Meet James Liipfert the long-time scout who' s helping lead the Texans draft decisions James Liipfert - Pat Stewart HEAD TOPICS

Meet James Liipfert the long-time scout who' s helping lead the Texans draft decisions

10/22/2022 5:00:00 PM

The Texans assistant director of player personnel and college scouting director has

James Liipfert Pat Stewart

Source

Houston Chronicle

The Texans ’ assistant director of player personnel and college scouting director has taken the long road, literally, to his place in the NFL . The Texans ’ assistant director of player personnel and college scouting director has... Houston TexansHe’s spent thousands of hours more on the road. Sometimes a Tim Ferriss self-help podcast harmonized with the hum of the highway. The blend formed a personalized baseline supporting the soundtrack beneath the life of an NFL scout.Thank goodness for cell phones. Sometimes it’s funny how they really are lifelines. Sometimes Liipfert knew his buddy, Pat Stewart, was maybe on the road from Huntington, West Va., to Lexington, Ky., and he’d drop him a line. They’d talk without surcease — two area scouts for the Patriots: one scouring west of the Mississippi, the other east — airing insecurities, commiserating miseries and sharing fantasies of opportunities beyond the horizon. Read more:
Houston Chronicle » Houston Texans Pro Football Focus Scores: Do These Pass the Smell Test? Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Google for compiling Texans’ biometric data Texans tackle Tytus Howard looks forward to ‘dogfight’ against ‘relentless’ Raiders pass rusher Maxx Crosby Texans DE Jonathan Greenard to miss second straight game with calf injury

High school senior Bella Rasmussen becomes first girl to score two touchdowns in one game

