Inside the NFL Draft Process: Insights from a Veteran Sports Agent with Joe Flanagan

On this week's Dealer Out of Office, hosts Jake and Frank sit down with NFL sports agent Joe Flanagan for a behind-the-scenes look at the business side of professional football — from draft-day phone calls to undrafted free agent signings to the rapidly shifting landscape of NIL in college recruiting.

The vibe is classic OOO: no script, no filter, and a perspective most fans never get to hear.

From Notre Dame to the Agent's Chair

Joe Flanagan didn't grow up planning to become an NFL sports agent. At Notre Dame, he was surrounded by elite athletes, guys whose futures were being shaped by decisions made in rooms they weren't in. He saw the recruiting pitches, the behind-the-scenes negotiations, and the business machinery that moved underneath the game. Most people around it just watched. Joe paid attention.

That attention became a career. He went from the sidelines at Notre Dame to the other end of draft-day phone calls — representing players through combines, pro days, and the most stressful 48 hours of their professional lives. And when the seventh round ends and the cameras shut off, that's when Joe's real work starts: finding homes for the guys nobody called.

What Really Happens on Draft Night

For fans, the NFL Draft is a three-day television event. For Joe Flanagan, it's the final move in a chess match that started months earlier. Film study, combine prep, phone calls with front offices, and the constant positioning that determines whether a client hears his name on Saturday night or doesn't hear it at all.

Draft weekend from the agent's chair isn't glamorous. It's a hotel room, a phone that either rings or doesn't, and conversations with GMs that can shift a player's entire future in a single sentence. Joe knows the weight of those moments  the calls that come in at pick 180 and the silence that follows pick 257. Both sides of that experience shape how he prepares his guys long before the first round ever starts.

The Undrafted Free Agent Path

Some of the best careers in professional football started with silence on draft night. No phone call. No green room moment. Just a player, his agent, and a very short window to find a team willing to take a chance.

Joe has walked that road with clients more than once. The draft ends, and within minutes the undrafted free agent market opens — a chaotic sprint where landing the right situation matters more than anything. The wrong team buries a guy on a roster he was never going to crack. The right team gives him a real shot at a practice squad, a training camp rep, and eventually a locker with his name on it. Joe knows the difference, and he's learned it costs nothing to be the last name called — as long as you end up in the right building.

Frank Zombo is proof. He went undrafted, signed as a free agent, earned a roster spot with the Green Bay Packers, and won a Super Bowl. He didn't get there because someone believed in him on draft night. He got there because he believed in himself the morning after, and every morning after that.

Option 2

When the seventh round ends and the broadcast cuts to commercial, that's when Joe Flanagan's phone lights up. The undrafted free agent window is short, chaotic, and unforgiving — and for the players in it, the next few hours will determine whether they get a real chance or no chance at all.

Joe has guided clients through that exact moment. Finding the right fit isn't just about who calls first — it's about which roster has a real opening, which coaching staff will give a young player a look, and which situation gives a guy the best odds of still being on the team when September hits. A bad fit can end a career before it starts. A good one can launch it.

Nobody in the room knows that better than Frank. He went undrafted out of college, signed as a free agent, and worked his way onto a roster that won a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers. The draft didn't want him. He made the league want him anyway.

NIL Is Changing Everything and It's Only Getting Started

NIL changed the game and Joe has watched it happen in real time. Name, image, and likeness deals have reshaped how high school recruits pick schools, how college programs build rosters, and how the entire path from campus to the NFL operates. The old playbook is gone.

From Joe's seat, the shift is complicated. NIL has given athletes the ability to earn what they're worth before they ever go pro and that part, he doesn't argue with. But it's also introduced a layer of noise that didn't exist five years ago. Recruits making decisions based on deals instead of development. Programs competing with checkbooks and palm tree farms instead of coaching staffs. An entire generation of young athletes navigating business decisions before they've taken a college snap. Joe sees both sides clearly, and he doesn't pretend the answer is simple.

The Business of Being a Sports Agent

Nobody grows up dreaming about the paperwork side of professional football. But that's where Joe Flanagan lives, in the everyday details that aren't glamorous but determine whether a career lasts two years or twelve.

Being an NFL agent means being part career strategist, part financial planner, part therapist, and part scout — often in the same phone call. Joe manages draft prep, contract negotiations, marketing deals, and the day-to-day reality of keeping a player's career on track in a league that moves on without warning. And the compensation isn't what most people assume. NFL agents are capped at three percent of a player's contract. For a late-round pick or an undrafted free agent on a minimum deal, that number barely covers the time Joe has already invested before the ink is dry.

So why do it? Because the relationship is the product. Joe isn't selling a service — he's earning a seat at the table in someone's life during the most high-stakes years they'll ever experience. When a client gets cut, Joe is the first call. When a team comes with a lowball offer, Joe is the one pushing back. When a player's confidence is shot after a bad stretch, Joe is the voice reminding him what got him here in the first place. The agents who last in this business aren't the loudest ones in the room. They're the ones who are still picking up the phone at midnight, years after the draft-day cameras stopped rolling.

FAQ: Joe Flanagan on Dealer Out of Office

Who is Joe Flanagan?Joe Flanagan is an NFL sports agent who represents professional football players through the draft process, contract negotiations, and career management. His background traces back to Notre Dame, where his proximity to elite athletes shaped his career path into sports representation.

What is NIL in college football?NIL stands for Name, Image, and Likeness. It refers to the ability of college athletes to earn money from their personal brand through endorsement deals, sponsorships, and other opportunities — a shift that has significantly changed college football recruiting.

What is Dealer Out of Office?Dealer Out of Office is a podcast hosted by Jake and Frank Zombo that features conversations with athletes, business leaders, and personalities, covering stories beyond the car business with no script and no filter.

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OOO (00:01.132)
What is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Dealer Out of Office. As always, I'm your host, Jacob Berkle alongside my good buddy, Frank Zombo. And we have a cool one today, another friend of the show, a friend of Frankie, because when you're an NFL superstar, you have some connections in the world. But we are happy to bring on Joe Flanagan. Frank's, is it former agent? How would I classify? Guess he's still my agent. You never know. Did he fire you, Joe? Never. No? All right. So then, yeah.

My contract ran out, my inspiration to play football, and then teams no longer cared about if I wanted to play football anymore. So then, we just kind of fizzled there, our professional relationship. Beautiful. Joe, thank you for joining Dealer Out of Office, man. How are you? Where you at?

Joe Flanagan (00:45.77)
Good, good, I appreciate it, Jacob. Good, I'm up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That's my home base. And I've been here now for about 20 years working out of here after starting the company in Chicago. So had a long last several weeks, including coming up to see Frank and one of his protégés at Central Michigan. The last three weeks have been Pro Days every week. I think I hit 11 cities in 14 days. And finally got back last Wednesday, or last Thursday after the Indiana Pro Day.

OOO (00:47.694)
Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (01:15.52)
Saw Mendoza throw in person, which was really cool. And then got back for Good Friday and Easter. And this is the first week I don't have to travel, so it's nice to be home.

OOO (01:19.608)
Legit?

OOO (01:25.91)
I have a plethora of questions. Yeah, how did he? I I think it off track right off the bat, how did he look? Really?

Joe Flanagan (01:32.104)
Ridiculous. I mean, so good. He throws such a catchable ball. His motion is effortless. It was really, really impressive. I was standing five yards in front of the Oakland Raiders or the Vegas Raider Scouts.

who were obviously looking at him. So I had the exact same vantage point basically as they, it was unreal. mean, he's legit. There was a one drop that hit the guy in the hands and was a little bit much too much of a fastball, guess, and a mid-range throw. Maybe put that on Fernando a little bit. One long one to Surratt that went like a deep ball off the fingertips.

But I thought Elijah kind of slowed down a little bit. I don't think it was on Fernando, but he was basically like 38 out of 40 or whatever it was. It was sick and really, really good balls and effortless. And I mean, he did not have to do that. He did that for his receivers and his running backs basically. And a couple of the guys looked really, really good because of it. So helped.

OOO (02:22.35)
Well...

OOO (02:28.972)
Yeah, make them look good.

OOO (02:33.578)
And one thing about that whole thing is there's a lot of bubble guys and Mendoza helps those guys. I had the same type of situation to talk about my pro day. we had Dan LeFevre and Antonio Brown. Everyone probably knows Antonio Brown was Dan LeFevre was like, he was up there with like Tim Tebow and it came to stats, right? Like we played at the MAC conference at Central Michigan. Tim Tebow being at Florida, got a lot more press, but Dan was like running, gunning. He was doing his thing.

Joe Flanagan (02:53.3)
Right.

OOO (03:00.728)
So we had all 32 teams represented at Central Michigan's pro day, which for like a mid tier MAC school, like, unless you have some dogs on your team, like you don't normally get all 32 teams. And then for me, I was kind of a bubble guy, whether I was going to get drafted, undrafted. So that benefited me to have a really good pro day in front of all those 32 teams. And I remember, what was the name? Charlie Weiss, who was at the, which the head coach of the chiefs at that point came to me after the end of that pro day.

