The OTP | The Origin Story of the Draft Prospect Color Coding System

Published Apr 10, 2025, 1:00 AM
Amie Wells, Rhett Bryan, and Dave McGinnis talk to Titans GM Mike Borgonzi about the color system he's implemented with the scouting department on the OTP.

Welcome to the OTP. I'm Amy Wells. Every spring we spend a lot of time talking about the evaluation process and how each team goes about the business of selecting the roster for the upcoming season. We compare measurements and statistics, We watch people jump and run and throw and catch. We lay out their history both on and off the field. But there's one area that we don't talk about much. That's the language of scouting. You see, every draft room across the league speaks its own language. It's the way they communicate to one another what they are seeing when they look at a certain prospect. General manager Mike Borgonzi made reference to that language on his very first day as a Titan, and then again with our own Retbrian at the NFL Scouting combine in Indianapolis. That a portion of that conversation right here on the OTP.

I want to go back to one of your first availabilities as general manager of the Titans, and you mentioned about generational talent. It's clear that there's some generational talent I think that everybody agrees on near the top of this thing. And with the number one pick, obviously that's you said that and everybody ran and wrote columns about it and all those kinds of things. But you mentioned something that harkens back to a conversation that coach Mack and Amy had in a previous podcast a few years ago with Mike Giddings junior with the pro scout stuff that his dad did back in the seventies, and you mentioned blue players, and without giving away trade secrets, I want to ask you about the color coded system and obviously it sounds like you use a modified version of that and how that works.

Yeah.

You know, the first time I was introduced to that was in Kansas City when John Dorsey came from Green Bay. So we do use that color code system, Blue being the highest level player. That's what we call a raar player in the league. Generational player League. It's a rare skill set of physical talent, character makeup that all goes into making that player a blue player, And basically we just go down there's four different levels of starters. There's a Red player, which is an impact player, a Gold player which is a good starter, and then you have starters with limitations, and then you have backups. So we've kind of tweaked that skill a little bit over the years is the leagues evolved a little bit, just to add a little bit more definition into the scale. But that's something that I took back. I guess it was twenty thirteen when I really started working with that scale.

But you guys, you speak your own language with that, because it's like when you're talking to another evaluator. You're talking about all right, I see a linebacker. He's got blue feet, right, So that we want to speak the same language.

So we're in the room. This is a red player, this is a black player, you know, so we want to be on the same page and speak the same language when we're in that room. That's all part of the process and setting up a new system and it's a little bit new to these guys now. And you know, we went through it for this past like three weeks and meetings, but that's the only way to teach it is actually go through the meetings and you watching tape. Okay, this is what a blue player looks like. This is what a red player looks like. So everybody's on the same page when we're discussing the evaluation of the player.

That's uh, he mentioned Amy. I know, Mike gettings very well, you know the time I've been in the league and Gibs, when they started putting that that that thing out, I was pretty I understand that that language. What's important about that he is, as you say, when you're bringing everybody else together and we're gonna have we're gonna have gettings on. I think, you know, with with what we've we've talked about before, that's uh that that's very important and it's very interesting too. I was glad to hear that.

Yeah, no, he I mean he invented that whole scale, and it's carried on into the league and different organizations and people have kind of tweaked it a little bit, and we did in Kansas City a little bit, but it was really you know, he really started that that whole system, and it's something that's carried over for years.

How long does it take to instill that in a new group because it is a little different language, a little different code. Does it take a minute to kind of get the reps under you and get refamiliar with what each thing means?

Sure, I think it's just like being out in the field in practice. When you're practice in place, it's the same thing. So when we go through the process that we had to stop a couple times for discussions about this is what this means in the process, this is how we this is how we evaluate this position. This is what a blue means, this is what a red means. So we went through all that in those meetings, and it's important to have patience in the process too when you're doing it, because you want to teach it the right way, to make sure everybody's on the same page, everybody speaking the same language, so we can make the best decisions for the team.

Taking that time to really be all football all the time with the same group of people day in and day out, not only from an evaluation standpoint, but just from a team standpoint. Getting to understand how the other guys in the room approach things, how they talk. That has to be so beneficial too.

