The beauty of the AAF

Head of scouting service sees beauty of The Alliance

Howard Balzer

https://aaf.com/head-of-scouting-service-sees-beauty-of-the-alliance

INDIANAPOLIS — Pro Scout is exactly what its name suggests: an independent company that has been evaluating NFL players for a group of NFL teams it has had as clients since 1977.

Mike W. Giddings (he prefers Mike W. to Mike Jr.) began working for the company his father Mike R., now 84, started 42 years ago.

The company is known for assigning colors for its ratings, with blue being the best of whatever attribute is being assessed.

“Yes, blue is a big color,” Mike W. said at the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, where he meets with the teams that have supported his family for several decades.

He joked when he recalled long-ago Philadelphia Eagles personnel executive George Azar once saying Pro Scout’s volumes of information were “the most expensive coloring books I’ve ever seen.”

It made sense to discuss the nascent Alliance of American Football with a guy that never gets enough of watching football.

While he won’t give The Alliance a “blue” grade yet, Mike W. says after three weeks, things are trending in that direction.

“What’s good is its innovation and making it fun, making it about offense, allowing another opportunity for players to showcase their skills and continuing their dream of being a professional football player,” he said.

“What’s also good is they’ve gone more young than just the 30-year-old NFL player and giving those guys a shot to play.”

Noting the changed landscape of NFL policies that began with the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement, Mike W. hopes like many in The Alliance that there will come a time when a limited number of younger NFL players under contract will be able to play in The Alliance and then return to their team in April when the season ends.

The Alliance co-founder/head of football Bill Polian said on CBS prior to the Week 1 season opener that the long-range goal (5-to-10 years) is to have just such an arrangement with the NFL.

Giddings said that might happen sooner judging by the quality of play he’s seen this early in The Alliance’s season: “With the rules and regulations and the amount of practice time that you can have in college and the NFL, it would be good for both if somehow there can be an agreement that when (NFL) teams expand to the 90-man roster after the end of the season, certain players can get play time to develop. If some players, especially offensive linemen and maybe quarterbacks can do that, then I think it would be a phenomenal league to help groom and prepare players for the NFL.

“In that way the AAF can help the NFL and it would also help The Alliance.”

If that happens, many people would feel blue, and in that instance, that would be a good thing.