With the draft approaching quickly, it’s the time of year when we get the famous/infamous Bob McGinn anonymous scout slander-fest, in which old men give their unvarnished opinions on the young men about to embark on their NFL careers after reaching the absolute pinnacle of the college game. Unvarnished opinions like, “The mom is a problem” about Missouri receiver Luther Burden. How is Luther Burden’s mom a problem exactly? We’ll never know for sure, but this is hardly the only character assassination in McGinn’s piece. Of top receiver prospect Tet McMillan, one scout wrote:
“He’s a really immature kid. He’s a poster child for this NIL shit. They kiss his ass to get him to stay and then they do what they want.”
This is the kind of behind-the-scenes tidbit that only a seasoned, cigar-chomping boomer who didn’t appreciate the Super Bowl half time show, and also isn’t entirely sure who was in the Super Bowl halftime show in the first place, can provide.
As a rule of thumb, everyone should understand that when a person is giving you their opinion, that opinion generally provides greater insight into the nature of the person giving it than it does on the actual topic in question, and at this point McGinn’s scouts are really and truly ancient cliches, coming back to the same, tired points. They also don’t actually seem to understand young people, or football. They make the same mistakes year after year, they’re sloppy, and they have almost no rigor to their opinions. And of course, many are tarnished by certain societal factors that really, really cloud their judgement.
For example, in this year's wide receiver column, one anonymous scout wrote the following on TCU’s Jack Bech:
“He’s got a big radius and he goes and gets the ball. He’s aggressive. He’s physical. Looked like the (Alec) Pierce kid that plays for the Colts. I liked him better than Pierce coming out.”
While a different anonymous scout wrote, literally one sentence later:
“Reminds me of Cooper Kupp,” said a third scout. “He’s quick as can be. His routes, he just knows exactly where he’s going. Has good feet and body control. He can make plays when he’s outside, too.”
Hoo boy. I mean…OK, let’s start with this. Here’s a picture of Jack Bech, Cooper Kupp, and Alec Pierce.
I’ll bet you’re all glad you had some heavily tapped-in anonymous scouts to tell you why these guys are all similar. Who else but a highly trained scout, or your inebriated uncle at the Thanksgiving table, could have possibly provided us with such valuable, actionable intelligence?
There is so much wrong with this, but the biggest single thing is that you won’t find two players more dissimilar than Cooper Kupp and Alec Pierce!
You cannot be like both of these guys! It’s impossible! Alec Pierce is a big (6-3), athletic (9.84 RAS, 4.41 40), deep threat who plays almost exclusively outside. Cooper Kupp is a smaller (6-1, 204), shiftier player (5.49 RAS overall, but elite shuttle and 3-cone), who has played 64% of his NFL snaps in the slot, but can move outside as well, (and is a ferocious blocker). It’s also pretty unfair to compare anyone to Cooper Kupp who, in 2021 had one of the top five wide receiver seasons of all time and has been one of the best slot receivers in the game when healthy.
Do you know who is a good comp for Alec Pierce? I do, because when Alec Pierce was drafted I compared him to Christian Watson, who was in the same class, and like Pierce, a tall (6-4), athletic (9.96 RAS, 4.38 40), vertical threat.
Pierce is also Watson’s number four RAS comp overall, because of course he is. And since they both entered the league in 2022, Pierce leads all receivers (min 150 targets) at 17.6 yards per catch. Marquez Valdes-Scantling is second (17.2) followed by Watson (16.9). Now that’s a good comp. And not a difficult comp! They are similar sizes and speeds, and did many of the same things in college!
Bech is short but stout at 6-0, 214, with good explosion and agility, but he hasn’t run yet, and so his RAS is incomplete, and while he seems destined for the slot (again, not Alec Pierce), he lined up out wide 71.8% of the time in his final season at TCU. I actually like Bech quite a bit, and I give a boost to prospects in my own rankings for players who played outside in college but will likely move inside in the NFL. I call it the Jayden Reed rule, as I underrated Reed coming out of college because his numbers were slightly depressed playing outside. Live and learn. Before we move on I feel compelled to mention that the McGinn Scout comp for Ladd McConkey last year was Hunter Renfrow, because of course it was. And just for the record, if I was absolutely forced to provide a comp for Bech, here’s who it would be as I think they have pretty similar games.
Then again, I could be wrong, and perhaps we should cut Bob’s scouts some slack here. I personally think comps are dangerous, and more likely to get you into trouble than bring clarity. They are more of an art than a science, and not always black and white.
