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Rookies You Might Be Valuing Too High or Low with Matt Waldman || Fantasy Football 2026
01:18:31
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- [00:00]
Dave
It never happens at a good time.
- [00:02]
Matt Waldman
The pipe bursts at midnight.
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Dave
The heater quits on the coldest night.
- [00:06]
Matt Waldman
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Dave
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Matt Waldman
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Dave
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- [00:30]
Matt Waldman
Not every sale happens at the register.
- [00:32]
Dave
Before AT&T business Wireless checking out customers
- [00:36]
Matt Waldman
on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time. Sometimes. AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.
- [01:10]
Dave
I think there are some misconceptions with this rookie incoming class and I've got Matt Waldman with me today who I think agrees with me about some players that might be overvalued and undervalued. And today we are going to look at some of those players as well as discussing the rookie scouting portfolio. So Matt, let's just jump right into it. Who's a player right now that you find yourself preferring a little bit more than most other fantasy football players?
- [01:35]
Matt Waldman
I would say probably EMT Johnson of Nebraska. The, the running back. I know that he's still probably rated reasonably high but after the combine he had I like to joke that that's the Harold Fanon moment of, of this year's pre draft process because if we remember with Harold Fannin there love for him until he performed the combine and then, then everybody basically left the room as if he had some gas at a bad moment.
- [02:04]
Dave
You know DeAndre Hopkins, Cooper Cup. I remember some other guys that had some combines, you know.
- [02:10]
Matt Waldman
Exactly. You know but the thing is is that when you looked at Harold Fannin you looked at it's what happens is that people get hooked on RAS scores, relative athletic score and it's a very nice layer of information and it can be helpful to know what is the percentile historically what percentile somebody performed a certain drill relative to all the other combine participants. But I would rather know as an analyst did he hit the minimum requirement to be a starter did he hit the minimum requirement to be in the league is, you know, that to me is more important of whether he's in the 30% or the 80th percentile of a certain thing. And then on top of it, here's the problem, Dave, is that like you run a 4, 5, 6 at the combine and the combine is using measuring 40s with a third rate piece of technology that even like they don't measure and track in like track settings. You know my buddy Brandon Angelo on my, on my podcast who is, you know, former track athlete and also a trainer to, you know, to high end athletes, professional athletes. He'll tell you the first show we ever did, he broke down the combine has like the, I think it's either the second or third in the tier of what you would do so that the variation in score is pretty strong. Like literally like something like 0.25 of a second plus or minus is the error rate. Yeah, exactly. That's the difference between being so most people undraftable and being elite.
- [03:50]
Dave
Right. And we heard that about Carnell Tate, right? Like Carnell Tate ran his 40 time and then every scout that was on the field was like I clocked him 0.2 seconds faster than what you guys are reporting here. So that actually adds some context to the whole Carnell Tate 40 gate as well.
- [04:04]
Matt Waldman
Exactly. So when you look at that and you go, so I don't really care about the 40. And also here's the other thing on top of like when you look at these times, it's nice to have these times as layers to confirm what you've seen on the field. But if they are very different than what you've seen on the field, you started asking yourself, how does this player run? What does this player do? And when you look the time that was most concerning to me wasn't the 45640. I mean that's a, that's a perfectly acceptable starter time for me. 4.29, 20 shuttle also well within like it's actually an elite time for acceleration. It's just within the, it's, it's just inside of that range. And the three cone was the concern. 7.32 seconds, usually 7 seconds flat is like an elite number. And 7.2 is probably like a reserve, like a committee contributor number. 7.32 is pretty bad. But then I start. But I've been through this rodeo but before, because back in the day when Dalvin Cook was getting drafted and he ran a 7 to 7, I think and Chris Carson ran a 7, 5, 3. And there are, but there's a number of guys that have run slow times. But with Dalvin Cook, everybody was like, oh, his spark score was horrible at the end of high school and he couldn't leap and, and he doesn't, and he doesn't run the three cone drills. Awful. And that's really indicative of like running back play. Then I watch, you watch his tape and he's a curvy linear movement. It's like bending around a corner fast. Patrick Mahomes has curvy linear speed. So did. And Dalvin Cook never cuts. He never cuts. Go watch YouTube right now after this and go watch YouTube and you're going to see it best. He's just, he, he does this thing with his feet when he changes direction in place if he's not going to bend around like you showed. So once you look at that, you go, oh, so the drill doesn't match how the player actually plays. So I'm just going to throw that out. It doesn't matter for this player. So I looked at Emmett Johnson. He can cut, but he does a lot of curvier linear movement. That's what he likes to kind of go with. So when you look at it from that perspective, how fast he processes information that he's a good tackle breaker across the board, whether I'm looking at wraps, hits or reaches. And against all three levels of the defense, you know, he's not great against defensive linemen, but nobody is. But he's still, you know, but he's among the leaders against linebackers and safeties. That's really where you're expecting him to, to get yardage after contact and he's doing that from what I've tracked. So people are shying away from the 4, 5, 6 and the 7.32, but he's my number two running back on the board and he's close to having an instant starter grade. So I know that if he gets the right landing spot and he's on a depth chart that isn't uber talented, he's going to have a shot to contribute soon.