I don't know who you are. I came here for the quarterback, but tell me more about you. Like kinda, and I was doing like the more you can do the harder it is to cut you. Like I was doing tight end work. was doing, you know, D line outside linebacker. I was doing everything I could show. And you know, we were just at Mount Pleasant for Central Michigan's pro day for one of my, for a player that I've been working with since high school, same area. I'll talk more about Jordan, but it was cool to go back there and

Joe Flanagan (03:38.592)
Snapping.

OOO (03:58.102)
And I remember that feeling of like, I need to PR, I need to do my best I can do. And for me, I did my personal best on that day, whether it was bench press reps, my 40 yard dash, adrenaline is a real thing. And it's like that kicked in at just that right time. And it was like time to perform. And again, that's what those guys, those scouts are looking for in that moment. it's the lights are on, like it's time to perform. This is like your whole career, your college career, you know, high school career coming down to like one day to perform for these scouts. How are you going to do? Are you going to shit down your leg or are going to freaking go out there and

Kill it. love how Joe, we're to get real derailed and enough about Frank because we can talk about Frank a little bit. I'm yeah, I know. But I'm genuinely curious because I want to get back like Mendoza and like what you guys look for in everything. But I'm curious of like, I think everyone in some way, like, man, it would be so cool to be a sports agent. Like that's a cool job to have. Like when you're, you want to be a firefighter, an astronaut, whatever, like a sports agent, I think is kind of one of those ones. like, how does that start?

Joe Flanagan (04:32.404)
No, that's okay. No, it's perfect. I mean, it's a great example. It's exactly what the proteins are all about.

OOO (04:56.546)
Where do you kind of like, how does that even begin into a position and like start us at day one kind of.

Joe Flanagan (05:04.724)
Yeah, I mean, I would say stick with firefighter at this point. I kind of fell into it accidentally. I did not know I wanted to do this. I mean, I didn't have plans to do this. I was a baseball player and had D1 scholarships and a lot of offers to play baseball. Ultimately, I took an academic scholarship to go to Notre Dame and decided to just focus on school at that point.

I happened to, know, Notre Dame was, that was the Lou Holtz era. So this was in 1989 when I was a freshman in high school or in college. Kind of just started, you know, getting into, you know, being around the Notre Dame community. You know, at Notre Dame, they put the football players in with the general population in the dorms. And so just kind of started to meet people that played the game, right?

became really good friends with a couple of them. Also started boxing at Notre Dame. They'd have this thing called Bangles, Bangle Bouts, which is a big, basically university-wide boxing tournament to benefit the Catholic missions in Bangladesh. And it's still tradition today. So I decided to do like things outside, like the box that way. And I met my current business partner boxing with him.

So, and then we would go back to this other dorm where do you remember Monty Williams, the coach, the basketball coach? He was a Notre Dame basketball player at the time. So we'd go back and hang out with him and his next door neighbor who is Jim Flanagan. Jim Flanagan was a.

defensive tackle from Wisconsin or a linebacker actually coming out of Wisconsin. He's a freshman and we were sophomores. So we started hanging out. That was our crew. So Jim Flanagan, my current business partner, Brad Leschnack and I, and we became just super tight friends. So we matriculated, go through Notre Dame. I go to law school in Chicago. Brad ends up going to getting his MBA at Northwestern and Jim ends up getting drafted by the Bears. So now we had

OOO (07:09.742)
That's a lot of good resumes.

Joe Flanagan (07:11.55)
Yeah. So now we had a seat. He was a third round pick. I think he was 74th overall. while I was a first year in law school. So I was a year ahead of him, but he was, I was in my first year of law school when he was drafted by the bears, or we're finishing his senior year. So we had a CPA and MBA, a lawyer and a football player as three best friends. And, you know, I went the typical route. I did practice law. I took a job at a big giant law firm in Chicago, to pay off the bills basically.

Brad was in graduate school, the one year program at Kellogg, which is a super, super highly respected program, less than 100 people get in. But we kind of just looked at each other and we're like, if we're gonna try something entrepreneurial, we should do it now. We're not married, we have no kids, we have access to football.

OOO (07:54.89)
What year is this by the way? I'm not to date you, like what era, kind of where are we at?

Joe Flanagan (07:58.718)
This would have been, so I graduated college in 93, graduated law school in 96. And so we started kind of contemplating this toward the end of law school. We started dipping our toes in the water. Jim was playing for the Bears and doing a good job.

OOO (08:05.271)
Okay.

Joe Flanagan (08:16.408)
and was a popular guy, Notre Dame, Irish kid from in Chicago, can do pretty well. And he was playing very well, especially early in his career. So we actually started by putting, his, taking over his, like helping him create his foundation and his charitable foundation, which was about literacy. And that's kind of how we got our, where the first thing that we did that was fully involved with an NFL football player was that. So we ran his 501C3.

We built it up from the ground up while I was working as a lawyer. I was actually still bartending on weekends. We were both certified personal trainers, Brad and I, so we were doing that as well, all with the idea of creating seed money for the sports agency that we wanted to do. So with Jim, we took his foundation and we ended up partnering with Disney and UPS and delivered $7.5 million worth of books to underprivileged kids across five states.

And Jim became the NFL man of the year from that venture. and so it was at that point that we just said, you know, Hey, we have a lot of value. met a lot of people in the industry. We think we can do it, bring a lot to the table for football players, you know, outside of the charitable arm. And so that's kind of how we, decided, you know what, we're going to, we're going to do this. And so we, I still worked our first two years, we were both working. and we, but we drive to Notre Dame, Northwestern, anywhere we could that was close by and try to.

pretend like we knew what we were doing enough to get a client and that's what we did. So we got a couple of undrafted kids from Notre Dame in, would have been like 1999, 1998 when we started in representation. And then that they weren't great football players, but they were great dudes and they made a lot of good references for us. soon enough we picked up a couple of draft picks from Notre Dame and Northwestern and all of a sudden.

We said, you know what, let's go full board, quit our other jobs and do this full time. And so that was almost 28, 29 years ago.

OOO (10:15.374)
Wow. One thing I respect most about it is just like that early grind. I hope people understand like the, I can just imagine you're talking about what you were like three or four different jobs at that point, your personal training, you do whatever you can to just scrape by and do it. And, you know, good for you. You made a career out of it and a good one and the relationships you made, built a family with it. And that's really cool.

Joe Flanagan (10:27.081)
Yep. Yep.

Joe Flanagan (10:33.908)
Yeah, yeah. mean, the point was let's get out of debt as quickly as possible so that we could focus on doing this, right? So as soon as we...

both felt comfortable enough in our financial situation to take another shot. Of course, we immediately went into debt paying for people's combine training and stuff like that, but we'd gotten out of our student debts. We'd kind of untethered ourselves from that and still didn't have kids or a family. So we were like, we're just putting ourselves on the line. And it felt like the right time to do it. And it turned out great. We did not cut our teeth on Jim, by the way. He was with Tom Condon.

you know, CAA at the time. So he had a really good agent. But, you know, Jacob, one of the important things that I guess I didn't say, was a really unique situation, is Jim was playing for the Bears, Jerry Angelo, I don't know if you guys remember Jerry Angelo. He was the GM of the Bucks and the Bears during that era. And Jerry was kind of that old school Youngstown, Ohio mafia football guy, you know, and it's a true thing that it's a cradle of coaches. That's a little area where a ton of good coaches and football.

men have come from. And so we asked Jim, we're just like, Hey, can you get us in the building and meet with Jerry and kind of do informational Q and A to see like, is this something we want to do? So we did get that access through Jim. had an informational meeting with Jerry Angelo sat down and we basically just asked them all kinds of questions. And he was like, you guys are too smart and too honest. Do not go into sports agency.

He said, stick with being a lawyer. You you go be an investment banker. You'd be much more happy. Of course, we did the opposite, right? So that was what he told us not to do. But what Jerry did for us and to this day was instrumental in our career. And again, this was kind of serendipity that we made happen, right? So we were friends, we were networking, we were trying to be active in the industry, but we were very lucky that our best friend played for the Bears. We were very lucky that Jerry took the interview and then he liked us enough to where he said, you know what, I'm going to bring an Harry scout in.

OOO (11:59.278)
Ha ha ha.

OOO (12:06.958)
Sure.

Joe Flanagan (12:28.318)
to introduce himself to you guys and he's gonna he's gonna find you guys sleepers for the next couple years. And his name is Jeff Shiver. He's in the coaching Hall of Fame and are the scouting Hall of Fame. And he's one of the oldest tenured bear scouts and he was in fact recruited Jim or just scouted Jim when he was coming out of Notre Dame. So.

Jeff gave us a couple of guys to get that were cheaper and had potential. And that was a big deal to us. And he's still a valuable resource for me. In fact, I saw him at the IU Pro Day in the parking lot just the it was last week.

