Diagnosing Bias All Humans Have And How To Avoid Making Mistakes In Scouting

Diagnosing Bias All Humans Have And How To Avoid Making Mistakes In Scouting

We are all scouts. Every single day, you scout things and don’t even realize it. When you go to the grocery store to pick out fruit, you’re inherently scouting the fruit even if you don’t coherently think about it. The same can be said for bias. All humans have bias, and several types of biases exist. The goal here today is to recognize bias in order to avoid mistakes in scouting.

The best way to make a mistake is to ask a lot of people for their opinion. Is there a better example of this than Jimmy Kimmel’s Lie Witness news? It’s incredible the way humans react to things, and recognizing these patterns are cognitively wired within all of us is the best way to gain more self-awareness.

The best scouts can recognize the inherent bias within the person giving you a particular response. With the NFL Draft coming up, I will attempt to do my best to draw comparisons to all of the types of bias that exist within a person.

At the end of the day, only the Chinese Farmer has the correct answer. We are all more than our thoughts. We’re just a bunch of stupid humans roaming around this earth without having a real understanding of what’s actually going on. You might see, but do you really observe?

The best scouts are the ones who are willing to recognize and learn from their mistakes. Admitting when you’re wrong is what gives you credibility, and a person who can’t list their mistakes is probably a bad scout. Even the best scouts can never drink the martini of success. It’s about finding and accurately grading the next one. The secret to all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious and through deductive reason, we can and will find the non-obvious.

Smart people learn from their mistakes. The smartest people learn from other people’s mistakes.

There are four types of scouts: the poor scout, the picker scout, the production scout, and the projection scout. We all must aspire to be the projection scout. By the end of this chat we’re about to have, you will hopefully increase your awareness to be the best version you can be to avoid making mistakes in the future.

Bias Blind Spot

AKA a lack of self-awareness. This is a person whose ego is out of check. Bias blind spot represents a person who believes they are less susceptible to bias than someone else. We are all human, and we are all more than our thoughts. You’ve seen this type of person. The “oh, but it won’t happen to me” guy.

Gabler’s Fallacy

Whether it be the NFL Draft, fantasy football, or name whatever you want. What we are really dealing with on this stuff is the ability to recognize snapshots in moment of time. Then is then, and now is now.

Gambler’s fallacy is the thought that future probability is altered by past events. Someone bet on the Kansas City Royals, and they lost that day, so that person is never betting on them again, sort of thing. The same person who got cheesed by injury Christian McCaffrey is yelling at clouds, saying he will never draft him again, when in reality, that moment in time is gone. Maybe McCaffrey has a great season and you missed out because your own personal bias got in the way.

It’s important to remember that this stuff is snapshots in moment of time. Alvin Kamara scored six rushing touchdowns on Christmas Day back in 2020. That moment in time is gone, but several fantasy people probably adjusted their ranking for the following season differently based on a moment in time that doesn’t exist anymore. Keep this in mind moving forward.

Omission Bias

The not my problem effect. Ollie Gordon gets a DUI for Oklahoma State, but it’s not my problem, and it won’t happen to me if my team drafts him. Silence is violence sometimes.

Proportionality Bias

Big events = big causes. Maybe… but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. Hurricanes scientifically can’t happen if the water is below a certain temperature. A massive hurricane doesn’t necessarily mean some mega tectonic plate was behind it. It could be as small as the temperature of the water being in the right spot for it to happen.

Jalen Carter decided to go racecar driving one day. That doesn’t mean he’s a bad person or a bad football player, despite whatever toolbag Todd McShay wants to say.

Moral Credential Effect

The “I did a good deed, and that justifies me for doing something bad later”. The Spencer Rattler effect, where he won the Elite 11 and then decided he was good enough. Hey, I’m talented so I can act like a jerkoff and drink my face off too much.

What made Tom Brady special was his competitive stamina. One of the reasons why Ladd McConkey made it because you can see he’s someone who clearly improved year after year and wants to be better. Having the Eye of the Tiger is important. You’re never good enough. There is always room for improvement, and positive actions don’t give you a reason to create bad actions later.