- [07:11]
Dave
Well, last week I had JJ Zachary on the show who could not take more of a different approach to prospect analysis than you do. He also landed on Emmett Johnson being his RV2 for completely different reasons. And he just kind of looked like. I asked him, how much do you care about the combine? And he said, that doesn't go into my model at all. Because I think draft capital kind of accounts for that. Like players move up and down NFL draft boards. So last thing I'll say about the combine, because that was the big talking point with Emmett Johnson. Matt, you have been watching more football than I'll probably ever watch in my life. The best NFL running backs of all time. How many times in a game do they run 40 yards in a straight line, like throughout their entire career?
- [07:48]
Matt Waldman
Maybe a dozen if you. Yeah, maybe if you're, Maybe if you're Adrian Peterson at Oklahoma and, or at, you know, you get to do that about a dozen times at Oklahoma. But yeah, and even in the NFL, he didn't, he didn't have too many of those. He probably had a dozen in a long career. Right, but that's. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's, There are people smarter
- [08:12]
Dave
than me who know how to analyze this data and like, have looked at the correlation between a 40 yard dash for a running back and NFL success, and it's basically nothing. Like, there is no correlation between how fast you can run in a straight line. And like you said, there are kind of benchmarks. If somebody goes out and runs a 4, 9. Yeah, that's a concern. But like, as long as you can show some sort of translatable speed, that's kind of all there is to it.
- [08:34]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, I mean, like, for me, when I look on film, when I'm comparing 40 times to what I look on film, I'm looking for things like, all right, what side of the field is he running to? Is he running to the near side of the far side boundary? Is it a perimeter play? Is it a play up the middle? What, what type of defenders had angles on him and did he beat those angles? And, and even the fastest players don't always beat defensive linemen or defense around the corner. I mean, it just depends on the angle that they have. So I'm looking at a lot of things like that. And as long as the guy's consistently getting into the secondary, like to the second and third level, that's all I really care about is like, when there's a big hole, can you get there? You know, and does that and that, that's okay. If you can't get through the line of scrimmage with a big hole, that's a problem. That's where I look at. But most of these guys are fast enough. It's just we've gotten to this point that faster, quicker, more reps, lower times, the better they are, when really it's, it's more about where is it good enough? Where is it good enough? It's not about us. It's not the SAT score race or the, the GPA. Like back in my day we only had a 4.0. You know, now they have like, you have like higher variations of even that and I'm like where did that come from? You know. But like that's to me that's more about, that's that kind of mentality that we have. Like, well, I have a 4.5 GPA. You know. No 4.0 is perfect, right? Yeah, I'm better than perfect. That's. Yeah, it's, I'm better than what's the minimum acceptability. And it's, it just, it becomes part of the scam.
- [10:17]
Dave
So my comp, you know we have to make player comps and I know sure frustrating thing because there's never ever one to one comp. But for Emma Johnson, my player comp was Ahmad Bradshaw. Before the scouting combine, Ahmad Bradshaw also had a very, very bad combine, a 38th percentile relative athletic score. But he is a vision based runner and a very good pass catcher and that led to a long and prolific NFL career. I could see Emmett Johnson following a very similar trajectory to Ahmad Bradshaw.
