker 1 (58:03):
Look, I completely agree on the golf side. What I
would say, parting here right now, Bobby is Bobby to Paul,
another unbelievably historic figure in the National Football League. And
we carry people right those of us who have been
around a long time, and you have when I say historic,
SUMER has a lot of historic, unbelievably experienced football men
(58:25):
who are imparting their wisdom regarding coaching of course in
your case, as well as scouting. I mean to me,
it's just such a special group of people, and I
really again want to thank you for being a part
of it, because you are going to be a difference
maker and what we're doing at SUMER and what we
are doing providing the NFL. This is a league that
(58:45):
you know, is evolving, and it's a combination of subjective
scouting and the objectivity side of what we're doing at
Sumer and again I think it's a no brainer regarding
you know, joining Sumer in somewhere another, because it is
it is. It is a changer, a game changer in
my mind. Thank you, Bobby, to.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
Paul okay, great talking to you. Thomas
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