Scouting in Madden

Can anyone link me to a good article / post about how the scouting system actually works? To be honest I've just been scumming the trades so I get lots of darts to throw and have been pretty decent at just targeting athletic freaks / High Awareness players.

Is there a way to manually scout like Madden of old?

How do the scouting choices actually shake out? I constantly see a supposed regional strength, go to it and there are 4 guys in the region so wasting a whole focused scout on them is kind of a waste.

Any and all info would be appreciated!