- [10:46]
Matt Waldman
I love that comp for and I'm actually kind of envious that I didn't think of that one because Ahmad Bradshaw was one of my faves very early on. That helped me reinforce some lessons I learned and that is, it makes so much sense. It's hilarious. I've got some guys that are similar to that. Dalvin Cook obviously is on the high end for me because of that curvilinear movement skill. But Devonta Freeman is the guy that I have him kind of pegged as even though because he can make some of the hard cuts. But I have him as a guy that I think is has a chance to be slightly better than what Devonta Freeman was even in his in his prime. So we'll see.
- [11:24]
Dave
Well, Matt and I, we're going to talk about more guys that Matt likes and dislikes compared to the consensus. We're also going to talk about the rookie scouting portfolio. But before we get into all that, if you are watching on YouTube, please do us a favor, subscribe if you haven't already. Like if you haven't already. And I want to experiment something here. I heard that if you comment on a YouTube video it is the best way to boost the algorithm. So if you're watching, do us a favor, leave us a comment and let's see if that can help bring in some more views. But Matt, we Already talked about Emmett Johnson. We're going to talk about some more players, but that I want to introduce the audience. Anybody who's watching here and isn't familiar with the rookie scouting portfolio. Can you explain what this is a little bit? This is not your average draft guide.
- [12:03]
Matt Waldman
No. It's kind of crazy. I've been doing this for 21 years, but it's. What it is is that back in my previous life, before I was a writer at a university and doing magazine features and editing, I was a manager in a call center. And so I worked in a call center environment and, you know, would. Would run shifts that ran from like 8:00am till 2:00am you know, seven days a week. And you know, and way back in the day, remember when AOL used to. They basically. They basically saturated the entire universe with disks for people to start up. This probably well before your time. But like they were saturated with discs to get people to get online and go, well, they didn't have a. To keep all those people. So the company I worked for was like helping them figure out how to keep those people using sales techniques to work with that. And then I ended up working for an offshoot of what they did as a, you know, running that and eventually became a quality director for this company that had about 70 branches of call centers around the country. So I was doing. I was doing a lot of that and I got certified in this process on how you manage different environments that were. It was kind of like a certification process, taking stuff from manufacturing best. Best practices as well as other management best practices and making like a certification program. It's one of those things that clients like to like to have for people that they hire, who they outsource to do this stuff, even though none of the. Most of these organizations don't really use all of it. But I got trained in this. One of the sections that I really liked was how do you. How do you basically create evaluations of people's performances? You know, and so that was one of my concerns at that point. And I always. My groups always had really strong quality in terms of the work that they did. And a lot of it was because of how we evaluated them. And so I developed. I was. I basically took all those processes and applied them to studying football players. And the thing that made it a best practices is that you're always improving upon that process and you have, in a certain way of how you weight the scoring, how you ask the questions, how you define everything. It's all very transparent, but it's all designed so that you, you're always examining how you can make this better and how you can make something that seems subjective more objective. So what I'm really doing is creating my own analytics by watching film. So, you know, a lot of people will say I'm a film guy and I am a film guy, but I actually, as Duane McFarlane would say, who is probably one of the most analytical of analytics people in our space, would say, you know, New has been getting RSP for many years and used to write for me when he. And he was like, nobody knows that you're actually an analytics guy, do they? And I'm like, no, pretty much, you
- [15:16]
Dave
know, you're just making your own.
- [15:18]
Matt Waldman
The film guy. I'm making my own analytics. So what I do is I track and chart games and information and I'm, I'm creating my own tackle evading analytics, my own accuracy analytics, my own catch point analytics. And then I also have all these, these detailed points that are all written and defined and weighted in a way so that I can present that information to people as well as have it all kept track of in a way so that it helps me develop a really good understanding of the player and not only who he is, but who he could potentially become within reason. And so, you know, obviously, so what I, I do is I take people through this process in each chapter on each position and do it, try to do it in an entertaining way where I compare players to each other in different avenues of what they do. And then I give you a full scouting report, gives you links to videos I've done throughout the year on these players so you can see examples of what they do. And then I give you this. The stuff that fantasy people want, what we all want, which is ranking, like rankings in a cheat sheet form with some commentary where it can all be distilled in the KISS method, you know, of what you do. And then so you get 1200 pages of like stuff that you can go through for a couple of years, two or three years. And if three or four years from now, you know, somebody's talking about, you know, this Michael Wilson is starting to emerge. Let's see what Matt Waldman said about Michael Wilson. And you can read, oh, that was one of his most underrated players and thought he could be, this is what he needed to work on. And if he did that, he has a shot to be a Michael Thomas like, player who can play inside, outside, get a lot of volume, you know, or Rico Doddle, you know, somebody like that. Those were two guys that are examples of that. So it's great for free agency, it's great for the draft, keeping up with it. And then I do a post draft afterwards where we look at draft capital and where they landed and the depth charts of the teams. And I put that out within a week. And so you get a ton of information. And I like to say it's fantasy focused, but football approved because it is one of the two most purchased independent draft guides by NFL people, according to, you know, recruiters. Alex Brown, who's a recruiter at Ole Miss, at Rice, at SMU in Houston, he's now a Falcon scout, Atlanta Falcons scout as of last year. He would meet with these people and he would tell me like you and Dane Bruglers were the two most purchased draft guides that I've seen over the years. When I, because I meet with these guys and I ask them what they're reading, what they use to cross check information later in the year, you know, what do they value? And they tell them so.
