ARGONAUTS.CA STAFF
TORONTO – For most involved in football, the early months of a new calendar year usually signify the beginning of off-season training and preparation for the year to come. Toronto Argonauts’ Director of Player Personnel, Mike Hagen, the team’s primary resource for scouting talent, is already in mid-season form.
Last week, Hagen made one of his many scouting stops throughout the year, attending the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama which acts as a who’s who of football masterminds.
“The Senior Bowl; it’s not only a great venue to see some of the top prospects but it’s a great place to network with the player agents that we deal with, many of which represent the upper echelon of college talent as well as many players who have gone through the NFL system and are looking into coming to the CFL,” Hagen told argonauts.ca just before boarding a flight to Atlanta.
“You develop a scheme with your coaches as to what you want to run and, philosophically, what kind of guys you want in your locker room. It’s the ultimate team game. You have to have a good locker room and you have to have good character people.”
– Mike Hagen on some of the intangibles that he looks for when scouting talent
The Senior Bowl is an annual display of draft eligible college and university players looking to showcase their talents in a week of practice and drills. The week concludes with a weekend game that is now in its 61st year.
It is difficult not to network when attending such a large football showcase. Representatives from almost all football outfits at nearly all levels attended the week-long prospect exhibit.
“It’s more, who isn’t there?” Hagen said. “Everyone is there: agents, coaches at all levels, recruiters, all of the personnel departments, often times there are general managers. It’s almost like a convention.”
Hagen joined the Argos last off-season and brought over 20 years of executive and player personnel experience with him. Before joining the Boatmen, he played a key role in evaluating and selecting talent resulting in Super Bowl teams in Atlanta, Washington, Denver and Dallas.
Entering his second year in Toronto, Hagen and numerous other football personnel use the Senior Bowl as a good way to judge some of the world’s finest football prospects. He maintains that he uses the Senior Bowl as more of a starting point in the scouting process as many players are not always immediately available.
“It’s important to start getting a book on these players because they are not all going to be great NFL players,” Hagen said. “After two or three years and, maybe less time than that, for one reason or another [a player] didn’t make it so you want to have as much information on those guys as you can. That is why we also scout NFL pre-season games so we can continue to watch these guys [as they develop].”
Hagen said that the player-finding process has no magic formula or necessary criteria to meet.
“Our needs are no different than any other team – we want the best football players that we can find,” he said.
If there is one rule that Hagen has, above all else, it is that character often comes first when trying to see how a potential recruit would fit into Toronto’s system.
“You develop a scheme with your coaches as to what you want to run and, philosophically, what kind of guys you want in your locker room. It’s the ultimate team game. You have to have a good locker room and you have to have good character people.”
With the future always top of mind, Hagen’s focus now turns to February 16 – CFL Free agency. Getting current players secured to new contracts will be the first order of business.
“We would like to get them all,” Hagen said of the remaining six potential Argos free agents. “We know that is hard to do because you have a salary cap to work under, so you really need to know the value of each player and where he fits in. There aren’t any of them that we don’t want to sign and I have told them that, so we are working on getting them done.”