A former Division III assistant coach who helped do team laundry on the way to becoming an executive in two different pro football leagues while scouting quarterbacks with Steve Spurrier, the old ball coach himself.
A business major whose career in banking was cut short by the financial crisis of 2008 and then re-invented himself in the next decade as a long-time college scout of an NFC power who recently moved into the pro side.
A preferred walk-on defensive end at Stanford and then a grad school tight end at Miami University who wedged in two master's degrees while touring both sides of the ball.
When the Bengals announced the trio of hires in their personnel department Monday, scouts Josh Hinch and Tyler Ramsey, as well as scouting research analyst Trey LaBounty, director of player personnel Duke Tobin beefed up his staff and broke new ground with the versatility and breadth he considers mandatory.
Dipping into football's melting pot, Tobin plucked his most experienced hires when he went with Hinch, 35, fresh off a four-year stint in New England on both the college and pro side, and Ramsey, 39, a former pro personnel assistant in Carolina who spent nine of his dozen years in Seattle scouting west coast colleges.
As they've done in the past, the Bengals figure to assign them a region of the country to scout college prospects, as well as a few NFL teams to chart. Tobin insists his scouts be fluent in both the college and pro games in order to understand the transition and put players in context of the draft and free agency.
"They have the background in both pro and college scouting, which will benefit us," Tobin says. "We like our guys to have versatility, and these guys can give us input in a lot of different areas. They're bright with experience and have done a lot in their careers to this point.
"We got to know a number of qualified guys during the process, and we felt a connection with Josh and Tyler to our organization and thought they were good fits for what we do."
They also fit LaBounty, 25, into a new position a year after he broke into the NFL in Buffalo as a football analytics intern. Working under director of football research Sam Francis, LaBounty is canvassing two floors at Paycor Stadium as a bulwark for the scouts as well as a sounding board for Francis in the coaching wing.
"It broadens our base, and it will be a great opportunity to support our scouts with data and analytics as we're going through the process," Tobin says. "Trey's a guy who has a lot of upside in a different number of areas with his football background. He'll support the organization in a lot of different ways because of his versatility and skill set."
With scout Christian Sarkisian using his seven years with the Bengals as a springboard to Northwestern's general manager of athletics, Tobin attacked the vacancy with old-school experience and new-school analytics.
"Experience has to matter somewhere along the line," Ramsey says as he heads into his 16th season in the league. "Especially in this day and age of NIL and the transfer portal. You have to have deep relationships and trust across college football to actually do your job at a high level."
Of course, it wasn't always like that for Ramsey, coming out of the University of Washington with that business degree and first bit of self-scouting. A wing T high school quarterback in the Seattle suburbs with three Division I running backs who threw about 40 passes his senior year, Ramsey went to school for school.
When he re-educated himself in the wake of the banking collapse, he realized he could have a career as an NFL scout. When he entered into an interview process for the Seahawks with ten other candidates that included former coaches, players, and scouts, Ramsey's presentations got him the one slot as an assistant.
Six months later, the GM and the coach were gone. But the new team of head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider kept Ramsey as they went on a run of five straight NFC West titles, back-to-back Super Bowl appearances, and a ring.
In Seattle, Ramsey had a front-row seat to Carroll's youthful energy, complete with the meetings that began with some crazed competition, as well as Schneider's shrewd roster building. Scott Fitterer, the Seahawks vice president of football operations, took Ramsey to Carolina in 2021.
Experience led to Ramsey watching all teams work on the road, and he noticed how the Bengals scouts seemed to work easily with the coaches.
"Just seeing the coaches out there in pro days collaborating with the personnel department," Ramsey says, "it's a really cool setup. It gives you a lot of responsibility. As a scout coming in, you always want to do more. Help the pro guys out in free agency, you want to have an impact on game day and in the building. I like the collaboration."
Ramsey also noticed Bengals senior personnel executive Trey Brown, the old UCLA cornerback. He admires how Brown puts prospects through the paces.
"Sometimes the old DB in him comes out and he really gets after them," Ramsey says.