OOO (12:58.99)
I have two questions and one that's been sticking with what was your boxing record at Notre Dame?

Joe Flanagan (13:07.86)
I lacerated my kidney and so I was O and O. I was peeing blood two days before my first match and the doctors wouldn't let me fight. Well, no, I did all the six weeks of training and I went from 210 pounds to, and I was gonna fight at 168. Isn't that crazy? Yeah.

OOO (13:11.246)
That's a big one.

OOO (13:19.372)
before you even threw a punch out. that sucks.

OOO (13:29.814)
Wow, I need to figure, I need to get a boxing plan. Your peptides ain't gonna do that. No, they're not.

Joe Flanagan (13:34.048)
It was the best weight loss plan I've ever been in.

OOO (13:37.71)
Actually I sent Joel, we had a peptide conversation. sent him our podcast on the peptide. Are you on them? With Ali. I know. He's like, I keep asking him and he keeps like holding this one really close to the chest and won't tell me. second question is, so you guys are relatively new, right? You're getting into this, you know, early 90s, early 2000s, like, and you're going up against GMs who have been doing this for years, right? Like,

Joe Flanagan (13:41.982)
Yeah. No, Frank sold me though. I'm gonna try to get some blood work done.

OOO (14:07.67)
What does that learning curve like to understand the industry? Like, yeah, you think you know, but you don't really know until you're in there. So what was that like the first like, kind of shit moment? And obviously, we don't want to put names out there. But here's how you combated that.

Joe Flanagan (14:19.848)
Yeah, no, I mean, well, there's a lot of different facets to representation that most people don't think of. People think about the transactions, right? The contract negotiations, right.

OOO (14:29.218)
That's what I think about. So if there's anything behind off of that, I'm all here.

Joe Flanagan (14:32.542)
I mean, you do if you're lucky, you do two of those for one player, right? You do a draft one and you do a big unrestricted deal. So those things are milestones and of course are the goals of what you want to do, and they are life changing for the player and can be for the agent to a degree, right?

OOO (14:39.086)
That's a good point.

Joe Flanagan (14:49.236)
But it's all the stuff in between that's really the craziness and the grind of it. You know what I mean? It's dealing with injuries. It's dealing with moms and girlfriends and wives. It's dealing with off the field issues that might come up. And then there's, course, the whole process that leads up to a person being selected and or getting an unrestricted free agent contract. there's all the dead, quote unquote, dead time in between is actually very, very layered and a lot of work. And so.

You know, in that process, I think early on the biggest thing that I would say, and I hate to say it this way, but the biggest surprise and the biggest shit was, and it was a repeated shit, is man, I can't really trust what people say at face value. It's a very highly competitive environment of full of alpha males, you know, willing to slit your throat. And...

you have to understand that. And it's not that they're malicious. It's just that the job is a very, very difficult job, right? And so you quickly learn that, you know, and even as players, Frank can tell you this too. You might be super tight with a coach, but he'll say, I love you like a son. And the next day they cut your ass. And that doesn't necessarily mean that coach didn't mean it. It just means that it's a really, really hardcore cutthroat business. And so I think for me learning as a very trusting, loyal,

honest, straightforward guy, learning that most people aren't like that in most industries. I'm not saying that's exclusive to sports agency, but I think it's heightened in sports agency to a certain degree, because there's just so few of us that are players. There's very few players, there's very few agents, and there's very few NFL executives and personnel guys that have juice. So it's a very small fraternity. And so you quickly learn that you have to, these aren't your brothers.

you can trust that I've got a ton of really good relationships and people that I would trust. Like if one of Frank's kids becomes a guy, you know, I will have places where I tell Frank, we're not sending him here, like no way. Like there's bad buildings where I wouldn't want my worst enemy. And then there's great spots, you know, like where super great cultures, super great buildings with really good people. So, you know, that part of it, I think was a bit of a slap in the face and just kind of a learning curve for me.

Joe Flanagan (17:13.01)
And I've weathered it and I adjusted by not changing who I am and not doing that and trying to be reciprocally evasive or reciprocally dishonest. I just learned and rewarded those who were. And so in the industry, when you have choices, whether it's unrestricted free agency, undrafted, whether it's seeking information and sharing information and Intel, pre-draft, post-draft, free agency,

I rewarded those who are good people in my industry and over 20 years plus now, now almost 30, you know, I have my people and they know they can trust me and I know I can trust them. And so that weeding through that process and figuring out how to adjust to it and not becoming cynical and being a jerk like some of the guys are, because there's, just got to choose to be one of the good ones. And then you end up with people like Frank, you know, the people that are good agents and good players, good men find each other.

And that's kind of, you know, that's my approach still today. If I wouldn't, if I had a recruit that I wouldn't want to sit down with dinner with my wife and daughter, I'm not representing that dude.

OOO (18:19.53)
Yeah, no, that's fair. Especially at this point, like at this point in your career too, probably later, you know, probably early on, you're like, I'll take whatever I can. Kind of like us in, now, it's dealerships in some point, right? I mean, not that we've reached ever that point of like, sometimes we just want to deal with the best ones. And if, even if you are moving a lot of vehicles, you're like, if you're just a pain in the butt, like, I don't want to. Yeah, it's like,

Joe Flanagan (18:23.626)
Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (18:36.416)
It's not worth it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, for sure. I mean, I think the ability to be selective eventually is really one of the coolest parts of it. Yeah. Yes.

OOO (18:43.994)
luxuries. Yeah, treat others like you want to be treated. Yeah, it's funny too when I was just with Joe, and we were going to see Jordan who Joe represents Jordan out quickly. He, he went to my high school that I went to when I when we won the Super Bowl 2010. I went back to my hometown and there's a picture of me and Jordan. He's just like, probably my son, Josh was like eight or nine years old. And I'm taking like a picture with him. So then when I'm done playing football in 2019, I go back to Stevenson to coach like I had

My kids were real young. was kind of bored. after work, I would like, I don't know if I had a job right after football. I would just go and coach high school football. And Jordan was a sophomore and the kid was an absolute stud at my alma mater. Sterling had Stevenson just outside of suburbs of Detroit. Shut up. Yeah. So, I coached him there for sophomore, junior, senior year. Then he ended up going to central Michigan. Follows kind of like where I went. Did I follow him there? him in a central or did he?

He got recruited. mean, yeah, he's he didn't need me. He's good enough player to get there. And then he was a stud for them over the last, you he played as a true freshman. And then he again, he was getting done and he's like, hey, I think I have a chance. He's a lot like me to like a late round, you know, a drafty type kid. And and yeah, he asked me to, hey, you know, looking at agents, I was like, you know, reach out to Joe. And he was pretty close with like two other guys before we even kind of talked about it. And then he met Joe like quick and it was like pretty.

Yeah, you hit it off really quick. And yeah, you're trying with them really fast.

Joe Flanagan (20:07.86)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Jordan Kwiatkowski. Good, really good kid. You know, his biggest challenge is his size. You know, he's, you know, it's tough. They want linebackers, you know, taller nowadays. So he's going to, that's going to be, that's the biggest impediment we found, but from an athleticism and a production standpoint.

OOO (20:23.502)
Thank

Joe Flanagan (20:27.454)
I mean, he's a freak. He's very, very good, quick to diagnose linebacker and very aggressive, very strong. I think he'll be, he'll make a team. He might have to fight his way through practice squad for a bit, but eventually he's going to add a ton of value on special teams that, you know, pretty quickly.

OOO (20:29.838)
Yeah.

OOO (20:44.436)
No, no question about it. Some things you can't like Nick Belort is another one. He played bounce around, but right now he's been, he's with the Washington commanders played with me at central Michigan. He's going into like year 15. It's just like a special teams guy undersized probably ran a four eight 40 at central Michigan's pro day, but he's a football player. Like he's just has an innate ability to just fall into a play or, know, knock a ball out when you're not thinking about it. in a

Joe Flanagan (20:56.096)
Yeah, it's insane.

OOO (21:11.406)
Again, your best players aren't thinking about punching a ball. It's just something that, you know, everything's happening. it's the second instincts, right? He has that instinctual and Jordan's a lot like that. Like we might not have the best numbers or anything, which he did have a good, he had all his PRs that his pro day that we went through. Yeah. I'm driving up to pro day. I'm bringing my kids so they can see like central Michigan's pro day. I called Joel. like, Hey, where are you at? He's like, I've been on like three different flights. I came into this town called like Midland, which is like right there. And I'm like driving through Midland at that moment. I'm like, dude, I'm driving through it. And I was like, trying to figure out how to get to the pro day. I'm like,

Joe Flanagan (21:16.981)
Play the game.

Joe Flanagan (21:22.698)
Yeah, we can.

Joe Flanagan (21:34.08)
You

OOO (21:40.76)
pick you up. Pick him up? He's like I just woke up.

