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At the end of May, the Buffalo Bills announced several management changes, hiring new staff or promoting employees internally to bolster their scouting team ahead of the 2024 college football season and the 2025 NFL Draft.

To bring those of you who may have missed the first report up to speed, below is a quick overview of these front office moves.

New to the Bills’ scouting department are:

• Matt Bazirgan, Director of College Scouting – previously served as the team’s senior personnel executive.
• Darius Vinnett, Area Scout – Vinnett comes to the Bills after spending 11 seasons as a scout with the Arizona Cardinals. Before joining Buffalo’s front office, he was an Eastern area scout for the Cardinals.
• Vince Magri, Pro Scout – Magri comes to One Bills Drive and the NFL after serving as the General Manager of the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts.

Promotions for Scouting Department employees:

• Asil Mulbah, Director of College Scouting – Mulbah was previously a pro scout for the Bills.
• Keith Jennings, Area Scout – prior to his promotion, Jennings was Buffalo’s BLESTO Scout.
• RJ Webb, BLESTO scout, works with the college scouting team – Webb was previously a pro scout for the Bills.

What exactly is a BLESTO scout and how is it different from other NFL scouts?

Photo by George Gojkovich/Getty Images

One of the most important subscription-based scouting services in the USA (National is the other), BLESTO was founded in 1963 by the late Jack Butler (pictured above), a former NFL cornerback with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Membership reportedly includes “over $100,000 in annual dues and the assignment of at least one scout to the group.”

BLESTO is an acronym for the original NFL teams (Bears-Lions-Eagles Talent Organization) that used such talent scouts – although the group actually started as LESTO before the addition of the Chicago Bears. Over the years, BLESTO’s name changed temporarily as the teams’ membership grew, but the BLESTO name ultimately stuck.

BLESTO scouts place great importance on getting a head start on future NFL Draft classes – especially next year’s class.

While other scouts attend pro days and workouts of players entering the current draft, BLESTO scouts attend junior pro days and also focus on sophomores to gather information and create a basic scouting report for other scouts to monitor in the fall.

In the spring, BLESTO scouts do the groundwork to find future draft prospects. In the fall, BLESTO scouts evaluate these promising prospects, with the process starting again each spring when Pro Days begin.

Not every team utilizes BLESTO scouts. Much of the NFL relies on national scouts and a small percentage of teams utilize only internal talent to find future talent. NFL participation in BLESTO changes annually as teams make personnel changes and individuals transition into new roles.

For more information about BLESTO, see this article from 2014 at Cat scratch reader.