Hinch also crossed paths with Brown when they were building teams from merely an idea as directors of pro personnel in the Alliance of American Football League. Hinch was in Orlando working with the head coach Spurrier, his old coach when he was a walk-on running back at South Carolina. Hinch tried to pull a few trades with Brown, working for Birmingham, but never could.
"Trey was great. The one guy when it came to doing deals or trades, he saw kind of what I saw and vice versa," Hinch says. "Can't pull anything over on Trey."
As Hinch tried to find a quarterback for the quarterback-whisperer Spurrier, he would travel to Gainesville and they would closet themselves watching tape.
"With Coach Spurrier, nothing was too complicated," Hinch says. "His thing was, it's work, but have fun. It's a job, but a fun job. The one takeaway for me was how family came first. No matter what, make sure the family is involved. He was a family-first guy as well as getting the work done."
Before the AAF went bankrupt after seven games, Hinch and Spurrier teamed up to find its best quarterback in Garrett Gilbert, an NFL journeyman who led the league in passing yards and passer rating. Gilbert went on to hook up with several more NFL teams as a backup and practice squadder before ending up back in New England a third time in 2022, when Hinch was on the Pats' pro side.
Before Hinch went to Foxboro, though, he had another run in the pros as a director of pro personnel for Tampa Bay in the XFL, where he also served on the competition committee.
What, exactly, has the guy who broke into coaching in the Bronx as Suny Maritime's running backs coach/equipment operations not done in this game? The coaching background, Hinch says, helped immeasurably. It even includes a year stint with Sarkisian at Northwestern before Sarkisian joined the Bengals.
But no question, the AAF and XFL taught Hinch the ABCs.
"It helped with agent connections and the nuances of running a team helped grow my knowledge in operation," Hinch says. "Responsible for every transaction, working hand-in hand with a head coach. Creating rosters from scratch. I mean from scratch. Nothing existed."
Once he got to the league, Hinch transitioned from the pro side to scouting the Southeast for the Patriots during the last two years. He gives the Bengals a powerhouse trio in the SEC with ties in the strongest league in the country, starting with Brown and director of college scouting Mike Potts.
As the Bengals' late great scouting guru Pete Brown would say of Hinch, he knows what they're supposed to look like.
"I fell in love with the college side," Hinch says. "I love evaluating. You really have to project. Not just one year, but a few years because you may look at a guy who has a first-round junior year and comes back looking like a fifth-rounder. It's collection of a lot of information and resources."
Hinch brings SEC knowledge while Ramsey has those West Coast roots, as well as some Mountain West and Southwest experience in spots where Sarkisian worked. They'll both be fed numbers from LaBounty.
"How I view the value of research and analytics when it comes to scouting is just being able to get that extra 10-15 percent of information that you can get for our decision makers," LaBounty says. "Identify guys that may have fallen through the cracks, or use advanced metrics on guys to provide context that you wouldn't see by the naked eye or the usual stats that are used. There are a lot of different techniques, but ultimately I don't believe research and analytics aren't the end-all and be-all, Tape is still king."
LaBounty is as old as a century that has seen numbers crunched into sports, and the short-hand name of one of his master's degrees says it all.
"Data science with focus in social problems."
But the Bengals also love that football background, ranging from Bill Walsh's Stanford Cardinal to Miami's Cradle of Coaches. As a 6-7 defensive end who was a special teams staple, LaBounty's fondest memory is Stanford's overtime win over No. 3 Oregon.
After doing general analytics in Buffalo last year, LaBounty is looking forward to getting more specialized with the scouts, as well as helping Francis in any way on game day. He's already kicking around digits with director of pro scouting Steven Radicevic.
"Try to factor in the level of competition the college guys are facing," LaBounty says. "If he gets a sack against a poor tackle or tackles a running back who isn't very good, come up with another metric where you can maybe say, OK, he had 12 sacks, but only four were against high-quality competition."
Like all new positions, the ceiling is limitless. LaBounty's days may be numbered, but they're also just getting started in a new-look department with Tobin's many looks.
"I'm really excited to have Sam as a mentor and teacher," LaBounty says. "Just to be able to learn and help build this out."