Joe Flanagan (21:41.856)
Well, yeah, because my flight got delayed so bad and I flew into the smaller airport there. And so I got there after all the rental cars had closed. And so I was going to Uber all the way to Central Michigan and it worked out. Frank was a much better Uber driver.

OOO (21:57.388)
Yeah, just driving right through my kids were like, well, can we stop and get breakfast? And I'm gosh, it cost me an extra like 50 bucks just to get my kids fed. But it was worth it. It was a good time catching up with you. Joy. So again, as you as this conversation goes, I keep getting more and more questions. So this is going to be another two part and I apologize. But are you only football or are you doing all is it kind of hey, whatever is out there and you have an ability?

And at what age are we like, Hey, this kid might have something because my background's hockey. Um, and I see like some, like I got two young sons who I would love for them to play hockey. love for them to do whatever. Um, but you see some crazy hockey parents are like, Hey, I think my kid has, it's like, Linda, he's nine. Yeah. Like he hasn't figured out beer and girls yet. Like let him get through that. And then maybe if he still loves hockey. So like at what age.

Joe Flanagan (22:35.348)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Flanagan (22:43.67)
That's right.

OOO (22:51.116)
Are we like, okay, this kid actually has something, you know, physically, but then I mean, mentally it has to be a big part of it too, right? So that's my, that's my two-parter. I'll, and I'll stop.

Joe Flanagan (22:53.653)
Yeah

Joe Flanagan (23:00.928)
Yeah. Uh, the first part to answer your question, only football, um, started exclusively football focused on that. We did have an opportunity about 2015, 16. We essentially kind of, I would say sort of merged acquired a small baseball operation out of California and the Dominican. Um, and we, I love baseball. still play on a 15 up national team. Um, and, uh, and so, you know,

I wanted to get into baseball if there was an organic opportunity to do so. is more attractive for anybody in the industry because you don't have to represent somebody for seven years before they get their big unrestricted deal, right? You can get them out of college and immediately they're gonna get a draft contract that could be relatively decent.

in terms of money and then you're four years away from running a stricter deal. Baseball, you have to get these kids in high school, not unlike hockey. mean, hockey's a little bit different with junior hockey and all that type of stuff, but you're getting them at 16, 17, and then you have to hold them all the way through to where they can finally get their, a major league contract.

OOO (24:00.398)
You juniors, the OO all that kind of stuff, yeah.

Joe Flanagan (24:12.372)
which takes a long time. It's a long incubation period, seven to 10 years. You're paying for their bats, you're paying for their equipment, you're hoping they don't get poached by another agent. Like that's all very unattractive to me, because football is much cleaner. But what we stumbled upon was an opportunity to get into an organization that had two guys that were about to hit unrestricted free agency. So they had done all that homework and they had a Dominican pipeline of guys that were coming up.

So it was a relatively low invest in terms of money. was a high invest for sweat equity for me because I was the one going down to the Dominican and put my life on the line. Because I'll tell you what, I would literally pull out my life insurance policy every time I was going down there and put it in front of my wife. I'm like, here we go again. And a gun pulled on me. They drive about 130 miles per hour. There's seven lanes of traffic. You're going in the middle of jungle and all of sudden this Angel Stadium opens up. I mean, it's a wild. I'm sure you guys have seen some of those documentaries about Dominican baseball.

OOO (24:46.69)
literal threat.

Joe Flanagan (25:07.294)
the reality, if not pull them up because there's some of the most fascinating things in the world. They, take 10 year olds from their homes. They put them in these clinics and they start giving them vitamins and they become grown men at 16 to get drafted. I mean, they're giving them growth hormone and all that stuff. It's a wild, wild west down there. But anyway, so, so we got into that because we had an opportunity. We thought it might be relatively lucrative relatively quickly. So, we ended up doing two unrestricted.

OOO (25:25.09)
Wow, I will watch that. Maybe get some tips for my kids. At least write that down.

Joe Flanagan (25:37.211)
MLB deals. But this is really one of the coolest sports agent stories I have is one of the players that we were representing, because this is why I left baseball. One of the players that we were representing was becoming an unrestricted free agent. We carried him and our guy that we essentially brought into the fold had been with him since he was 14 years old. So we're like, we're never losing this client, right? I mean, we're about to do the deal. I had already struck

verbal terms with the club with whom he ended up. The dad called me and said, with translator and said, there's another agent that wants to do this deal and we're leaning towards going with him. He, cause he's going to give me two F-150s and he's buying me a Palm tree farm.

So that's sports agency in the Dominican, because that's very different than what we have here. Now, you could say like, Frank, remember SEC football during your era? There was a lot of stuff, a lot of under the table payments and doing all kinds of crazy stuff, right? So, but I'd never been, you know, I'd never seen somebody say, hey, can you, you know, can you match this, right? The Palm Tree Farm and two F-150s. So I could have used one of your dealers back then, I guess, obviously. But yeah.

OOO (26:51.542)
Yeah, got you

Joe Flanagan (26:55.892)
Yeah, so I immediately hung up the phone. I told my wife I'm quitting baseball sports agency number one, but I ended up salvaging it. It took me three days to convince the family to come back. I essentially said, look, I can't get you a palm tree farm, but I had somebody rough out the rough estimate of what it would cost to acquire. And then I did, you know, know, Blue Book value on a couple of new F-150s. That isn't rocket science. So I did the math and I said, what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut my percentage.

to this degree that'll give you, let's call it $100,000 extra in your pocket if that's what it would cost you to buy those things. I'll cut my fee to 120. You can pick the color of your F-150s and you can buy your own palm tree farm if you want or you can pocket the cash. And so ultimately that's how I kept them. did the deal, it was with the brewers, immediately turned around, fired the whole, everybody the next day and I'm like, no more baseball, I'm out.

So yeah, so from that day on, had conviction that I'd just stay in football. And so it's been been so ever since.

OOO (28:00.738)
How much of it, cause that reminded me a little bit. like, remember then Jerry McGuire where like last second Jerry gets screwed over by the dad. same thing. I guess I wasn't going to go to this room. How much is like Jerry McGuire kind of like the wheeling and dealing and like going to, know they're not letting guys on the field and stuff like that, but like you said, majority of your time is spent. remember being injured and you helping me through that whole process with the Packers. but how much of it is, you know, probably not a whole lot going to games. This is probably your busiest time right now. Right. Would you say like going to programs and things?

Joe Flanagan (28:05.663)
Yes.

Joe Flanagan (28:20.372)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (28:27.878)
I mean, everything's busy. Yeah, it gets busy from December until May 1st. mean, you know, between trying to close on your draft class and now, of course, NIL, which is a whole nother level of BS that I have to deal with. I enjoy the bit. actually enjoy it. I didn't think I would. But, you know, it's kind of it's it's occupation of necessity at this point, because we we have to represent these men, these kids younger or else somebody else is going to represent them. And you may never have an opportunity. So we are doing.

OOO (28:38.562)
Yeah, we can get into that.

OOO (28:54.04)
Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (28:55.888)
I'm in fact, I'm signing a high school kid today, 17 year old junior. So top 75 kid in the country is a Notre Dame commit. So it's just an interesting, it's an interesting evolution, but a lot of it is, is maintaining and holding onto your clients, especially as they approach free agency. Frank, like when a guy is about to get $11 million a year, he becomes attractive as a target to other agents. And so trying to prevent poaching,

OOO (29:13.486)
Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (29:23.584)
which is all you can do is serve your guys to the best of your ability and build your relationship as much as you can. But if an agent comes to him and says, Joe's going to charge you x%, I'm going to cut that in half. And I'm going to give your, I'm going to introduce you to this realtor who's going to give your wife a job and all these different things that people pull out of their butt to entice a player to leave. If that player is gullible enough to think that that's worth it or feels like it is worth it,

We've lost some people over 30 years. We've lost people to other agents right before unrestricted free agent deals twice. Both guys, if you would have said, put a gun to my head and said, would he ever leave you? I would have said no. So it's very much part of what we deal with, Frank. it's, yeah, because you took a guy for seven years and built him up into this.

OOO (30:06.242)
Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (30:15.097)
and all of a sudden he bolts on you. It feels like you're getting cheated on by a spouse, right, or something. It's really, it's not cool.

OOO (30:20.866)
Yeah. Not even think, sorry, Jake, I didn't even think about this now. Cause you were only doing like when I was playing, you're only representing NFL athletes guys coming fresh out of college. Now you guys are representing college kids because of NIL, these guys are making contract type deals. So you're representing college kids now.

Joe Flanagan (30:32.415)
Right.

Joe Flanagan (30:40.191)
Yes.

I have set, like I said, I have two high school kids and college. I have 17 college kids, two high school kids, and then all my clients in the NFL.

OOO (30:46.392)
because I'm a junior.

OOO (30:52.268)
Which is obviously really good for you because that just, there's a pool of NFL players. Great. But now you guys just got access to a pool of college high school kids. You just got access to a whole nother sense of, you know, stream of revenue, which is kind of cool.

Joe Flanagan (30:58.57)
team.