Self-Serving Bias

AKA the here are all my accomplishments, ignore the failures. I actually just went over a recent example of this when talking about the scumbag Lawrence Jackson over at NBC Sports. Not that it’s a surprise because the guy is borderline illiterate and can barely speak English. If you missed that, feel free to click the links. The SparkNotes version is that Jackson was criticizing an unknown group of people for being late to the party on Cam Ward, but also was unwilling to take accountability for being wrong about Kaidon Salter. If Jackson was intelligent, he would know he was falling victim to self-serving bias, but the guy clearly isn’t educated so it’s your job as the viewer to recognize the scumbag analyst that he is so you avoid talking him seriously.

Framing Effect

It really isn’t much different than a catcher who is really good at framing. The pitch is in the same spot, but the catcher paints a different picture. AKA drawing different conclusions from the same information. I think a perfect example of this is the recent video I did on why Todd McShay sucks at his job.

This clip right here exemplifies the framing effect pretty well.

One nuance I’ve seen from Jaxson Dart on tape this yr (and here to Jack Bech) is recognition of defenders with their back turned to the ball (typically man cvg). He’s become extremely comfortable placing throws like this, putting his target in great shape to make play on ball. pic.twitter.com/8c2RpzejTI

— Todd McShay (@McShay13) February 1, 2025

Despite the throw coming on a trick play flea flicker where the defense isn’t allowed to disguise anything, Dart is given credit for making a bad throw because Jack Bech made an incredible catch coming back to the football that was underthrown. Are you sure you processed the information correctly? Framing effect…

Actor-Observer Bias

Have we properly examined the environment in which the event has taken place? The overemphasize influence of personality and the underemphasis on the situation. Nature vs. nurture. Is Arch Manning really good because he’s a Manning or would he suck if he had a different last name? Maybe just growing up in that environment with the supporting influences has something to do with it?

Picture Superiority Effect

A picture is worth a thousand words. The picture stuck with you, but if you read the same thing in text form, it wouldn’t bring the same feeling to life. I don’t know why this is the first thing that came to mind, but remember when Adam Thielen was cursing out Kirk Cousins? If you actually read the text form of whatever was said, you probably would feel differently about it. But when you see this picture form version of it… doesn’t it just say everything?

Outcome Bias

Luck is a hard thing to quantify. This one is so important because when things go someone’s way, they think they have all the answers instead of being humble and actually evaluating the decision for what it is. You know, the guy playing monopoly and for whatever reason his dice rolls skips all the hotels and then the same person wants to get an ego about how smart they are sort of thing.

Smart people judge the quality of the decision rather than the outcome. Amateurs go by the scoreboard. Professionals go by the process. Was there a better example of this than the idiot Bear fans who defended Ryan Poles for making a stupid trade with the Panthers, but because Carolina ended up with the worst record that year, Poles was proclaimed a genius? The same guy with a career record of 15-36 was called a genius because Carolina got the first overall pick. Outcome bias.

Mere-Exposure Effect

Do you like option A more than option B simply because you were more exposed to option A? I have to be careful with this myself. Do I like a certain player just because I watched them more often in the stock report notes? Would I like option B if I saw them more often? Sometimes with this stuff, you’re looking for ghosts on film. The right answer doesn’t exist just because you’re more exposed to it. I would argue the Lions would have been better served leaning into this when they took two corners not named Mike Sainristil when he was just sitting in their backyard at Michigan, but that’s a story for another day.

Hard-Easy Effect

This is essentially overestimating hard tasks and underestimating easy tasks. Anthony Richardson can’t complete a high school pass, but most people don’t look like him, so let’s eat the cheese!

Survivorship Bias

Coaches get fired for different reasons. Marvin Lewis isn’t a better coach than Bill Parcells because the Bengals never fired him. The same thing happens in sports media. Mel Kiper isn’t the best draft analyst just because he’s on ESPN and someone else isn’t. Being in the same spot forever doesn’t automatically make you more talented than someone else.

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

AKA frequency illusion. A certain highlight goes viral, and people can’t let it go. Mike Green rocks Josh Conerly at the Senior Bowl. That means Mike Green is awesome and Josh Conerly sucks. Maybe that’s the case. Maybe it’s not. The people who fall into this trap are certain that’s very much the case, when in reality, they’re falling victim to bias.

