The Rise of John Spytek

John Spytek realized early on during his Michgan playing days that he wasn't going to play at the next level. So he started scouting the guys around him as a hobby not knowing that it would turn into his future profession. After finishing his college career in 2002, He would join the Detroit Lions as a football operations intern, where he would learn the ropes there for a year before joining the Eagles working his way up the ladder to pro/college scout in 2007. Spytek would be in that role for three years in which he grew as scout in which he wrote reports on 200 NFL players and 250 college players per year.

In 2010, Spytek was hired by the Cleveland Browns, becoming their director of college scouting where he would truly show his high football IQ and talent as a player evaluator.  It was a quick transition, but Spytek adjusted very nicely. Here is Spytek on the 2010 draft: per cantonrep.com

 “It was challenging, no doubt,” Spytek said, “especially making the move and all the things that come with relocating. All of a sudden I was in this new role where I had to have an opinion on all the top guys.

 “But we all work together so well. We knew it was a huge draft for us. It was a little bit hurried. We couldn’t put in place maybe everything we wanted to but ... I think we did a good job touching on the things that were important.

Spytek helped the Browns get impact players in Joe Haden, Tj Ward, and Shawn Lauvao and would only improve in his next draft. In 2011, the Browns got key players in Phil Taylor, Jabaal Sheard, Jordan Cameron, and Buster Skrine. Spytek added solid talent for the Browns and was quickly becoming a popular name around the league. In 2013, he would join the Broncos becoming an area scout before being national scout in 2014. At age 35, Spytek has climbed up the ladder very quickly and is now the director of player personnel for the Bucs, in which he will be the right hand man for Jason Licht. This guy is a true football scout and just loves football, here is a quote on him talking about Tom Heckert and how they find value in the middle rounds: per cantonrep.com

 “This business is just identifying players. Tom has proven to be very good at it. You can either watch players or identify players or you can’t. You can learn and get a little bit better, but if you can’t do it, you can’t do it.

 “I mean, it’s easy to put in film on Luck and Griffin and say, these guys are really good. It’s not as easy to continually make really good second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-round picks.

I think the Bucs found a young smart mind in John Spytek, another good pickup by Jason Licht.