A college scout is intuitive and obvious enough. He scouts college prospects ahead of each year’s NFL draft. You see them on the trail every year, at least if you follow our Pro Day tracker, and many of them are now on TV, names like Daniel Jeremiah, who cut his teeth on the scouting trail in the NFL for years before turning into one of the sport’s most recognizable analysts.
What about a pro scout? Some of the description is clear enough: they scout pro players, but there’s no draft like the college game. So what’s their job? Sheldon White is the Pittsburgh Steelers’ director of pro Scouting and on the team’s latest episode of The Standard, its ongoing YouTube series, White detailed his job.
“During the course of the season, we have to evaluate the entire National Football League and every player…our staff will watch the entire season of every player,” he said. “Of every play, we’re going to watch them. And then we break it down and we evaluate by positions, and we discuss these guys during the week.
“Usually on Fridays but we’ll sit down and discuss every player who played a significant amount of time. Obviously that’s important. Who do we want to keep next year? Who do we want to let go? Who do we want to find in free agency, what positions are playing well, which ones aren’t?”
Footage from The Standard showed White watching tape and taking notes (with the screen blurred out, much to our dismay) and even a shot of him on what’s clearly Pro Football Focus. It may earn the scorn of Steelers fans but is a service used by most of the league, though teams mostly rely on its data – snaps and alignments – as opposed to its subjective grading system.
Pittsburgh had an active start to free agency, signing QB Russell Wilson and trading for QB Justin Fields. Their highest-prized free agent addition was ILB Patrick Queen while they added several lower-level names in DL Dean Lowry, QB Kyle Allen, RB/KR Cordarrelle Patterson along with WRs Van Jefferson and Quez Watkins. They’re likely not done adding to their roster before the draft either and certainly not afterwards.
But free agency is only one part of the job. And with the season over and more time to dedicate toward free agency, that search can be more of a collaborative effort where positional coaches, coordinators, head coach, and GM can weigh in. Pro scouts’ really shine during the season, helping navigate inevitable injuries throughout the season. They might not always be behind weighty moves that grab headlines, but they handle roster churn on the practice squad and 53-man roster.
“Usually on Mondays or Tuesday, we’re working out players. Obviously there’s an attrition to the National Football League. We’re working out players the entire time,” White said. “A guy goes down on the practice squad or a player gets injured in a game. We’re waiting for the reports to come in on who is going to be available. We have to replenish those players. So we’re constantly working out players, trying to stay ahead of it by positions. And sometimes, a guy goes down in a game, he’s going to be out an extended amount of time. And we gotta bring them in now.”
Often, Tuesday is the day the Steelers report who they’ve worked out. Sometimes, as White explains, that’s proactively, building a “speed dial” list of names in case injuries occur. And sometimes it’s reactively in the case of sudden and long-term injury. According to the team’s transaction page, in practice squad signings and releases alone, the Steelers made 51 moves over the course of the 2023 season from post-Week 1 to the team’s Wild Card loss to Buffalo.
That’s nearly three moves per week and doesn’t include the occasional straight free agent signing, like signing LB Blake Martinez off the Carolina Panthers’ practice squad to the Steelers’ 53-man roster, where the pro scouts would also have input.
Hired in 2022, Sheldon White is part of Omar Khan’s new-look front office that’s seen plenty of turnover. His NFL career began as a player, not an executive, as a cornerback from 1988 to 1993, picking off 11 passes. He transitioned into the front office side of things as a Detroit Lions scout in 1997, working with Kevin Colbert, and remaining with the Lions through 2015 when he was named interim GM. Following stops at Michigan State and the Washington Football Team, the Steelers hired him shortly after Khan was promoted to general manager.
White doesn’t handle the work alone. Dennis MacInnis is listed as a pro and college scout while there’s likely help from other scouts along with assistant GM Andy Weidl. Like many roles in the building, it’s an unrecognized job but a critical one to the week-by-week flow during the season while laying the groundwork for the team ahead of free agency.