Bella Rasmussen, an 18-year-old running back for Laguna Beach (California) High School, became the first girl to score two touchdowns in a game. Read more >> Houston Texans Pro Football Focus Scores: Do These Pass the Smell Test?I am a very statistically oriented person, with probably a touch of Attention Deficit Disorder. I also happen to be a sports talk radio host (and freelance writer, as you can see), so add up all of those facets, and anything sports-related that can be translated into NUMBERS is a... Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Google for compiling Texans’ biometric data Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Google, claiming that the company is violating state law by amassing facial and voice recognition data on Texans without their knowledge or consent. Paxton is forcing births on Texas women without their consent Texans tackle Tytus Howard looks forward to ‘dogfight’ against ‘relentless’ Raiders pass rusher Maxx CrosbyRolling up his sleeves and balling up his fists, Texans right offensive tackle Tytus Howard is always ready for a battle at the line of scrimmage. texans kprc2 click2houston htx housports Texans DE Jonathan Greenard to miss second straight game with calf injuryOne of the Texans ' most talented defensive players, he has been battling through injuries... Injury report: Houston Texans rule out defensive end Jon Greenard; TE Brevin Jordan questionable at Las Vegas Texans starting defensive end Jon Green ard has been ruled out for the second consecutive game. AaronWilson_ NFL Texans’ Chris Moore full-go practice, Jon Greenard limitedTexans veteran wide receiver Chris Moore returned to practice Thursday morning, participating fully after missing a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars due to a hip injury. texans kprc2 click2houston housports htx of 5 James Liipfert at training camp with his wife Lacy, whom he met during a scouting trip, and their two children, James IV and Campbell Houston Texans Show Less James Liipfert has spent 1,729 nights in a hotel.October 20, 2022 4:30AM Kamu Grugier-Hill is the worst in the NFL at his position, according to Pro Football Focus.The lawsuit claims Google apps and devices indefinitely store data on facial geometry and voiceprints from anyone they capture, whether they are Google users or not.At a powerful 6-foot-5, 322 pounds, the former first-round draft pick from Alabama State plays the game with an aggressive mentality and never backs down an inch. He’s spent thousands of hours more on the road. Sometimes a Tim Ferriss self-help podcast harmonized with the hum of the highway. I also happen to be a sports talk radio host (and freelance writer, as you can see), so add up all of those facets, and anything sports-related that can be translated into NUMBERS is a huge win for me in formulating opinions. The blend formed a personalized baseline supporting the soundtrack beneath the life of an NFL scout. The lawsuit was filed in a Midland state district court, and a private law firm is leading the case on behalf of Paxton’s office. Life is too short to be small. It's been rough. The odometer offered a paradox. It’s the kind of game that can cement a reputation. Miles can melt slowly between Canyon and Commerce, when all there is to look forward to is another warm paper takeout bag, a crisp keycard to lose in yesterday’s pants pocket and a well-made twin bed that’s prepared to bear the weight of a bleary-eyed man, his laptop and a notepad scrawled half-full of player evaluations. It's a new day, YES IT IS! At the forefront of the statistical boom has been Pro Football Focus , with its subjective player scores, based on film study from hired game evaluators. This facial geometry data is used to automatically sort pictures based on who appears in them. Thank goodness for cell phones. Sometimes it’s funny how they really are lifelines. These are the scores I found to be the most intriguing, for one reason or another, with a sentence or two on each one: QB DAVIS MILLS – 15th of 36 QB's This is the one Texans score that feels the furthest off. Sometimes Liipfert knew his buddy, Pat Stewart, was maybe on the road from Huntington, West Va. Additionally, any app or device that uses the voice-controlled Google Assistant stores the voiceprints of anyone speaking when the assistant is activated to build user profiles., to Lexington, Ky. WR BRANDIN COOKS – 71st of 110 WR's Sadly, this score feels accurate. “He’s going to keep going, I’m going to keep going. , and he’d drop him a line. They’d talk without surcease — two area scouts for the Patriots: one scouring west of the Mississippi, the other east — airing insecurities, commiserating miseries and sharing fantasies of opportunities beyond the horizon. It's hard to tell how much of his paltry output (47 YPG receiving) is his fault or Mills' fault, but if this is what Cooks is gonna be, his two year, $36 million extension through 2024 feels pricy. “For example, Google Photos helps you organize pictures of people, by grouping similar faces, so you can easily find old photos. “You know that somebody else is going through it with you,” says Stewart, now the Panthers’ vice president of player personnel. The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?” Liipfert’s 14-year climb has spanned both New England and Houston and yielded an official title — Texans’ assistant director of player personnel and college scouting director — that’s almost as long as those old Texas roads. G KENYON GREEN – 57th of 75 G's Green has struggled in pass protection, particularly against the Chargers in Week 4, but his run blocking has been one reason Pierce has had such a good season. As the No. We will set the record straight in court. You’ve got to match the intensity and get ready for a dogfight all game. 2 executive behind general manager Nick Caserio, Liipfert is familiar with the questions that run through the minds of the scouts he now manages. T LAREMY TUNSIL – 4th of 76 T's The sad thing about the Laremy Tunsil trade, in which Bill O'Brien gave up two first round picks in 2019 for Tunsil, is that Tunsil has been largely a very good player for the Texans, and he's been great this season, but it's nearly impossible for him to ever live up to the bounty the team paid to get him. He knows how the wants and goals and excitements can fuse within football, how energy for the job can’t be sustained on coffee, Red Bull and Red Man alone. Liipfert was a big 5-Hour Energy guy in New England, Stewart says. This season has been a step in the right direction for the former first round pick, who finally gets to settle in at right tackle without being moved to guard, as he'd been in previous seasons. The lawsuit’s language emphasizes damages against children and elderly people who may appear in images uploaded to Google Photos or who might be speaking while someone activates Google Assistant, unknowingly and unwittingly providing biometric data to be stored by Google indefinitely. The brand actually provides a suitable nickname for the Marshallville, Ga., native who galvanized a Georgia Tech locker room despite being, in his own words, a “soft-bodied” linebacker who on his best day ran a 4. – 89th