NFL Combine: How NIL Has Made It Harder — And Easier — To Scout QBs

INDIANAPOLIS — Evaluating quarterbacks used to be so easy. The best ones stayed for several years in the same program, typically playing for the same coaches in the same system. Tracking their development was consistent and simple. In the NIL era, it’s not so simple anymore. “Well,” Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider said this week at the NFL Scouting Combine, “they’ve attended, like, seven schools, you know?” Maybe not quite that many. But more and more, top prospects are becoming products of NIL money and a transfer portal that can send them on a long and winding journey throughout their collegiate career. NFL teams are already navigating a landscape with an older group of top prospects than usual, and players who’ve bounced around to multiple teams. Cam Ward, for example, was the first overall pick in 2025 after playing at three different colleges (Incarnate Word, Washington State, Miami). And Fernando Mendoza is the presumptive No. 1 overall pick of the 2026 draft thanks to one magnificent season at Indiana after spending three years at Cal. With millions of dollars being legally dangled in front of college players every year in the hopes of luring them to a new school, and with the biggest money often going to quarterbacks, NFL evaluators fear this is only the beginning of a much more complicated world. “I can’t imagine having to evaluate a 21-year-old quarterback who has played in three different systems, for three different coaches, against three different levels of competition, in three seasons, with all sorts of different results,” one NFL scout told me. “But I can imagine how many mistakes are going to be made.” NFL teams are already feeling their way through the new landscape with prospects at other positions, with the first “NIL class” coming of age over the past two years. There have been challenges as they’ve altered their process. Getting the behind-the-scenes information they need to evaluate a player — especially one they’re considering drafting high — has become arduous. It’s also gotten harder to trust that the information is right. “For us, as a scouting staff, it has become much more difficult,” Green Bay Packers GM Brian Gutekunst said. “There was a time where you could be talking to a position coach who knew this player as a junior in high school and been in the home, knew the parents, saw him as a freshman, a sophomore, and (saw him) grow. “Now, a lot of time when you go into a school, those people at that school might know the guy for four months, right? So it’s different. It’s very different.” Teams try to find people who truly know the character of every player they consider, but it’s so much more important at the quarterback position. They aren’t just looking for a franchise player. They’re looking for a team leader, a spokesman, and a player who can thrive in a bright spotlight, even in tough conditions. They need a player who can withstand an unbelievable amount of scrutiny without wilting under the pressure, while still performing at a high level, too. “You can still see a little of that,” the scout told me. “But how do you really know if the kid bounced (to another school) just for the money or because the heat got too much? And even if it’s just about the money, what does that say about the kid? “Those are the kinds of things we have to consider now that weren’t a big issue 10 years ago.” It also doesn’t necessarily help evaluators to see quarterbacks in multiple systems — especially if they end up in several different ones in a short period of time. It can be hard to judge how coaches might have had to simplify things for their quarterback in their first season, or whether they truly are a product of their scheme. That’s not nearly as important for other positions. But ideally, evaluators would prefer to see how a quarterback grows and develops his knowledge in one place over a period of time. “Some of it is a lack of continuity,” New York Giants GM Joe Schoen said. “You’re not sitting in one system for three or four years and learning the nuances and the intricacies of the system. You’re going from one school to the next school to the next school, new offense, new coaches, new techniques, and you’re not able to develop. “I think there is some merit to being in one place for an extended amount of time and truly mastering the offense.” Of course, the NIL and transfer portal era isn’t necessarily all bad, either. NFL evaluators have seen a benefit from judging players, even as they’ve had to track some of their journeys from coast to coast. Players tend to stay in school a bit longer — especially the quarterbacks — because they can afford it thanks to payouts that weren’t available years ago. The result of that is the NFL is already starting to see older and more mature prospects come out. “All these guys are just slightly more advanced in terms of their experience,” Schneider said. “When we had guys before, you’d be worried about, ‘OK, you’re moving from South Bend to Seattle. What’s that adjustment period going to be like for you personally, away from the professional part of how you’re going to adapt to the National Football League?’ “But now these guys are like, ‘OK, they’re living in Eugene (Ore.) and they were living in College Station (Texas), and they’re just more ready for the off-field experience.” They also have experience with money, which is no small thing for NFL evaluators trying to pry into the mind of a young player and project how hard he’ll continue to work when he first strikes it rich. There’s no longer much of a worry about how money might change them, because the top prospects already have it. In fact, while surveying players at the Combine this week, 20 were willing to share their NIL earnings and 12 reported making at least $500,000 in their career. Salaries for the top quarterbacks in college these days are almost always in the millions, with the top schools signing them for $4-5 million per year. In other words, if money was going to change them, it probably already did. “I actually think it’s made it easier because you know what the guys are going to do when they have money,” Las Vegas Raiders GM John Spytek said. “You know the ones that love the game and are about the right things. And just because they’ve got more money than we all had when we were in college, they still prepare the right way, they play the right way, they love the game, they’re there for their teammates. And I think it’s kind of been a little bit illuminating to the character of who they are.” There are other ways the scouting process is being helped, too, especially when it comes to quarterbacks. Since players have more financial incentive to stay in school (or schools), they tend to play more games, which gives scouts more film to evaluate, and are more developed prospects. “They’re more prepared to come into our league and potentially make a contribution,” Houston Texans GM Nick Caserio said. “You have some players with 45, 50, 60 games played. The more you play, the more you do something, the better you’re going to get.” As an example, one NFL assistant GM pointed to the example of Oregon quarterback (and former UCLA quarterback) Dante Moore, who might have been the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s draft (to the New York Jets) if he hadn’t decided to return to college for one more season. That would have meant a guaranteed contract worth about $50 million, which is hard for anyone to pass up. But Moore did — a decision that was surely made easier by the fact that he’s likely to make around $5 million, if not more, by playing for the Ducks for one more season. “And it was the smart choice,” the assistant GM told me. “Not just financially. He’s only 20. He wasn’t ready. But he was still going to be the No. 2 pick in the draft and heading to a bad team in a major market. It could have been a disaster for him and the team. But NIL gave him the freedom to make the smart move for his development and his career. “We’re all going to have a much better idea of his future in a year. And he’ll be more prepared for the league.” Another year in school will also give teams a better chance to evaluate him and make a smarter decision for themselves, too. That, in fact, might be the biggest change for finding quarterbacks in the NIL era. There won’t be as many unfinished products, which means scouts can deal more in facts and less in speculation. Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton even noted that there are likely to be fewer prospects coming from small schools and out of inferior conferences because of their access to NIL and the transfer portal. “It’s not a crisis,” he said. “It’s just that they’re getting moved to 1-A schools.” Even the skeptical scout noted that, “It was much easier to project a guy like Cam Ward when he’s playing at Miami than it would have been if he was stuck at some FCS school.” It’s easier to project guys who end up getting more experience, too. “You’re getting older prospects as you go on, and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon,” Kansas City Chiefs GM Brett Veach said. “Typically, in the second, third round would be those guys that maybe they didn’t play a lot, but they were young. Well, now these guys are just bouncing and getting paid by another school, and they’re playing. “So in that 2, 3, 4 (round range), where you got these younger developmental guys that haven’t scratched the surface yet, (now) you’re getting a little bit more already finished product.” So there are benefits and challenges, especially when looking for players at the hardest position in sports to play, and NFL teams are only beginning to scratch the surface of what those benefits and challenges are. As college programs and players get more used to life in the NIL era, it’s likely that things will continue to change. But one thing won’t: NFL evaluators are still searching for every morsal of information they can find to help them from making a multi-million-dollar mistake on a 20-something whose future could literally determine whether they get to keep their jobs. “I still think it’s understanding what’s inside of a person and trying to get to know them,” New England Patriots VP of player personnel Eliot Wolf said. “The quarterback position is so difficult to play. And you’re trying to identify what makes a guy tick. What kind of leader is he going to be? How tough is he? How is he going to react in adverse situations? “I still think that’s the hardest thing to evaluate, college to pro.” And that part isn’t going to change.