Availability Heuristics

This is essentially overestimating the likelihood of events based on prior memories. Recency or emotional connections can bring these memories to light. One example, but obviously not limited to this, would be helmet scouting. Drake Maye will suck because he played for North Carolina. I saw Mitchell Trubisky suck and he played for North Carolina. Don’t helmet scout. Sure, sometimes there is a recruiting connection to where schools find players who fit a prototype but it’s certainly not an indicator for anything.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

The smartest people out there are usually the ones who are the most unsure of themselves. The people who don’t have a clue are usually the loudest. In reality, the people who are actually experts on this stuff are pushed aside because the loud, uneducated ones garner the most attention for the wrong reasons. Embrace the methods of the Chinese Farmer, and you will find yourself on the correct path.

Halo Effect

Certain personality traits have a spillover effect. Positive or negative traits have a carryover effect to other areas of their work. Joe Schoen has a certain belief system about aging running backs. He lets data guide his decision-making on Saquon Barkley. That makes us the viewer, think that he has no clue how to scout running backs. Maybe that’s the case, but Tyrone Tracy was genuinely a nice find. I still think Joe Schoen needs to be fired yesterday, but that’s a topic for another day.

Pygmalion Effect

Certain expectations create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Shedeur Sanders shows you who he is, the media has a certain expectation for how he should act, Shedeur does Shedeur, you don’t like it and think he’s falling in the draft based on nothing.

Decoy Effect

Sure feels like what the Raiders just did with Geno Smith. The Raiders didn’t have a quarterback, and Geno Smith feels like an upgrade, even though the decision to give up a third round pick for an aging player feels incredibly dumb. But hey, he’s not Aidan O’Connell, so be happy, Raider fans! Don’t worry, they will tell you they didn’t actually give up anything because it’s the same pick they got back for Davante Adams! Bad marketing 1.01.

Selection Bias

AKA when random sampling goes wrong. Player X ranks in the 90th percentile in something, but maybe the rest of the receivers in the class just stink. Player Y ranks in the 40th percentile in something, but maybe the running back class is loaded. Who makes up the representation of the sampling itself? Numbers lie every single day.

Anchoring Bias

This is Matthew Golden right here. The Texas wide receiver runs a 4.29 after a really hot end of the season. That’s good enough for anyone who allows anchoring bias to win in their mind. In reality, it’s probably not an accurate representation of the player.

Confirmation Bias

Confirming preconceptions. The draft politics will never lose.

Overconfidence Effect

The excessive confidence in having the answer. Not to use the Joe Schoen one again but the guy had all the answers when he looked at his stupid chart on running back data. The worst part is that these people never have accountability. They blame the chart instead of their decision-making process. Only the Chinese Farmer actually has the answer.

Egocentric Bias

The overreliance on one’s own perspective. Maybe we have the correct answer, but are we asking the right questions? Have we analyzed other perspectives to make sure we’re on the right track? Having a criteria is important. Relying too heavily on one criteria likely isn’t wise.

Information Bias

This is the bias to seek information when it doesn’t affect the outcome. You’ve seen this plenty of times before. Some nerds put together their yards per route run chart when it doesn’t actually mean anything. It especially doesn’t mean anything when you consider the imbalance of schedules within college football.

Hindsight Bias

This isn’t too much different from outcome bias. This is the Chicago Bears fans. Ryan Poles is really smart until he’s not, sort of thing. He’s never been smart. When you give up a second round pick for Chase Claypool, you’re as dumb as it gets.

Projection Bias

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less. Things adapt and change all of the time. What’s true today may not be true tomorrow. While the projection scout is always king, circumstances within the projection itself may change. The Orioles change their outfield wall every third month, is seems like. What’s a home run today may not be one tomorrow, and thus our decision-making process is affected by such.

Apophenia Bias

Sometimes you can draw the wrong conclusion from something. It’s the tendency to draw meaningful conclusions from unrelated things. Sometimes stereotypes are wrong. Sometimes they’re very right. Is Mario Cristobal a really good coach because he won games with Cam Ward or…

Serial Position Effect

You can recall the first and last item, but are willing to forget everything in between. This happens with the Combine sometimes. The first and last guys to do the drills get overanalyzed but some of the guys in the middle get forgotten about. Are you going to let ABC order affect your thought process?