Joe Flanagan (31:04.862)
Yeah, it's completely different revenue stream. what's interesting, Frank, is they don't have to make the team. It's almost like each one of those is a guaranteed deal. it's still an evolving industry. I don't think any of us as agents or college GMs or even the players are really. I mean, that transfer portal period is insanity. And this past one for me was absolutely nuts. And nobody likes it.

OOO (31:12.951)
Yeah.

Guaranteed deals.

Joe Flanagan (31:34.431)
But right now, that's the system that we have to deal with. And I was very reluctant to get into it. I got into it because one of my NFL players had a younger brother who was at a big school and being offered an NIL deal. And he's like, can you just look over it and see if it's appropriate? So this was like two years ago, two portals ago. And I was like, yeah, sure. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'll take a look at it. And

OOO (31:39.245)
Okay.

Joe Flanagan (31:59.041)
I looked at it and then I said, you let me ask some questions about the compensation level. I've got some peers that have been in this for a little bit longer. And I found out that the kid was kind of screwed by the school because he didn't have representation. And I got him an extra six figures with basically two phone calls and said, you know, he can enter the portal or you guys can pay him market value. And then his roommate was like, I need that too. And I got, that was my second NIL guy. So I did two NIL deals at a really big school.

OOO (32:20.152)
Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (32:28.324)
in 72 hours, got each kid an extra hundred grand, and that was my entree to college football representation. Yeah, it was neat, it was neat. And I've gotten a lot of good young men because of that crew since then, and it's been building, it's really, they do need representation. It's a real, you know, is.

OOO (32:36.046)
That's a good way to spread quickly in the locker room.

OOO (32:49.806)
life-changing money for kids. mean, I remember coming out of college broke as can be. Like I needed an agent to pay for my training and get me to go to Florida, whatever it was. Now it's like, these guys have money coming out. Like they got access to resources. In a way, it's different than when I was coming out. These kids are loaded up.

Joe Flanagan (33:06.174)
Yeah, yep. No, I mean they're making north of I mean I got three guys making north of eight hundred fifty thousand dollars

OOO (33:13.71)
Imagine being in college with that kind of money. We'll go throw up. I'll be right back. Do you imagine?

Joe Flanagan (33:16.288)
Well, you who's really pissed is my guys that just missed the window where they got like I had a fourth rounder last year for the Jaguars. Jack Kaiser was a captain at Notre Dame. Middle green dot linebacker, super smart, highest, one highest character young men you'll ever meet like really, really Captain America. Just a wonderful young man.

and a stud football player, but he kind of Jack missed that window of the super compensation, you know, so every time I talked to him, I'm like, Jack, I said, you don't want to know what the guys at Notre Dame are getting now, man. And he's like, God.

OOO (33:47.404)
Yeah, no. Who controls like the window of when it opens? Because my biggest gripe and I love college football more than than the NFL probably, but like bowl game start and the portals been open for a week. So guys are sitting out because they don't want to get hurt. And I kind of understand that because now they're you know, they're seven, you know, eight figure athletes, right? And then they don't want to get hurt. But like, they're still I think they've ruined college sports in terms of like the.

Joe Flanagan (34:04.362)
They're commodity.

OOO (34:14.466)
you know, the love of the university a little bit. How much longer do you think this is actually going to go on? There's got to be some more regulations. Something's going to change because it is ruining the floor.

Joe Flanagan (34:16.063)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Flanagan (34:22.216)
Well, just I was like I said I was at I use pro day of a couple clients there. I was at Notre Dame's pro day the week prior. Talked about the GM's for extensive period of time and I'm like, have you heard any you know right any any rumblings about the system changing at all? You know or the timing of the portal like you were saying Jacob like the timing of the portal last year made absolutely no sense. If you're going to do only one portal, you don't do it right in the middle of bowl games. You don't do it right in the middle of. I mean, you know.

OOO (34:39.726)
Right.

Joe Flanagan (34:49.524)
college football playoffs, they're trying to decide, should I go or play or, it screws up so much. mean, even think about it this way, they do the rankings, right? They do the selection, by the way, my alma mater Notre Dame got left out, shouldn't have been left out for the record. They could have beaten anybody in that whole crew, in the whole pool. But you did it at a point.

OOO (35:05.269)
Are you better?

Joe Flanagan (35:15.004)
Imagine the college football playoff selection committees choosing based on the rosters that played the games all previous fall, right? The whole fall and all of a sudden, you know how many guys are going to not play in these games or now the playoffs did a better job. Most of those there were most of kids played, but you do have people that are either moving, transferring or or holding out because they don't want to get hurt. So the rosters ended up playing. know the game day rosters are substantially different than those that were.

Played during the fall a lot of times and that's part of the thing that bothers me too. It's like how are you choosing these teams based on the roster and who played when some of those guys aren't even going to be available. It's just a weird situation.

OOO (35:54.03)
And from, and from a scouting perspective, like, all right, so, you know, Indiana plays the, and I mean, I think it was the first play against, uh, Ohio state where, um, he gets rocked Fernando gets rocked, right. And we're like, okay, like he's, he's done. He comes back and finishes the game and then obviously won a national championship. Right. But is there anything like, in my mind that can stock was like, okay, this guy's a gamer, right. And his stock.

Joe Flanagan (36:05.492)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Joe Flanagan (36:11.391)
Right.

Joe Flanagan (36:17.258)
Yeah.

OOO (36:18.998)
His stock skyrocketed. it have the adverse effect that there's a stud? He's been a stud all year long. And then it's like, this guy's not a teen guy. He's not showing up for his boys because he's afraid of getting hurt. Is that a real barometer of these guys for scouts?

Joe Flanagan (36:26.932)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, some scouts look at some scouts will hold against you. Some of the older school guys, you know, some of the blue collar guys are going to say, you know, I don't want a guy that's not willing to die for his brothers. Right. And maybe you put.

OOO (36:35.404)
Yeah.

OOO (36:41.55)
That's where I look at it.

Joe Flanagan (36:42.728)
You know, you put every scout will value certain things like those are intangibles. Fernando is a true leader. Just same way he threw it. The pro day was purely for the benefit of others. He's a super giving guy by all accounts, multiple guys on the Indiana team, both in this draft and for NIL and there to a man, you can't find anybody say a bad word about Fernando. So I think it helps people like Fernando, but you know, if you're a top 15 pick and you've got, I mean, that's a lot of money on the line.

and your team isn't that good and you're playing in a crappy bowl game, you know, I would probably advise you to sit out too, you know, so it just depends. But you wouldn't, there was nobody that would convince Fernando, a guy like Fernando to not play, right? He's going to play one way or the other.

OOO (37:20.184)
Yeah.

OOO (37:27.022)
Speaking of that kid, we just met with Ryan suck up member kicker. was with me in Kansas city. He was on our podcast, the last one. And he talked about Brady. And, I mean, this kid, this man, are kid, he's like the full package. mean, like you said, he could throw, he can run, but then he's like that locker room guy that we, all talk about, like what made Aaron Rogers different when I play with him or what made Tom Brady different? What Ryan says is he was looking out for the people around him too. And it didn't matter if you were the equipment manager, this, you know, the kicker.

Joe Flanagan (37:30.25)
Yeah.

OOO (37:55.09)
or you're starting running back. Like he treated everybody with respect and knew it took the whole team. Not just your star guys that you're in the media all the time, but it took the whole organization to win those games into, you know, football, NFL games, especially are separated most of time by three points or whatever it is. And it takes a little bit of that extra whatever, like why is it that the Kansas City Chiefs, the Green Bay Packers, the Patriots, when it comes to those close games, maybe it's luck or maybe it's just.

Joe Flanagan (38:10.462)
Right.

OOO (38:21.794)
You know, everyone being together to just give you that little bit of an edge, because that's what it takes because the margin for error in the NFL, especially because the talent pool is so identical, what separates those, those, those, those teams. And it is the culture that is built by your leaders. so yeah, you see it, but he's that guy, he can do that for the Raiders and the Raiders need that. I know they're the, they need that big time. That's what's been hurting them for so long, right? They don't have that established culture.

Joe Flanagan (38:36.384)
Yep, 100%. Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (38:41.436)
Big time.

Yeah. Yeah. Now they'll have a transitional guy with Kirk there too, which is a, you know, an interesting situation. I'm surprised they did that deal, but it's essentially a one year deal for 20 million bucks. And if you have a mentor, yeah. Yeah.

OOO (38:56.344)
Kurt Cousins was there to mentor. Yeah, you need a lot of times, like even like a good buddy of mine, Chase Daniel, who was with me in Kansas City, like he was a, you know, backup type player, but Chase was the most dialed when it came to taking notes, knowing the playbook, his study habits were like when you bring in a young quarterback, they would bring in guys like that to kind of mentor, you know, you're paying this quarterback, this might be can pay more money than the starter when they're young like that, but he was teaching them the right habits.

Joe Flanagan (39:15.326)
He made everybody better.

