He is back!

With less than a week until the NFL Draft, teams have completed their visitation and are now finalizing their draft board.

In today’s game, NFL personnel frequently have to consider a prospect’s attendance at various institutions. There has never been a larger transfer gateway, and it helps develop players for the draft.
The general manager of the Cleveland Browns, Andrew Berry, has an intriguing perspective on the transfer portal and how it might be useful for player evaluation.

“To be honest, it’s actually a little bit more helpful,” said Berry. “You can get the perspective on the person in two totally different environments from, let’s say, two or three different staffs. So I actually think that’s more helpful in understanding the person than anything.”

With NIL having such a large part in the college landscape today, players are on the move left and right. We see the transfer portal load up after the college football season and then again in the spring.

With players now able to play after their first transfer immediately, it is more and more common. It is not something that used to be all that popular at the college level.

“Transfers were so rare in college football that you really wanted to dig in on why a player was changing schools,” Berry said. “Honestly, most of the time, it ended up being some type of disciplinary issue or something along those lines. So it was something that you would really kind of alert and make sure you had your arms fully around why the player switched schools. And now it’s just not that way at all. It is almost like, oh wow, this guy didn’t transfer.”

Cleveland is scheduled to have six picks in the NFL Draft that will run from April 25-27, we’ll see if they come out with any former transfers.