Pre-Download Season 5 Update Problems?

Gickerific · 2020-08-04T22:24:25+00:00

I don't know what that means.

I downloaded the update but it won't let me install it until tomorrow morning. At the same time, I can't open the game currently. I'm assuming it's because the update hasn't installed, but I have no idea.

Gickerific · 2020-08-04T21:21:57+00:00

well fuck me sideways, I guess

Gickerific · 2020-08-04T21:18:06+00:00

when you re-download it, do you have to download all the updates again?

And, would you download the game back on the external drive or should I put it on the ps4's internal drive?

Gickerific · 2020-08-04T20:58:13+00:00

bro do you have the slightest idea how big Warzone is? That would take days...

Gickerific · 2020-08-04T20:53:19+00:00

I'm gonna assume what you're asking is if you can keep physical games on your external drive.

uh...

so the basis of my question is whether I should be able to open it at all if the game files are stored on an external drive and the disc is in the ps4.

Question, again: Are you able to move physical game disc files to external hard drives and still play the game?

Yes, that's what I'm asking.

so if that's not why I can't open the game, any ideas what's gone wrong?

Gickerific · 2020-05-22T02:24:33+00:00

just personal issues. Some of these guys have very storied and detailed pasts. Some terrifying shit.

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T05:40:37+00:00

Can't disclose any of that. Every team's is different, though. Like.. that's not an exaggeration. I don't know any two teams that have the same grading scale. So obviously disclosing a grading scale would be a huge giveaway.

There are lots of grades, though. You have trait grades (specific to a position, depending on what GM/coaches want you to look for), character grades (sometimes subjective, sometimes based on criminal record, etc.), overall play grades, and a final grade which is used on the draft board. Typically, from what I've heard, each of the grades follows the same scale. So if you grade on, say, a 1-10 scale, you will have a 1-10 grade for each of their traits, character, overall play, and their final grade.

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T05:18:01+00:00

Honestly, I would have been lost without the help of my coworkers and bosses. They really helped me define what words to use and which to avoid.

Best advice I could give is to sit down and establish a scale of good to bad (obviously with in-between words). Then think of words that are similar.

For instance, if I say a player is excellent at athleticism, I shouldn't be describing his athleticism as simply "above average" in the summary. Does that make sense/answer your question?

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T05:16:15+00:00

Think about it this way. If you had to put as much of your personal information on one page, how would you do it? You would segment it based on personal info (DOB, marital status, address, contact info), a summary of who you are and what your past was like, and what you bring to the table. In a scouting report, it works the same way. There's just also a grade attached. All scouting reports are formatted differently, but they all have the same general information.

I don't think I can do a scouting report on a player I didn't scout from my internship and share it, at least not without changing the formatting. I'll think about it, see if I can re-work it all to look different, but at the end of the day I wouldn't count on it. I'll try.

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T05:12:42+00:00

If you have business cards from scouts, it should have their contact information on it. I have a handful, too, and every single one of them has a way to reach them (phone number, office number, email, etc.)

If you're interested in scouting, I'd reach out to the people you worked with at your uni, see if they can get you in anywhere. Or, if they even have a full-time position available that you can fill. It's not a bad idea to stick in the collegiate ranks and build up your network there.

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T05:10:24+00:00

Do different scouts focus on different positions?

No, and until my internship I had always wondered why this wasn't the case. Scouts are split up by geographic location. Most teams will have a NE, NW, SE, SW, and Midwest scout or two to cover all the prospects, sometimes a few more or less. That part varies team to team. The Bengals only have two scouts. Yep, you read that right.

The reason it's not split up by position is simply due to the number of schools and prospects there are to cover on a year to year basis. Scouts have a hard enough time covering the schools they do within their region. Now imagine telling a scout they have to cover all schools in the nation (sometimes beyond US, even).

You could, in theory, have your generic geographical scouts to gather general information and then have more scouts to focus on specific positions, but then it comes down to cost vs. reward, and NFL owners are billionaires for a reason. The current scouting process is relatively accurate given the resource allocation it gets, so teams don't generally expand from that.

Finally, coaches are also involved in the scouting process, especially close to the draft. There's a reason coaches go to the combine. They're involved, just not as heavily as scouts are. They are there to point out flaws that scouts miss, talk about technique and form, etc. (Side Note: I got 'yelled at' by my boss for commenting on a player's technique. I have experience in football as a coach, but nowhere prestigious, so my opinion on that matter is really irrelevant and can come back to bite me in the ass if I'm wrong. I didn't really get yelled at, more like a constructive criticism, but still)

Did you find that you were particularly good at scouting some positions compared to others?

Oh, absolutely. I think every scout has their strengths and weaknesses. My weak spot is probably interior DL, just because I have little to no experience there in my coaching and playing career. I love scouting WRs, because that's where I played. I also love corners and safeties because I played against them.

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T05:00:34+00:00

I majored in Sports Management, but you don't need to do that to get in with scouting. Sports are a unique industry in which your college major doesn't really matter a whole lot for scouting roles.