OOO (39:25.016)
to become a franchise quarterback. And Chase was not that he was not a great quarterback, not a great athlete, but the extra stuff is what made him add maybe another five, six years to his career at the end.

Joe Flanagan (39:34.858)
For sure. Yeah, I have a guy, John Wolford, who did the same thing. He basically was the smartest guy on the team everywhere he went. And he made Baker Mayfield better immediately down in Tampa. And he was essentially an assistant coach.

OOO (39:50.198)
Yeah, and you don't want guys in the locker room to like, or like in a, if you got your backup quarterback watching more film and taking better notes and answering questions before your starter. And it's a competitive, everything's competitive in NFL. All of a that guy, that kid that, you know, maybe he is guaranteed all this money. He's the franchise guy, but you've got somebody showing you up in the meeting rooms every day. You're like, all right, I'm going to get going too. So now I'm going to watch more film than him. And then it just brings your whole room up and better. And that's.

Joe Flanagan (40:12.864)
Yep, I got a feeling Zombo did some of that to his teammates.

OOO (40:18.626)
Yeah, right. Internal competition, we do it here all the time. So again, I could.

Joe Flanagan (40:22.838)
yeah, going back, you had your other question about age, is that what age do you see players? I mean.

OOO (40:27.054)
Yeah, no, yeah, if you want to go back to that one, I could you have a 17 year old, but again, like, you know, there's so many people that think like, Oh, my kid has it, my kid has it, my kid has it. And maybe they do. But you know, maturity, like still 1718, like, that kids not fully, you know, that's not a fully developed brain, right? Mine's not even fully developed.

Joe Flanagan (40:43.2)
No, human, right? No, you don't know. No, there's that, that's a very difficult question. I mean, it's a difficult question and I think it's a unique, you know, answer to every athlete and family. I think what's different now is in the old days, I would have said, I will disregard what a 16 year old is doing because we've all known that 16 year old who was dominant and just kicked everybody's ass all day long up and down, whether it was the basketball court, the football field, on the baseball field, that dude that was just a stud that ended up, you know,

he's now driving a truck or whatever because he just didn't have the motivation to perfect his craft or got hurt or other things, right? There's a lot of things that you can't control and there are a lot of things that you can control and all of those things can be decided or changed drastically by the time you're a fully cooked athlete at 22 years old, ready to go into the NFL, right? But what's interesting about, again, talking today, if you have a 14 year old who's a stud,

And you can find a way to make him by the time he's a 16 year old as a five star or four star recruit, regardless of what you think he's going to incubate into or turn it develop into at 22, when he might be drafted, kid can get paid going into college, right? So now there's a completely different analysis going on. It's not just can my young, can my son get a scholarship as an athlete, but can he also potentially get a quarter million bucks to go to a school?

on top of it. So now these are life-changing sums of money if you're a high enough level recruit. And I can guarantee you there are kids that are getting paid 250, 500, a million bucks going into colleges right now that'll never play on an NFL field. So we basically have a minor league system now that allows them to be compensated. it's, you know, the year old talent is more relevant than it was, you know, before the NIL system came.

OOO (42:16.961)
Yes.

OOO (42:27.758)
Some of those kids now are staying in like some of them maybe before would have come out as juniors to go try to make money because I don't want to get hurt my senior year. Carson Beck is making more money in Miami. I'm gonna stick around even Sanders son, Shurer Sanders he stayed around his senior year because he's making six million a year or whatever just to empower it. These kids are making more than some of the coaches. Almost all the coaches.

Joe Flanagan (42:41.79)
Yeah, he made way more at Colorado than he would have by going into the draft.

Yeah, it's it's it is. I agree with you, Jacob. Like it kind of has quote unquote ruined it, right? It's ruined. What it changes was, you know, like Frank coming in to see it, Central Michigan with that class of dudes and saying, OK, in the next four years, we're going to develop as athletes in this culture as brothers. We got each other's backs. We're here, you know, to write. We're going to beat all the stuff. And so having all that commitment and that and that time to develop as a family and, you know.

OOO (43:06.926)
We're gonna beat Michigan State.

Joe Flanagan (43:14.942)
That does that's gone away to a large degree because the transactional nature, you just don't know who you're, you know, there's just so much roster turnover now.

OOO (43:21.676)
Yeah. So much now. Talking to Central Michigan's coach. I think all of their start, it was like all of their starters are now they complete turnover. So all the starters they went into battle with last year are all gone because if you did very good at Central Michigan, now Wisconsin's going to give you 400 K or, know, like some there now those guys are gone. like back.

Joe Flanagan (43:44.929)
It's hard on the central Michigans of the world because you can go out and scout and recruit the best kids, kind of diamonds in the rough. And now as soon as they show themselves on a big stage, like in the bowl game, like Jordan stood out, right? In the bowl game, he did a really good job and clearly looked like he belonged at a different level, right? To play with them. He could have played linebacker for Northwestern very easy. I think he did better than they did.

OOO (44:00.665)
Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (44:11.71)
Now the team beat you guys pretty good, but at the same time, my point is if a young man from central Michigan has a good game against a power school, it's going to be very difficult to retain him.

OOO (44:23.052)
Yeah, like what Antonio Brown down the fever. Those guys would not have been. They would not have been. But then how can you also if it's there and I'm putting myself in their shoes, I'm loyal to Central Michigan. I love Central Michigan. Great. But if someone's going to give me how you turn out for a year, like.

Joe Flanagan (44:25.997)
they would have made millions.

Joe Flanagan (44:39.944)
And it's really, I had several of those instances last year with guys, Frank, with just the same guys as type of guys as me and you, okay? Guys that were like value, loyalty, and honesty, and brotherhood, and all of that to a very high degree. Family, But when some of the opportunities that I found for them, I presented to them, they were like, well, I can't, this is undeniable. Like, this is life changing. I don't wanna leave this school. I came here and I made a full commitment.

OOO (45:06.466)
Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (45:09.984)
But I'm just like, I mean, I had one situation where a school was offering about half, less than half of what I ended up getting this guy, but I called him, I don't wanna mention the schools because it's just, I try to keep it private. But I would have been 99 % sure he would not leave his school that he was at, okay? He grew up wanting to go to the school, all his friends were there.

OOO (45:25.42)
Yeah, that's fine. worries.

Joe Flanagan (45:38.465)
They had just done really well last year. He was gonna be a captain, all that type of thing. But I started negotiating with the school and they were underbidding him. And I had already been in talks with a couple other places and I knew what I could get. And I...

was try to be honest with the school as much as I could and be like, you're really under under bidding and it's gonna be, you could lose this kid. They presume the same things you did, like he ain't going anywhere. He'd never leave the school. And all of a sudden, these two other schools stepped up and I had to call the kid and his family. I'm like, you guys sitting down? Cause I gotta tell you what you're being offered. And they literally like silent on the other end of line. Cause they were like, not only were they blown away by the dollar figure, but they're like, oh shit, now I gotta really consider leaving a place that I never wanted to leave.

OOO (46:21.986)
Yeah, now it gets real. Yeah. I think about those parents. Like they probably got so much of that school gear. They were at those games on Saturdays just cheering. You've been with that team for three years. You're going to be the captain of the team. Like those are your brothers. But then all of you're presented with a half a million, whatever it is. And you also think in your head, like, I could get hurt tomorrow and my football career is done, but I have this half a million dollars that I can start my life with. that's a fricking moral dilemma that I don't.

Joe Flanagan (46:23.134)
Yeah, and so.

Avery.

OOO (46:47.63)
I can't blame a single kid for any of that.

Joe Flanagan (46:47.838)
No, it was very-

Joe Flanagan (46:52.178)
It was so stressful. It was very stressful because I ended up playing counselor to them, you know, and just trying to be like, I mean, I was exhausted that whole, the whole Christmas, December 22nd, I started, you know, basically got super hot and heavy into it. And all the way through January through to the portal closing, I basically was on the phone 14 to 16 hours a day. took half a Christmas Eve off Christmas day. Other than that, I basically barely didn't see my family and

because I was trying to massage all these things for the families, not only negotiate the best deals, but try to talk them through.

good decision making. How are we gonna make, what's valuable to you? What's the most valuable thing to you guys as a family and as a player? Do you wanna play more? Do you wanna be the dude? Do you wanna get more money? And then all of those factors combined, how do we stack them on a priority list and how do you make a good informed decision that you can sleep at night with? And when you're doing that with 17 different guys, it's exhausting. But it was well worth it and everybody's happy right now, so I can't complain.

OOO (47:28.622)
Cheers.

OOO (47:47.96)
you

OOO (47:52.141)
There's there is something I want to get to because this is gonna come out around the draft So I want to I do want to talk draft before before time is up because I think that's a huge I mean everyone loves a day, I'm curious from your perspective What do you think NIL needs to do to change and make it like I mean, there's got to be some regulation So in Joe, you know flanagan's perfect world, what would those changes be?