The Next Jerry Rice
The other big problem with comps (especially among scouts) is that the players who jump to mind are often elite, because elite players are memorable and famous. Cooper Kupp is one example of that, but it’s rampant across McGinn columns. In McGinn’s recent tight end post, under number one prospect Tyler Warren, one scout wrote:
“He’s not Travis Kelce that’s fast and quick in his routes. But you kind of forget how big he is. He’s got (Rob) Gronkowski size, and for that size he’s a good athlete.”
This is obviously a bad idea. Travis Kelce and Rob Gronkowski are two of the best tight ends to ever play football, and there is no reason to compare any but the absolute best prospects to either of them. But under the profile on Miami’s Elijah Arroyo we find:
“Warren’s a better blocker, Arroyo’s a better athlete,” another scout said. “Arroyo’s in the Kelce camp, Warren’s in the Gronkowski camp.”
NO. STOP. And let me just say, I LOVE Arroyo as a prospect, but this is VERY unfair. Other unfair comps in recent McGinn pieces include:
Mike Evans for Tet McMillan
Cordarelle Patterson for Savion Williams
Davante Adams for Elic Ayomanor
Tee Higgins for Quentin Johnston
Larry Fitzgerald for Marvin Harrison, Jr.
Ceedee Lamb And DJ Moore for Malik Nabers
“A better route-running AJ Brown” for Rome Odunze, who also got a Davante Adams comp
Tyreek Hill for Xavier Worthy
Plaxico Burress for Brian Thomas
Anquan Boldin, Tee Higgins, Keenan Allen, Cooper Kupp, Allen Robinson, and Davante Adams for Keon Coleman
Sterling Sharpe and DK Metcalf for Xavier Legette
Cooper Kupp for Ricky Pearsall
Garrett Wilson for Roman Wilson
And as always, for Luther Burden and Malachi Corley, we have Deebo Samuel.
Now, a player like Malik Nabers might live up to that lofty billing of both CeeDee Lamb and DJ Moore in terms of production as he appears to be awesome, but again, is a comp like this fair or helpful? Lamb (who is a better athlete than his combine numbers indicate) and Moore are very different players. These comps are honestly just confusing.
This Guy Isn’t Much of an Athlete
One of my favorite prospects in the upcoming draft is Jayden Higgins out of Iowa State. He’s big (6-4, 214), he posted a fantastic 9.92 RAS, and while his 2024 season was pretty good, his 2023 was sublime. Anyway, Higgins is sixth on McGinn’s list and the profile is genuinely quite positive, however near the end (and not in quotation marks, so possibly from McGinn himself) we have:
“His 40 time of mid-4.5’s at the combine was somewhat disappointing considering that two scouts expected him to run in the 4.4’s.”
This quote may seem fairly benign, and even insightful as a prospect not living up to expectations can often signal an injury, or a proper lack of preparation. Except:
Yeah. He ran a 4.47, which is “in the 4.4s.” This one might just be careless, but it’s not uncommon for the McGinn scouts to vastly misjudge the athleticism of a prospect. One of my personal favorites is the profile on Tucker Kraft:
“Kind of an average athlete but has good hands, good RAC, good strength and power,”
And also:
“Wasn’t productive, slow, not a great blocker for that level. He’s just OK.”
First of all, Tucker Kraft is objectively one of the best athletes to play the position.
He posted a 9.67 RAS with elite marks in every category. But even if you don’t look at combine results, or care a lick for RAS, I have no idea how anyone could look at Tucker Kraft’s college film and come away unimpressed. My only hold-up with Kraft was level of competition, as he played at South Dakota State, but when I do see lower-division prospects, what I’m looking for is ass-kicking, and Kraft was an ass-kicker. A true man among boys. Here, watch, it’s fun! Just a big boy dragging people all over the field. I don’t know about you, but he looked plenty athletic to me, and his combine performance just confirmed it.
“Wasn’t productive, slow” is the most wrong anyone could possibly be in three words on Tucker Kraft’s college career.
Conclusion
I’m not sure what McGinn and company really offer nowadays. Anonymity may allow for some extra candor (about your mom) but it also comes with a lack of accountability, and given how much is objectively wrong in McGinn’s scout columns, I think it’s fair to question whether they have any use at all. Public tape gurus may, in some cases, lack the chops of seasoned NFL professionals, but they also almost all will give you insight into their process, with far greater transparency, and given the advances in technology and the availability of video, including coaches video, the gap is far narrower than it once was. Perhaps scouts are still useful for those less tangible, off-field/personal red flags, but shouldn’t they come from people who better relate to the athletes themselves?
As Jon pointed out in his post, there has always been something of a dirty undercurrent with McGinn (please do read Jon’s post, especially the part on former Packer TE Andrew Quarless), and as time has moved on, his scouts have grown more out of touch and sloppier. There is better information available to all of us, and at this point, you can safely ignore him.
Maybe it’s his mom’s fault.