- [18:07]
Dave
There's other companies that are kind of turning film into analytics in a way, but a lot of times it's like a, a sea of unpaid interns that are just charting games and turning that into data. You are doing this personally yourself and that is no easy task. So, you know, you kind of start as the season is winding down and then you just kind of go into a cave for a few months and now you are out of your hibernation, ready to share the rookie scouting portfolio with everyone. Walk me through a day in the life of Matt Waldman when you're actually creating this.
- [18:36]
Matt Waldman
Well, you know, I between now and like between now and like late May, once I start doing rankings for football guys, you know, and doing projections for my, the RSP for dynasty rankings and projections, I'll do that kind of stuff. But usually around July I start looking at tape again. So I every day I'm watching the player. I have, you know, a variety of spreadsheets that I have that I'm tracking. So what I have a checklist for each position that I'm watching that has probably between 90 and 120 defined points of what I'm studying on a 100 point scale for each player. So I watch the film. That usually means I'm rewinding and looking through one play at a time, sometimes two or three times, sometimes five or six times. And I've done this long enough that I pretty much know what I'm, I don't have to refer usually to definitions of things that I'm looking for. But if I forget, you know, I've got that all handy. And that's very worthwhile because the tough part about, you know, this is going to probably be anticipating some things that we might talk about. But the, the thing that fans, that I may see, that fans don't see is only because I've already written it down and put it on paper enough times that I already have a. A perspective, a context, and a defined way of looking at it. Whereas if you're just a fan looking at it, you may know a ton about football and you may see a lot, but you haven't taken the time to write it all down and put it in a. In a context where maybe it just makes it easier for you to keep track of things, easier to contextualize it. Because you may see, if we watch together, you might see more than I do the first time you look at it. You might have more football experience than I did and see more than what I see the first time. But the difference is, is that I'm systematically going through this and putting and have a. And have an organized plan. So it makes it easier for me to see things and not forget it. So I'm doing all that checking through checklists I watch, you know, for one player, I'll watch somewhere between at least four games and sometimes as many as eight, eight or nine games. And I'm the checklist every time. I'm tracking, you know, targets, catches, tackle, you know, whether what type of catch it was, what type of coverage it was, if it was a quarterback, I'm tracking what range of the field they threw to. Was it. Did it have the velocity it needed to have? Was it a pinpoint catch? Was it a. I mean, a pinpoint accurate throw as I define it, or was it a throw that's just catchable, but the receiver had to do more work than they should have to make the play? I'm tracking all this on a matrix of spreadsheets. So there's like two or three spreadsheets open. I'm doing all this at different times. So it usually takes me about four or five hours to get through a player, maybe three or four games. Sometimes it takes me four or five hours just to do two games. And so I do that throughout the year. There are certain, you know, when, when it's, when it's. The season is going on, you know, I've got four or five football guys articles I'm writing. So usually what happens is that there's a couple days a week where I'm just spending solely on watching film. And then there's. And then there's some days after I get finished writing where I'm watching at night, you know, or early in the morning.
- [22:10]
Dave
Peak on the prospects.
- [22:11]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, Working on. And working through this gradually so that I have about 60 to 80 players watched by December. And then as football guy starts to. The football scene starts to wind down, I start ramping up with this. And then I'm watching like, you know, a good 14 to 16 hours worth of film a day between January and, and the end, and the end of February. And then that's putting the book together, which is a whole. Its own process.