Joe Flanagan (48:15.198)
You know, I will say the timing of the portal to protect the integrity of the college football playoff system needs to be changed. Now there's a lot of different opinions on where you could put it and why, and I really don't care, to be honest, as long as we have a landmark that makes sense and it's not creating additional volatility across the entire system, because last year's timing was garbage.

Again, I talked to two GMs, the Notre Dame and Indiana, and they're like, they have heard nothing that it's probably gonna be the same thing next year, which is insane. But so it is what it is. So I would say the timing of the portal is probably the most important thing to change. I'd like to see more two year, you know, deals being done, not necessarily as an agent, because I like the opportunity to.

OOO (48:52.44)
Who controlled her?

Joe Flanagan (49:06.994)
Frank, imagine if we could hit unrestricted free agency every year, right? So as an agent, hey, it's to my benefit and to the client's benefit to regain leverage every year, right? So if we could do, but if I was a college team, I would try to be pushing more two-year deals that require, you know, essentially, you know, staying longer and creating some roster stability. But that's just not happening across the board right now.

OOO (49:08.108)
Yeah, free agency every year. Yeah, for sure.

Joe Flanagan (49:32.673)
There are teams that are trying to address some of the things by putting balloon payments after the portal period opens so that if you leave, you don't get paid that last big lump sum. So they're trying to create punitive clauses in there. But I think if it was standardized across the board, some sort of contract, you know, kind of regulations like we have in the NFL, a framework, it doesn't mean we still shouldn't be able to negotiate, you know, the highest level deal that we can get.

from a free market or from a market value standpoint, but I think the colleges would benefit substantially if they knew like at least every two, know, I don't have to recruit this guy every year because that's what's basically happening right now is you're having to re recruit your own players while you're going to try to recruit high school kids. It's like it's

OOO (50:12.974)
All right.

Joe Flanagan (50:16.806)
So many coaches that I know in college football are like, Joe, can you please get me to the NFL? I just gotta get out of this. I'd rather just work in a system where I don't have to recruit the players that I'm coaching on top of go to five different states in six days to try to close on high school kids. So it's very stressful for them too. So yeah.

OOO (50:27.542)
Yeah.

Never thought of it like that.

Okay. Speaking of that too, like I remember my college coach recruited me out of high school was the nicest guy, Jeff Quinn. Great, great guy. There's Notre Dame guy, you know, he coached Notre Dame with Brian Kelly and stuff like that. Anyway, nicest guy. And then when I got to central Michigan the first time, like then he knew he got me for five years. Like back then you weren't going anywhere. It was like something changed. And all of a he was like, mean to me like move your ass around. I was like, he was in, now he's my coach. And he was like, I remember it hit my heart hard. Yeah. I liked the salesman guy who was coming to my house and

Joe Flanagan (50:54.816)
He was a coach.

You're like, like the salesman guy better.

OOO (51:05.402)
He like, he wasn't as nice anymore. Now he's just a boyfriend holding bags.

Joe Flanagan (51:05.792)
Yeah, and. Well, and think and think about that dynamic Frank and Jacob like now you've got to. You can't piss off your prima donnas or you're going to lose him. So even as a coach, know coaches love authority. They let there the Alpha Alpha, right? They're the general. They're the general, but now you're having insurgency. Because you a guy who's a high level quarterback or a pass rusher or wide receiver and he's the dude.

OOO (51:23.436)
Especially in college.

Joe Flanagan (51:32.704)
and you piss him off, you you're like, I guarantee coaches are in their coaches meetings. Like do not piss that 17 or they're that 19 year old sophomore off. Like they've never had to do that. So that deference, that ability, like that's, that's tough on coaches. Cause they're not used to having to kiss the ass of their own players.

OOO (51:48.108)
I think that's why Saban got out of it. Like his whole mentality of how to grow a program, you know, growing your younger guys. Now he could try to bring his stock up. And if you're not technically a starter as a sophomore or as a junior, and then they're bouncing out to different schools, like that's what made him so good is his whole program and building his flock underneath, you know, his starters and all that stuff. And now those guys can all jet, you know, if you're not a starter. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Flanagan (52:05.78)
Yep.

Joe Flanagan (52:09.598)
Yeah, that's why he retired as soon as NIO came available. He's like, I'm out. I lose my advantage. So yeah.

OOO (52:14.35)
That goes against him for sure. He won a championship or two. He's fine. Yeah, he's doing okay. Let's talk about draft day. Yes. We only got we got a little bit of time left. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's got to be the best day worst day for some of these kids, right? Like, you know, Frankie undrafted, but you know, your story is different. I guess I don't even really totally know where I want to go with this. But I kind of from your perspective, like

Joe Flanagan (52:21.863)
I'm good. Yeah, as long as you guys need.

OOO (52:39.474)
What is it leading up to it? What is it during the day? What is it kind of after? Like what is, you know, what does that life cycle look like for you? I call them almost Joe. me start like the whole and I'll go high level of like your football season ends January. And then what Jordan just got done through is that's when you start, you sign with your agent as soon as your season's over. Then Joe is responsible for finding you training and you're now you're just care about the bench press.

40 yard dash, your explosiveness for your vertical jump, combine stuff. And we just saw that with the NFL combine. you're just doing your, it's kind of a fun time. Cause like three hours a day, all you're doing is training. have no responsibilities. You're 20 years old, 21 years old. You're just working out, trying to better yourself. Yeah. And you're doing it for one day, either pro day or the combine. And then you get to that point, you're hoping you performed well. You hope, you you shook hands with the right scouts.

Joe Flanagan (53:21.683)
Eating, sleeping, training.

OOO (53:32.888)
your agents, know, in the background, kind of asking, you know, you know, kind of maybe put plug in you a little bit here there with his connections. And now it's draft day. like, I remember being a nervous wreck and I remember a few folks reaching out and being like, you know, Raiders or the lions like six, seventh round. And I knew the first day wasn't, yeah, it wasn't, you know, cards for me. So it's like, you're just kind of watching you kind of jealous of the dudes who are going first, you know, first draft early round draft picks, you know, then second day goes through. think for me, it was only, was that, that wasn't only two days, Joe.

Joe Flanagan (54:01.131)
Two days back, Daniel. That's how old you are.

OOO (54:02.178)
Yeah, it was the first and second round, I think. then, yeah, right. And by the end of it, I remember thinking like, I could go sixth round. could go seventh round. I remember the Lions having like a rape pick. You're interested and nothing. And then I get a phone call from Kevin Green, who's a hall of fame, you know, rest in peace, hall of fame linebacker. And he was an intense dude. That's what he made his whole career on intense human being. And he called me and everything was kind of a blur.

And it was like, are you ready to play with all your heart, fire, desire, and I'm just like, yes, sir. Yes. You know, yes, sir. And then after that, you know, I remember my family going out and getting all this like Packard gear and I'm still like an undressed fridge at that point. I'm like, I don't even know if I'm going to make this roster and they're going to waste all their money. This Packard stuff. My family was so excited. Me. I was like, kind of disappointed. wasn't drafted. Realized I had a uphill battle uphill battle as an undressed fridge. And you were like,

Joe Flanagan (54:33.28)
You

Joe Flanagan (54:47.37)
Right.

OOO (54:57.87)
scratching a claw and just make a practice squad, you know? And I remember going to like a rookie mini camp for three days. And I was, if there was 90, you know, there's, they're bringing all the rookies. was probably the last guy they brought in where I'm like, Oh gosh, you know? And there was kids that were undrafted guys that were in my same position who were getting the starter reps with the rookies. We're still taking the third. By the of that three days, I was the starter over the...

guys who were just freshmen on drafting or rookie on draft the guys. Then you go, then you go to OTAs and now the whole roster comes in. You're back as number 90 on the roster. Cause you look at the special teams death chart and you can see your guys. And then you see you trinkled down five deep on the punt team. And you're like, Oh gosh. And you know, they had clay Matthew, they had studs. And then you just, and then all of sudden you see those, of those guys as undrafted guys that were with you, uh, start now they get, all of you find out he got cut.

Joe Flanagan (55:30.624)
and the full roster comes in.

OOO (55:54.496)
He got cut. Now you go through your report to training camp in the fall. shoot. The other guy I was rooming with an undrafted guy that I was competing with, he doesn't even make it to the first day. so now I'm in a room by myself and, then all of a a couple of guys get hurt. So now you got to get starter reps and you got to basically make the best out of those reps. Cause as an undrafted guy, you don't get a lot of reps, but when guys get hurt, now your numbers call, they're going to see how you do. Well, for me,

Joe Flanagan (56:01.055)
is gone.

Joe Flanagan (56:14.784)
and the best of them.

OOO (56:22.286)
Luckily it was the third preseason game against Indianapolis Colts. Peyton Manning is playing third, three quarters and everybody's hurting. Frank Zambos got to start and play. And I ended up getting 10 tackles of sack fumble on Peyton Manning and all of a you're making the Green Bay roster. So it was like, that was my journey of, didn't even know if I was going to play football. You know, it was kind of banged up my senior year to just all these different challenges as you go through it. And it really came down to when it was your time to perform.