of 108 CB's This ranking feels way off. “We’re trying to figure that out, most offenses have been trying to figure that out,” Texans coach Lovie Smith said. 9 in the 40-yard dash. Brian Jean-Mary, Liipfert’s position coach at Georgia Tech, can spout all the character clichés about his former player — the “man’s man,” the “coach on the field” special teamer, the “glue guy” in the 2008 coaching transition from Chan Gailey to Paul Johnson — but laughter uncorked by decade-old memories breathes a personality uncontained by convention.9 passer rating when targeted, and came up with a big interception in the win over Jacksonville. Maybe the Yellow Jackets could’ve guessed Liipfert would work in personnel. Guess who spearheaded the team’s fantasy football league? Guess who strode into the locker room one day wearing a blazer over his Georgia Tech-issued shirt, shorts and shoes — a 20-year-old commissioner toeing the line between hilarity and sincerity — and barked rules and regulations like he was an experienced executive? “He thought the jacket is what made him official,” says Jean-Mary, who now coaches linebackers at the University of Tennessee. King has been great this season, but ninth among cornerbacks feels a little high. A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. We realize that though. Liipfert still carries a 14-year-old Post-it note in his work bag. S JALEN PITRE – 75th of 87 S's Like Stingley, I don't get why PFF's rating system is punishing Pitre so badly. It’s a reminder of the most uncomfortable, most meaningful conversation in his career. See, back in New England, back when Jon Robinson was the franchise’s director of college scouting, Robinson helped hire Liipfert as a scouting assistant in 2009 upon the recommendation of former Georgia Tech assistant coach Charles Kelly. LB KAMU GRUGIER-HILL – 80th of 80 LB's This DEFINITELY matches the eye test. Liipfert was a smart kid, Kelly told Robinson, the kind of football fanatic who dove into mock drafts and player evaluation packets and knew he wanted to stay connected to the sport somehow. Scouting assistants were basically glorified interns, Stewart says, the entry-level “slappy’s” who’d spend a year or two doing grunt work before graduating to scout college players or professional players and so on. He wasn't great last season, but at least had the occasional tackle for loss to make up for it. He has a 77. Theirs were the remedial tasks. They’d grab the coffee.m. They’d clean out the paper jams in the copy machine. They’d pick up and file faxes from agents that said their clients were available to schedule for workouts.m. Well, sometimes the faxes got filed.7 percent per game. New England’s scouting department offices were on the second story of the stadium. Also, follow him on Twitter at. Down a long hallway, there was the marketing department. Robinson watched from his office as a young, social and single Liipfert sashayed down the hall and return about 15 minutes later. Robinson let it go for a few days. But the fax machine whirred in Liipfert’s absence, and Robinson had to go pick up the files himself. We work to get better every week and protect the quarterback. Robinson called Liipfert into his office and shut the door. “If you don’t pick your shit up, I’ll fire your ass,” Robinson said. “You understand me?” Robinson pulled a desk drawer open like a crypt, revealing a 15-inch file of paperwork. “You see all those folders? And all those papers?” Robinson said. “Those are all resumes of guys that want your job. “They have Chandler Jones on the other side too, so we need to know where both of those guys are at,” wide receiver Brandin Cooks said. You’ve got a great opportunity here, man, and you’re about to throw it all away.” Over a decade later, after Liipfert was promoted to area scout, then national scout, after the Texans hired him to be their director of college scouting in 2018, Liipfert sent Robinson a picture of a worn-out Post-it note he’d written for himself right after that conversation. “He’d written down three, four, five things,” says Robinson, now the general manager of the Titans. “He said, ‘Do these things every single day,’ and he listed them. Boom. When the Texans exercised their 2023 fifth-year option for Howard this offseason, it was a significant validation. Boom. Boom. At the bottom he put an asterisk and a star. ‘Or J-Rob will fire my ass.’ “He said, ‘I want to thank you for having that discussion with me, because you were real with me. Drafted in 2019, the former high school quarterback who gained 100 pounds to emerge as an NFL draft prospect has established himself as an athletic, hard-nosed blocker. I was headed down the wrong path, and you straightened me back up, and I never wanted to have a conversation like that with you or anybody else in that position ever again.’” Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it. Re-applied, Liipfert’s social skills uncapped his greatest strength. His easy way of talking helped him connect with players and coaches, which invited trust and opened up to more thorough information about a player’s character and background, what made the prospect tick. He practiced this skill as a scouting assistant in New England. “I think it starts with how he practices each day and how he prepares in the meetings. One of their responsibilities was chauffeuring potential free agents. He’d make the 40-mile drive from Gillette Stadium to Logan Airport, drive the player to his physical at Massachusetts General Hospital, then take him to the team’s facility for a workout. There was always heavy traffic, and it was tough to manufacture conversation because the trips were usually late at night or early in the morning. But every tidbit was valuable. “Even where I am now, I always ask the scouting assistants, what do you think of him?” Stewart says. Watt, J. “Because you were in the car with them for so long, and you usually find out better information from them about their behavior and how they carry themselves. When they’re around us, they put on a good show. When they’re around the scouting assistants, you kind of get a truer sense of who they are.” Conversation can be exhausting. But it’s what made Liipfert’s scouting reports unique. He was also repeatedly body-slammed, knocked down seven times by Howard. Robinson would read through the research and see discussions with not only a prospect’s coach, but the team’s trainers, their equipment managers, sometimes seemingly random university staffers who offered some form of insight that created a more complete profile. Liipfert was thorough. He became “one of the better evaluators in the league,” Stewart says. Jean-Mary, a former linebacker coach at the University of Texas, remembers how Liipfert came through Austin several times for “many, many conversations” about defensive lineman Malcom Brown, whom the Patriots selected No. 32 overall in 2015 and started in their Super LI victory over the Falcons. “It kind of made me want to be on top of my game too, because I knew what James did was good,” Stewart says. “You always wanted to try and take your stuff to the next level as well. I was always very envious of how good he was at the background stuff.” .