Things seem slow so as promised the second true story.
I don't remember the year but you can all figure it out easily enough I think.
I had been doing my scouting for several years, not sure how long not something at the time I thought significant. Very little information was published in any form back then about college players except there stats. Less on scouts and what they did so I simply created a system for keeping track of the players and their ratings. My own numerical system for rating a player, also a positional break down from top to bottom and a big board for all positions. It seemed the only way to figure out who should be available and who you would want to draft by the pro teams. Now back then injuries and discipline problems or behavior problems next to never were discussed or published publicly. So I was in the dark if a player had a injury problem that concerned pro teams same about behavior. My numeric system was unlike what the pro teams did as well.
However I had a few guys back there that were starting to get into the scouting aspect of the draft. You could talk to the most devoted fan back then and they had no clue who should get draft except a name like Namath. With their prodding I contacted all the pro teams sending them in a a decent sized sampler of what I worked up had for the coming draft. Who should get draft, when and a drop down list of players by position.
Of course very quickly I received form letters from all the teams but one telling me no position openings in their scouting departments. The final team was the Buffalo Bills it was a month or more before I received a letter from them. It was also a denial but not a form letter. They thanked me telling me they had no openings at this time, but they were putting it on file for future references.
Well I did not think much about it at the time as it was a no thank you. Frankly I was not surprised I was self taught my system immediately looked different and I nothing to show for experience, just a break down of the coming draft with a drop down list and big board drop down I mass mailed the teams. Also some individual break downs some players fleshed out.
Then came the draft and sometime after maybe a week when I had calmed down about the Bears choices I went back and looked at what I had sent the teams. It was then I realized why the Bills letter was different and that I was actually probably on file. The only way I can tell you the year for the draft, as again it did not strike me as significant at the time was, it was the year Thurman Thomas was drafted by the Bills.
Every single player the Bills draft that year was included in my abbreviated list I sent the teams. Every single player they took was on there and list as to when I felt they should be drafted along with the big board drop down list. They were all taken where I would have taken them. I only came close to that once for the Bears. I was a little shocked as I had no idea who the Bills or any other team but the Bears should be drafted and where.
So yeah I understood why they decided to at least stick my name in a file. No I was never contacted and only found out 3 -4 years ago everything I created for my system save the individual numbering for rating individual players was precisely they the systems the teams have. Thank you NFL network.
That told me I had an idea of what to look for and tried to get better at it every year until my health made me stop about 4 years ago.
For what is worth to any of you who might be interested and sorry it is so long.