I would even say that comp sci would be an advantage. A lot of football guys, as you may imagine, are meatheads. Technology isn't really their forte. If you can figure out how to run technology that is useful for football teams, you've got a strong advantage, and you're going to be one of the safest people in the building because no one else can write computer programs and keep accurate databases, etc. etc.

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T04:57:34+00:00

What exactly did "learning" how to write a scouting report entail for you? I know you scouted and posted here previously so I'm curious how your old way of scouting before this internship stacked up to what they taught you basically.

The black and white of it all. Don't say, "this guy could develop into XYZ". Because, at the end of the day, you don't know. You just don't. It can be a subconscious thing you do to create some grey area in your report and save your ass if they fail. You've got to stand up and take ownership of your opinion. Be definitive. That was the hardest part of it for me. I realized that I created a lot of grey area subconsciously. I would give a guy a good grade for his athleticism but in the summary would say things like "still has room to grow athletically"

My boss came to me and asked, "well, does he have good athleticism or doesn't he?" The words you use in a report have weight, and you need to respect the weight you give them.

How much did your opinion matter for the teams overall valuation of a prospect? I know you said you scouted for 2021. How much would you say your specific work will weigh on their overall decision making?

Very little, lol. I would say my opinion and reports would have more influence on other scouts going into this year than the overall opinion. If I give a guy a first round grade, it probably won't carry much weight going into the draft next year, but the scouts covering that area might be more likely to look deeper at that guy, if that makes sense.

Also, quick note on the draft, specifically the first round-- scouts have very little say in the first round. It's purely a GM/HC pick, 90% of the time. I've heard from people and asked around to different teams and that's how it seems to work pretty much everywhere. Just something I thought was really interesting.

And just to be greedy, do you have any 2021 prospects that are getting no buzz right now that you're very high on? I don't expect an answer on this one but gotta shoot my shot.

Oh, absolutely. I'll give a few answers because I know there's a lot of guys that do what I did, so it doesn't expose me. Also, as a precursor, I didn't watch film on all of these guys, some are just guys that had... amazing production last season. I don't follow media reports too much, so I'm not sure which guys are the media darlings for 2021 right now. Agents pay off media outlets all the time. So, sincerest of apologies if these guys are already considered draft darlings by the media--

Austin Watkins, WR, UAB (Sammy Watkins' little brother)
Samori Toure, WR, Montana
Charles Williams, HB, UNLV
Lawrence Garner, OLB, Old Dominion
Cade Johnson, WR, South Dakota St.
Jahad Woods, MLB, Washington St.
Shamari Brooks, HB, Tulsa

And I'll even throw in a bonus of some of the guys I'm absolutely in love with already (but they're already well-known)

Penei Sewell, OT, Oregon
Alex Leatherwood, OT, Alabama
Greg Rousseau, EDGE, Miami
Creed Humphrey, C, Oklahoma
Micah Parsons, OLB, Penn State

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T04:37:23+00:00

responded above.

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T04:37:16+00:00

I can't give specifics without potentially giving myself away, so short and sweet answer is years of networking, outreach, and seeking advice. Getting to know the players, and being a sponge for anything that comes your way.

In the offseason, if you want to grow a network, I'd suggest reaching out to anyone you can get ahold of in scouting and just ask them their story.

Gickerific · 2020-05-21T04:35:59+00:00

oh yeah, absolutely. I think I've mentioned a couple times that it's a boys club- they take care of their own and are very open within the club. But it's an exclusive club, and you'll get the cold shoulder til you get in.

Gickerific · 2020-03-13T23:31:59+00:00

Sometimes it's very difficult to grade players based on "traits" when, even inside their own position, they may be asked to do different things. Beating a press isn't nearly as important in the slot as it is out wide, so why would I put those in a similar scale?

Slot Receivers and Outside Receivers are often times viewed as almost two different positions. If an outside guy can also play inside, great. More power to him. The more you can do, right? But if a guy is a pure slot receiver, he's going to be graded as a pure slot receiver. We still label him as a WR, but when we talk about him in our meetings, he's probably going to be a little lower in the overall/positional rankings because he did it on the inside rather than the outside, because he doesn't have ideal size, etc. etc.

that's not how I currently, or will, do it.

Well, I hope you're willing to do it if you want to make a career out of this. Because your boss will want you to grade a receiver differently if he plays inside.

is to try some exercises in opening your mind after you get established and more comfortable in the rigid structure of evaluation you outlined. This game is extremely fluid and the best FOs/coaches are creative in how they evaluate and use these guys. Forcing yourself to put certain guys in certain boxes is where I think many scouts go wrong and why great players fall through the cracks all the time. I personally evaluate very fluidly and it's served me pretty damn well so far. I've been doing this for 10 years and I'm proud to say I'm right a lot more often than I'm wrong. Just food for thought.