Are you going to be a gamer or are going to shit down your leg? And I felt like for me, whether it was the pro day, whether it was mini camp, whether it was training camp, whether it was now you got third preseason game, boom, you're there. Now all of a second, third game of the season as a guy from central Michigan, you're starting against the bears. Boom, sack on Jay Cutler. Now all of sudden it's the super bowl 2010, six, seven months prior to that. I didn't even know I'm playing, you know, I didn't know if I'm playing football anymore. Now you're going to super like, it was just a surreal.

Joe Flanagan (57:21.904)
It was, no, was, yeah. No, I mean, and that's it. That's the perfect scenario for an undrafted free agent to become a bonafide. And it takes some of those things that you notice were outside of Frank's control, right? The Packers didn't even, I guarantee you that wasn't the Packers plan for you to be playing that much that year. But what happened was things, opportunities that arose and you took advantage of them. You stayed physically healthy. You...

OOO (57:22.616)
There's my experience. Joe, talk about, don't know, either one really long went there.

Joe Flanagan (57:50.505)
played well when you had your opportunities. You got snaps, which out of, you know, required kind of necessity because people in front of you. And then you got preseason reps. You could make a team and you're not only trying to make the Packers when you're in a preseason game, you're trying to make any team. you know, an undrafted kid, like some of the other guys you probably came in with Frank that didn't get at other positions or your position. They didn't, they might be decent football players, but if they never got on the field to get reps, nobody knows and they're invisible and they're gone. And so that really is,

OOO (58:00.962)
Yep.

Joe Flanagan (58:19.232)
the perfect story of how it can work out for an undrafted free agent. And then there's the other scenarios where all those other dudes never got hurt and you, you the team knew you were a pretty talented dude, but if you never got the reps, you would have been on the street too. it's, there's a lot of, I wouldn't say it's luck, but there's a lot of factors outside of your control to try to make a team as an undrafted free agent.

OOO (58:41.21)
And that's what helps having a good agent too, because you can, when you're an undrafted guy, you know, if you're a draft pick or a first round draft pick, your agent, you're probably negotiating deals, but you're not. Yeah, it's way easier. This is like, now you're trying to evaluate rosters to see where is Frank going to get the most possible reps. Whereas they don't have eight established guys in that room where they're one, two, three depth is already filled out where I'm not going to get any reps. It's like, you've got to kind of find out where they're looking for. If they had any.

Joe Flanagan (58:48.432)
Easy that's way easier way easier

OOO (59:06.862)
early draft picks at that position group stay away from there because those guys are pretty much guaranteed for a second year. They're gonna get all exactly so you're evaluating.

Joe Flanagan (59:10.762)
they're gonna get all the reps and they're gonna make the team, yeah. Yeah, the art of undrafted free agency, I mean, honestly, undrafted free agent process is the most important thing I do. I know you asked Jacob about draft day. Well, it's three days now. First two, you're just kind of sitting and observing, but you're updating the depth chart and I prepare for every draft as if all of my players are gonna go undrafted. I don't care if somebody says Joey's the third rounder. I've had it happen where guys fall all the way out of the draft.

There could be an injury situation, off the field situation somehow that I didn't know about. There could be just things that happen across in, you know.

The draft is a permutation upon a permutation upon a permutation, right? So every pick affects the next one. And a team who all of a sudden is picking, they like my linebacker in the fourth round, but somehow this dude that they has a second rounder is available. Well, they're not taking my guy, they're taking that guy, right? Even though they had my guy rated as a fourth rounder, they had this guy rated as a second rounder. They call me and they're like, Joe, sorry, that's who we want with the guy we had higher rated. So there's so much that's outside your control in the draft. And then,

What we can control is what Frank was talking about. I, that's the literally the most important process I do is preparing essentially a dossier on each team and each position for each of my players. And I have a color coded system, red, yellow, green now that I've developed over the last 20 years, know, 30 years. and, and as a team makes a selection. like in Jordan Kwiatkowski case, if I'm looking at, you know, an inside backer situation or maybe a weak side backer situation and those depth charts.

And if a team takes a guy in the second round on the fifth round and they're interested in signing him, and they also signed an unrestricted free agent in the off season, there's no opportunity for Jordan to get reps. And so it's a dead, it's a debt, it's a job that's dead in the water. So I take that team and I crumple that piece of paper up and they're off the board. And so hopefully by day three, I've got a good four to six teams that are interested in my player. And among those four to six, there's two or three where that depth chart situation and the economic situation allows for the young man to win on merit.

Joe Flanagan (01:01:05.44)
Because if he can't win reps and he can't win a job on merit, it's not a good job. And I don't even care if they're offering him 100,000 to sign where another team that's got an open job for, they're offering him 5,000. I'm like, let's go to where you can make the job in September. Cause right now it doesn't matter. You got to, and so that's kind of how I approach it. It is literally the most important thing I do for, in my fiduciary duty to young, know, draft eligible.

OOO (01:01:20.739)
Sure.

OOO (01:01:32.258)
More you know, I mean, my only perception of agents is like the show Ballers, right? You know what I mean? Like that's kind of where I...

Joe Flanagan (01:01:39.847)
Yeah, yeah. No, the whole the whole industry, at least for me, you know, is a very workaday blue collar industry, probably no different than what you guys do. It's it's trying to build relationships over years so that you have good information and good market understanding. It's it's it's trying to develop relationships with people with whom you can trust.

So that if they say hi, hey Jordan, you know he's going to need a year on the practice squad. If you send him here Joe, I'm going to give him that year to develop on the P squad. You know who's who's told me those things in the past and followed through for the last 30 years and who hasn't? So all of those factors go into into my decision making with trying to place a player because it's really I become a placement agent more than anything. Yeah, yeah and so.

OOO (01:02:20.972)
keep your receipts.

Joe Flanagan (01:02:23.698)
It's very blue collar and process oriented more than it is. The first and second rounders, that's cool and it's glamorous and it's fun. But I'm like, good, you're done and off the table. I don't have to worry about you. I'll talk to you on Monday. Congrats. I got other dudes I got to worry about.

OOO (01:02:38.414)
.

OOO (01:02:44.27)
That's crazy. Joe, this has been incredibly insightful. I know we're over time and we appreciate you sticking on with us a little bit. This is probably, could, this is another one. Like there's a few we've had so far. like, we could continue this conversation for a while. And I would love to see if we maybe get you back on after the draft. don't know if you're, you know, I know it's your busy time and everything's going crazy, but.

Joe Flanagan (01:03:01.716)
Yeah. No, I'd be happy to, because I think I can, it's honestly in retrospect, it can be more interesting to see how things played out. You know, I have Jordan Vandenberg, who has basically just put up the best defensive tackle workout maybe in pro day history out of Georgia Tech. He scored a 10 out of 10 on the RAS scale, which is a relative athletic score. He literally.

OOO (01:03:20.238)
Mm-hmm.

OOO (01:03:25.762)
What was your score?

Joe Flanagan (01:03:28.232)
If you haven't looked that up, look it up. It's an interesting metric. No, not, yeah, no, no. But yeah, mean, a defensive tackle who jumped 36 inches, did 35 on the bench, jumped 9.11 on the broad, ran a 4.19 short shuttle, which is essentially like a DB. Just absolutely insane. Literally half the scouts afterwards were calling me they're like, Joe, I've never seen a defensive tackle do the things he did.

OOO (01:03:32.248)
Did they have that when I was playing, Joe? I probably did 11 of that. It's gotta be in the sixes. Probably. Fair enough.

OOO (01:03:45.014)
It's a scary human.

Joe Flanagan (01:03:57.6)
was a rugby player from South Africa. Didn't play football till sophomore year in high school, still figuring out the game. But his grandfather placed sixth, I think, in the Mr. Olympia, losing to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, so he's a really interesting guy. And he just got, like I said, he was a non-combined guy. And I kind of knew he was going to do this. And now he's on 30 visits every day. He's been on a visit to a team.

OOO (01:04:11.788)
Yeah, so it's just a mutant. Yeah, that's fine.

Joe Flanagan (01:04:25.024)
It'll be really interesting to see. think he's going to end up going higher than most people think.

OOO (01:04:28.526)
I love that. I would love to see if we can get you back on after, because I don't think there's a dealership we've ever talked to that somehow football or some sort of sports in general doesn't come up. So we'll follow Jordan's career to Jordan's path. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Joe, again, the time is incredibly appreciated. We love the insight and yeah, we'd love to have you back on and, you know, after the draft and some of the dust settles.

Joe Flanagan (01:04:41.63)
Yeah, we got two Jordans for sure. Excellent.

Joe Flanagan (01:04:54.739)
I appreciate it guys know anytime you let me know Frank whatever Frank needs he gets. Alright fellas, take care. Have a good rest of the day. See you.

OOO (01:04:59.15)
Oh God. Joe. Thanks buddy. you bud. Bye.

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