Recency Bias

I hate using the same examples, but this is Matthew Golden again. The Texas wide receiver averaged 48 yards per game through the first 12 games. Then he has a hot playoff and runs fast at the Combine. Now he’s WR1. Which is actually true?

Authority Bias

This happens all the time in sports media. It’s the inability to remove the brand from the person. Daniel Jeremiah is a paid actor who says really stupid things and only has his job because he won’t ruffle any feathers. He works for NFL Network, so his opinion is taken seriously despite the fact that he isn’t actually saying anything useful.

Unit Bias

This is all numbers based again. Someone may have a standard for what they want a running back’s broken tackle rate to be. Ashton Jeanty’s far and away exceeds that number, so he’s the best, and it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t play real competition.

Availability Cascade

Draft politics. The more you hear it, the more it has to be true, when that’s not necessarily the case. Repeating the same thing over again doesn’t make it more true.

Bandwagon Effect

Follow the leader mode. Most humans are not truth-seeking animals. Most humans take the path of least resistance because most humans don’t actually understand leadership. It’s why all these NFL Draft “experts” have the same opinion and are unwilling to stray from the pack. Most people are more concerned with conformism rather than getting the information correct. Ashton Jeanty is the RB1, and you’re a leper if you say anything else. Once the bandwagon gets rolling, it can’t be stopped even if it’s inherently wrong.

Illusory Truth Effect

I value recruiting rankings, but am more than willing to admit they are flawed. This statement fits this box perfectly. 5-star player = amazing. Zero-star player = terrible. Cam Ward was a zero star recruit. Is he terrible? Context matters, and the progression within the snapshot in moment of time matters.

Next-in-Line Effect

This happens at the Combine a lot, too. NFL Network will hone in on a certain player and the guy who actually went right before him gets forgotten about. By the way, what NFL Network did with Will Howard was beyond corrupt, but can you name the person who went right before him in all the drills?

Ingroup Bias

Everyone has their group of friends. This is the thought process of valuing the opinion within the group rather than the opinion outside of the group. Sometimes that’s the right thing to do. Sometimes it’s not. If we’re all thinking alike, nobody is thinking.

Spotlight Effect

This is the everyone is judging me thing when in reality, nobody cares. Minus, when I go to the gym, and everyone stares at me for an unreasonable amount of time.

Choice-Supportive Bias

AKA a lack of accountability. The thought of remembering choices as actually better than they were. This is Connor Rogers when he told Matthew Berry, “I like it” on the idiotic Ben Sinnott will outscore Brock Bowers take or when he wanted to give Ja’Lynn Polk a blowie. Don’t worry, Rogers took zero accountability and believes he was on the money for all these NFL Draft prospects while following the same idiotic belief system this year.

Ostrich Effect

This is the refusal to accept certain facts. The Jonathon Brooks thing from last year fits this example perfectly. He’s the RB1, and you can’t tell anyone otherwise. He’s got a bum knee and couldn’t beat out Roschon Johnson, but none of that matters!

Selective Perception Bias

This is only focusing on the positives and refusing to acknowledge the negatives. Ashton Jeanty has a fumbling problem. None of that matters because he ran for a bunch of yards in the Mountain West in a conference that’s produced zero high end NFL running backs!

Even AI is corrupt @CH1CKSTER. You can't stop the draft politics. pic.twitter.com/KMfOR2oM5R

— Trey Daubert (@treydaubert) April 1, 2025

Peak-End Rule

Jalen Milroe fits this box pretty well. If you watched the game against Georgia, he should have been the number one pick in the draft. If you’re advocating for Milroe, the first place you’re going to directly to that game rather than maybe evaluating his play based on his average level of performance on a nightly basis.

The SEC Bias Crowd Continues To Make The Wrong Argument

If you’re someone who gets bored with reading and would rather just watch a YouTube video, this one does a pretty good job explaining everything I just listed off. Your comments are welcome.

End of blog. Happy lying szn! Be careful who you trust during this year for the NFL Draft!

Subscribe to Vendetta’s Twitch

Subscribe to Vendetta’s YouTube

Click here for Vendetta Fantasy Contests

Click here for more NFL Draft content