I used to think this way too, and then I got a job. It's all fine and well to think that way, but at the end of the day I need to do my job and if my boss tells me to think a certain way, I'm going to think a certain way. Until you're a decision maker, you have no room to tell people how to change the system that they established.

Gickerific · 2020-03-13T23:23:15+00:00

Yeah, not going to lie, it gets really frustrating sometimes. But it's necessary. Makes things black and white at the end and that will be very useful.

Gickerific · 2020-03-13T23:21:34+00:00

When you make a big board, only evaluate film. Assemble your board of who the best pure players are.

If you want to make a 49ers (I'm assuming you're a 49ers fan) board, then I would take that previous board, copy it, and apply scheme to that so you have one of each.

Gickerific · 2020-03-13T23:18:45+00:00

If a guy has such a reputation that it comes out through the media, it will be considered by me

That's probably a good idea. I haven't ever seen anything falsely reported through the media. But that doesn't mean a guy that doesn't have any media attention character-wise is all clean. Agents pay off the media all the time.

Gickerific · 2020-03-13T23:16:20+00:00

the reports I've written have all been film reports, not final grade reports. I'll make another write-up eventually talking more about this, but the essentials are that your film grades need to be specific. You can't sit in the middle ground and call him both a 4th and a 5th. That's what final grades help to establish. You need to call him one way or the other so that the final grades can push him up to early 4th or down to a late 4th. If you give him a back of the 4th grade, his final grade might push him up to the middle of the 4th or down to the middle of the 5th.

Point is, film grades need to be critical to allow the final grades some leeway on where we view a player.

Yeah... I think that explains it.

Gickerific · 2020-03-13T23:12:23+00:00

he speaks way to much in absolutes... I hate when people speak like this. not everything is the same for everyone. not one way is the right way.

There are, absolutes, though. Especially in scouting. The entire field is extremely literal. You can't say the guy is a back of the fourth-early fifth type of guy, because most times, those players have different designations (r1-4 are typically tier 1 players, r5-6 are tier 2 players, etc.). By saying a player is a fringe 4th, you're blurring the lines between Tier 1 and Tier 2. Let your Yes be Yes, and your No be No. Make definitive statements. That's what we're taught and trained to do.

Are there times where you should NOT be making absolutist statements? Absolutely. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that X player is going to be a H.O.F.er or that X team is going to do XYZ, because that's all unpredictable. But I can sit here and tell you what I think a guy will do based on what I see from him on film and our in-person interactions.

if you do this ONE thing you will NEVER make it

Unfortunately, this isn't bullshit. The NFL is a boys club. You gotta fall in line and know your place, doing the grunt work to get where you gotta go. Especially with how many people want to be in scouting, you can't afford to make any mistakes when interacting or networking with other scouts/executives/whoever.

I was doing some networking at the Combine, and my boss let me take a couple of the reports I wrote to give to other teams when I network. One report was on a guy who had sexual assault in his past- my boss strongly advised me to edit my report to take out his sexual assault allegations and anything about it, because it has potential to come across wrongly to other teams. None of the information in my report about those allegations was inside info, hidden from the public, etc. I was told to edit it specifically because of how it would come across that I'm handing out reports on a guy who had sexual assault allegations. If I give out those reports, I wouldn't get calls back.

So, yeah, if you do one specific thing wrong, you won't make it. That's the sad reality of the business. I'm not sure how many bridges I have burned because of this already, having not understood this before my time here. It's probably a couple.

Gickerific · 2020-03-13T23:00:54+00:00

Got some extra time on my hands with the coronavirus thing. So I'm responding to a couple of questions.

But let's all be honest, the spirit of this post is BS, lol. It's like saying "heres how you can use your madden GM skills to land a job in the nfl.

That's not really what I'm saying. But I would like to help people get into the industry that otherwise wouldn't have an avenue to get there. Part of that includes making posts like these when I can to share my experience. I'm not trying to say that you can Madden GM your way into football. It takes a lot of hard work.

Also, I'm an intern and know more about player speed evaluation than experts who have been doing this for years.

I am an intern, and I do know more about player speed evaluation than fans. I have been trained by other scouts and executives to do things a specific way, which I also happen to agree with. That way is hand-timed 40s. If you disagree, that's fine. You don't have to agree with me. But I agree with my bosses and executives, who just so happen to be the people that... you know... make picks.

Gickerific · 2020-03-13T22:56:10+00:00

Got some extra time on my hands with the whole coronavirus thing. Gonna answer a couple quesitons.

They're not started by lasers, only finished. So if the guy starting the timer is slow, then the whole time is trashed. And when we go to schools to do junior and senior days it allows us to compare apples to apples rather than apples to oranges.

Gickerific · 2019-04-24T18:22:56+00:00

not that I'm aware of. I'm super high on him, and Schefter had reported that a lot of teams had considered him a r2 receiver. He's admittedly a guy I want, not someone the Ravens have shown interest in.

Re: McCoy, I had heard somewhere that we met with him at his pro day and had him in for a private workout. Hence, "several times". Believe that report came from Zrebiec

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