It is and for our so you know, we played sports, it's it's like being in the locker room. You know, that's where you build that camaraderie and that bond and that you know, that togetherness is when you're going through those meetings, it's it's very similar to you know, for me and for a lot of people that played, it's like being in the locker room, and and that's where you really start to get that rapport with everybody else on the team, and you start to become a team when you're going through that process.

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My father started the company back in nineteen seventy seven.

He was the former coach in the NFL.

And he came up with the idea of Pro Scout when there was a competing league called the World Football League, and he was the head coach GM of the Hawaii team and the World Football League started before the NFL and the NFL had their final cuts. About halfway through the season of the World Football League, he added about ten players who got cut and it turned.

Around their season.

So he came up the thought was, Wow, there are guys that get cut at the end of the season that have the ability to play in the league. Maybe there was an abundance of players at the position or a wrong fit. After the World Football League folded, he went to the Denver Broncos as the offensive line coach and first club director of pro personnel and stayed there for a year and had this idea for the company, and it started off with six teams back in nineteen seventy seven, and we've had his mini at sixteen.

I came on board after playing at Illinois.

In nineteen eighty eight and kind of the color system that most team used for players pro Scott and Bennett back in nineteen seventy seven, So instead of using numbers, we identified players as blue, red, purple, orange players instead of using numbers. And it's first started off with to upgrade the bottom of the roster. Then came Plan B, then came the free agency, became the salary cap, and.

It's evolved into.

Kind of helping teams make their rosters analytics heightweight, and forty times and kind of identifying maybe players who are declining.

So you don't make a fiscal mistake with them gains.

This is so interesting again. I came into the league in nineteen eighty six with the Bears, and and you know when I was first exposed, you know, to the Gettings Book. And let me just say this, and I think I'm not speaking anything out of school here. The Gettings Book was something very valuable to teams because the information was not shared. It was not shared, and you guys, you guys sold it exclusively to clubs that were willing to not only purchase it, but to be within that realm. But you never you never went public with it. You never went public with it. And so when you when you had access to this, it really especially back back then. As I said, I came in in eighty six and it opened up a whole new world. You know, I learned a lot of how to just evaluate National Football League players, you know, you know from that, and to me it was fascinating because then when I told Amy, I want to get Mike gettings on for two reasons. First of all, he's a great dude. Second of all, he's a good friend of myself and Jeff Fisher's. And third of all, what he and his dad did, I said, people don't really know about because now you've got all these scouting services, you got everything on the internet, you've got everything that's out there that's available, and everybody is an expert. Now, okay, but you guys truly were the ones that could boil it down for an NFL team. And as you said, just what you said to identified declining players. So you didn't make a fiscal mistake on somebody off of reputation. Only talk to me a little bit about how your dad came up with that color system and how you guys have refined it.

It was interesting, you know, he went to count and Max. He was one of those guys that you remember the old days you had to, you know, draw up the cards and the hill boards. He could draw the perfect circles and squares in lines, in zags, and his printing was impeccable.

It was it was like it was like computer generated.

Right, So every coach was in love, like, okay, we know who were doing the cards.

Nobody liked doing the cards.

And he got the idea from you remember the old ram scout John Math.

Absolutely yeah.

And so John Math kind of goes like I, I you know back you know the zero printing out staffs and things like I hate look at numbers, goes, why don't you use colors? So we do use a number system to evaluate and it correlates to a color. So the book and in the old days, you know, we used to hand color.

Of the books.

I'd go get a bunch of my high school friends and we'd have coloring books at the you know, the end of the season, coloring up teams and what what what you know? Then we created you know, some axioms and and the color is basically what we tried to do is is correlate it to if we were the owner, how much would we pay what's the worth of the player? So blue being the highest color, you know, the blues should be the highest paid. And the kind of structure that I would say, what we always tried to do. We always thought it was our dollars or our money if you were acquiring a player, and what was the cost, and to not make fiscal mistakes.

And then the other key one.