- [22:42]
Dave
So. So you talked, you know, at. At the top. You said that when you were working at this call center, that's when you kind of found this idea for how to evaluate talent and manage teams and things of that nature, and that's what you use to implement this. But I kind of want to know the why, Matt. Like, why football why? Why is it that you decided to take this approach to football and analyzing football? Did you see an opening in the market? Or is it just something that like, you just felt like, like heard a voice in your head telling you that you needed to do this? Like, what's the why for why you started doing all of this?
- [23:12]
Matt Waldman
Sure, it's a combination of things. The first thing was like the. Not the root thing, but the, the most superficial thing was is that, you know, I was. We had. In the. The work environment I had, we played fantasy football. You know, it was back 1993, 94. And you know, this is my first leagues and we would play the office leagues and you'd have to like go online with the modem to basically have download the stats so that they would score it for you. Or we'd be scoring at a bar on Monday night as the game was going.
- [23:45]
Dave
I remember with my dad, like during halftime, like frantically scratching down whatever we could on paper so we could like see how our players were doing.
- [23:52]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, yeah, so we did that. But there was a point that I was, you know, I would, I would read draft content and different things pretty voraciously. And it was mainly because I found that I was pretty good at rookies for some reason. Like, I was like, I didn't, you know, like when we would draft, I would take chances on rookies like Terrell Davis, Edron James. I made a first round pick. It was a dumb pick, but like, I had a back to back and I did like, I could have gotten Marshall Falk and Edron James in 1999 in their big year. And I picked, I skipped Marshall. I had him the year before with Peyton Manning, dumping them down all year as a rookie. But I picked Edron James and Eddie George and they were both still really strong. Like, I was good at picking rookies for some reason, and I didn't really have a rhyme or reason and. But I would keep up with it because I thought it was an edge to be able to have. And at one point I was, you know, I was taking a break from work and I was reading Gil Brandt, the former Cowboys president who was the godfather of analytical scouting and different things he was doing. And he was talking about this player and how he came, you know, he had. If he was 2 inches taller and 15 pounds, 10 to 15 pounds heavier, he'd be a top five overall pick. And he was a running back. And so I'm looking at this guy and I go, okay, why would you say that? If he's a talented guy, he's a talented guy. Why would you say that? So I started looking at this guy's track record and I saw, oh, he was a star running back out of high school in Philadelphia or in Maryland? Out of Maryland. And FSU at the time was a powerhouse and they wanted him. But he tore his ACL just before, just before getting to go there and they, they rescinded their scholarship. So he wound up at Villanova. And then he, he had another ACL tear playing basketball. Like the first ACL tear he had, he slipped on black ice during the off season. Imagine being a highly recruited running back. You're going to go to fsu, you know, and you slip on black ice, you tear your acl. I mean, what horrible look. And then you, you're Villanova and you're a star and you tear it playing basketball and you're like this all purpose, unbelievable, all purpose back. But you're only five nine, you're barely 200 pounds. You played at Villanova, you have two ACL tears. And now suddenly I'm going, okay, I understand. This is corporate America. That's what this is. This is. We got to cover our assets about how we do things and we can't make. I can't justify Brian Westbrook being a first round pick with all of that going on. He's under the prototype. He's in terms of height and weight at that time for a running back, he's a good receiver, he's a good dual purpose back. But he's also had two ACL tears and played at Villanova. It's different than if he was completely healthy and played at fsu. So when I saw that, I go, I thought about that. I said, okay, I understand. This is how the NFL is doing things. What if I made a draft guide using what I've done to evaluate people, just looking at talent. What if I just look. What if I just did that and I made it? And then I started thinking about how, you know, your daydream and how it looked like. Because again, I'm working as a director for call centers. Okay, no offense. I learned a ton there. It was great. But it's not a dream job, you know, so I'm so passionate. Yeah. So I'm, you know, like most of you, you're reading articles on, you know, online during breaks, and, you know, when you have the time, you're thinking about that stuff. And I kept thinking, what would I make this thing look like? And I'm thinking as bare bones as possible. Because I don't want my graphic design to look like glamour shots. You know, I need this to be. I'm just going to look. I want to look like something that's all substance, no frills. And you found it in a filing cabinet and thought, oh, my God, what is this? What is this gold that this is? So I, you know, I started thinking about doing it, doing it then. But, you know, and it was a good job as a. It was a career I fell into. I had a. You know, I was in. I was a music student early on in my career, in my academic career, and I went to the University of Miami. And at that time, the two best things that came out of there was probably that music program was in and that football team that was a. A two time national champion. During the time that we were there, I was there and I knew that that wasn't probably the path I was gonna go. And I had a whole roundabout thing with school in terms of how long. And I fell into this job because I was selling children's books online. That was like. Or selling children's books over the phone. I was a telemarketer part time. After a series of jobs, it was a good gig. I'm selling like Little Golden Books, if you remember. Little Golden Books. Yeah, we were sold Little Golden Books.
