'These Kids Are Clowns,' NFL Coaches Sound Off on CFB Transfer Portal, Explain Impact on Draft

The transfer portal's impact on college football is clear to see, but it's also affecting the NFL draft.

A handful of NFL coaches discussed with The Athletic's Bruce Feldman how the transfer portal takes a toll on draft prospects. One wide receivers coach in the NFL said, "These kids are clowns" when talking about transfers.

"With all these kids that transfer, what I'm finding out now is all this (transferring) is starting to affect the NFL because these kids are clowns," the receivers coach said. "The schools don't know who they are getting because the transfer portal process is like a 10-day speed dating thing. You don't know who the kid is, and you can't ask his prior school because you're stealing him from them. So, you get some of these kids into your school and they're whack. The schools they play for that one year, they don't care because they got what they needed out of them, and then they're gone. It's just a bad deal. Ohio State is fortunate so far because they haven't been in this transfer-in/transfer-out fiasco. These top kids they have are still coming out of their culture. These other kids, out of whatever school, out of Texas or Miami or wherever, but they're not really from there because they were only there one season."

The portal also impacts players physically. A defensive line coach noted how players' weight training suffers because coaches are "scared to train guys and push them too much" out of fear of them transferring.

"The players are not being trained in the weight room the way they used to be," the coach said. "It's development, building their foundation. We're really not getting that anymore because so many guys are transferring around, going to two schools, three schools. Also, being scared to train guys and push them too much because they'll get in the portal. They're going to all these different places, and they don't have a foundation with the fundamentals. We're not getting the same developed foundation of guys that we were 10 years ago, even five years ago."

The transfer portal isn't going away anytime soon, but whether the negative effects of it will get better remains to be seen. Ultimately, top talent will likely shine at the next level regardless.