With my dad being a coach and growing up in that atmosphere and understanding coach language. This way, the most frustrating thing coach mash you'll get this is, you know, coaches have a different language than personnel people, to analytic people, to owners and too. If you can be say multi lingually in that concept. I had a GM. I sat down on a meeting and usual it to the owner of the GM, the head coach, and we're walking out after the meeting. He goes It amazes me how you can translate or switch to the dialogue to the person you're talking to. So when I'm talking to, say, Coach Mac about defense, and I go this linebacker when he scrapes off, gets near the line of screamage, he crosses over too soon, doesn't keep his outside armed, you know free.

Well, Coach Mack knows a gact what I'm saying.

Whereas a personnel guy, I would have to use different type of language to explain why I like this linebacker, don't like this linebacker, or you know, a pass rusher.

I go to Coach Mack. He goes Coach Mack.

He's got that long first step, he works half the man, and when that first move gets frunted, he can counter because he has hand feet coordination. Coach Mac niser getting big, because you know it's like that's that's rare, and to to to kind of like describe and get people on the same page. And it would be the more you can sit and listen to the coach and they can say describe, you know, the players they want, because every Super Bowl team is different. So no one Coach Mac, like coach Man's not gonna be real happy if I give him an outside lineberry. The kid doesn't doesn't run blue or red. Yeah, and and and his corners better be.

Able to play. Man, if I'm giving Coach Mac a bunch of slow zone corner, He's gonna look at me and go gids.

Isn't no ways doing so understanding what the team's looking for. And I believe in evaluation it starts with a limit. You know, you eliminate first, So knowing what traits should be blue, red, purple, you know, because in the perfect world, yeah, everybody would be you know, blue, speed, strength, and ability. But that's not the perfect world. And the great coaches can tell you if he does this purple, I'm okay.

And that to an evaluator like.

Oh okay, they don't have to be the perfect size, you know, speed, strength, and understanding.

That allows you to go find.

Say the middle tier players or up the bottom end of your roster that can fill a need and or you know, upgrade your team in other ways than your say, ten core blue players.

How do you think that the evolution of scouting and how advanced it's become with the inclusion of technology and these big events like the NFL Scouting Combine and all of the different data points that people are able to collect now, how do you think that that growth has impacted the growth of the game on the field.

That's a great question.

I think it's it's played a huge part when in the old coach back will remember this one. I mean, you know, I started off with a Kodak analyst as a as a projector. Oh yeah, remember then we went to the beta camp and then we went to you know, the surface pro that you can have an computer, you can plug it into a monitor, and I can remember my first job when I started working with I would just grab the tape and go get numbers because sometimes it was hard to see numbers because the quality of the of the tape wasn't good.

So you'd have to, you know, really be patient and work hard.

What was interesting them at the end of probably I guess maybe what coachback seventeen years ago, twenty years ago. You know, at the final cut, they would go like, okay, you know, we'd love to go pick up the linebacker.

And play special teams.

And then the scouts would come in and go, okay, here are the three guys.

You'd have to sit through three season.

Tape, you know, going okay, let me know when he's in the game. Let me know when he's in the game, Whereas now in seconds they can take that player and go here the eighty plays he played in preseason, let's watch him. So technology I think has played a huge part too. You know, a coach will sit down and look at a guy for an hour, but if it's going to be a four hour process, eh, maybe not.

So kids, that's so great that you say that. The other thing that I think you're always able to do is is is because you were in it so long and people begin to trust you so much, you could kind of and coaching staffs stayed together for a long time, you could start to match players to staffs because you know what people wanted.

Yeah, absolutely that would you know, understanding exactly what you liked on defense, you know, like yeah, I mean to give say Jeff not a hard running running back. You know, so exactly the personality of the team, and and it would be a short period of time and exactly you build up that trust of Okay, you know, kids and pro scouts understand what we're looking for and the names he recommends, I'll go look because it's the type of player I want and whether you know, and it's usually say that the backup and knowing that he's got to play good special teams and and and and or be you know, a guy that's not gonna make errors, you know, like the third running backs got to play special teams, all of them, and if he has to, he's got to maybe go play a little h back, you know.

So I need a smart at. It's not gonna make errors. Yeah.

I know he's not as physically gifted as my number one, but this is what I want as my number three.

Awesome, Well, Mike, getting thank you so much for taking some time to chat with us. This has been Mac has just been incredible.

Well, I told you kids would be great, because I mean he is. I mean he and his dad. There are icons in this business.

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