- [29:03]
Dave
It was.
- [29:03]
Matt Waldman
It was a.
- [29:04]
Dave
It was. You must have got my mom, because we had a whole shelf full of
- [29:08]
Matt Waldman
exactly, you know, I mean, it was wholesome. It was like, it was easy to sell. It wasn't a big deal. We sold some other things too, but, like, that was generally books and magazines was the area that I was in. And I worked my way up, ended up managing telemarketing floor by the time I was like 20, 24, 25. And I just fell into it. And then I got settled in Athens because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure if I wanted to write because I was in a journalism program quickly at UGA and covered the football team during that time when Terrell Davis and Heinz Ward and all those people were there, and then decided that wasn't what I wanted to do. So I was kind of one of those people that was trying to find themselves. And at some point I realized in my early 30s that, like, this is not where I want to be stuck, because call centers are kind of a way station for lost souls at times. There are some people who know exactly why they're there and what they're trying to do and get out of it. There's some people who just have to be there. And I was a lost soul for a while. So, you know, I was trying to figure all this out too. And at some point I realized that I needed to take the chance on something. And then I wanted to. I wanted to write. And I thought, these are skills. I've learned all these different skills doing things that I really didn't want to do for a living. Let me pour all of that into something that I do want. And football and writing were things I was passionate about. And evaluating talent and managing and understanding management scenarios of things that I was good at. I just wasn't passionate about it. And so I was able to kind of combine those things. And I've had a very blessed 21 years, I'll put it that way.
- [30:55]
Dave
Matt, you know, you and I have talked about life and past history and a lot of other things throughout the year. I knew some of your background. I didn't know all of it. And it is unbelievable how similar it is to my story that I was in corporate America working a phone sales job, and I was really good at it. But I was like, I am not passionate about this. This is driving me nuts. My nickname in the office was Dave Schefter, because I would just walk around and I was just talking football with people all day long. I couldn't care less about selling transportation, but I was putting, like, so much of my thought and energy into logistics and supply chain and transportation, and it was just soulless. Like, I had no fun doing it. So when I was able to, like, divert that energy into Something that I was passionate about, which is football, and still have, like, similar results, successful results. It was just. There was no looking back at that point. And it sounds like for you, 20 something years ago when you made that choice, it was kind of the same for you. Well, I could talk about this all day, you know, the, the history of how you came about this, but, you know, you've put all of this time into studying these rookies. So I want to hear. People want to know about some of these rookies. Matt, who's another guy that you think you know, you like a little bit more than you see some of the other people in the industry liking.
- [32:02]
Matt Waldman
How about I like this guy probably more than anybody. And they're probably. People who are reading the RSP right now are probably scratching their heads about it because they probably never seen him anywhere. One of my top five running backs pre draft is Miles Montgomery of University of Central Florida. Yeah, yeah.
- [32:18]
Dave
There are two guys out of UCF that were pretty fun this year.
- [32:21]
Matt Waldman
They were.
- [32:22]
Dave
Neither got combine invites, but they should have.
- [32:24]
Matt Waldman
They should have. And miles is 510,198ish. Probably not the fastest back from what I've seen, but he's quick. And what I value from most football players and is how well they process information, how do they take what the defense is trying to do within the scope of their play and whether the play is working or whether it's not, and figure out solutions that are going to work using all the tools that they're supposed to have. And the way he does that, I think he has a very fast processor. I think he has underrated agility and footwork, strong vision. He just. And he dictates the terms of contact. The best running backs I watch are the first ones to strike. You know, when there's a collision, they're the ones dictating the contact. And when you do that, you don't.
- [33:15]
Dave
That's what we hear all the time, right?
- [33:17]
Matt Waldman
Yes. And very rarely do they do that anymore, but he can do that. But he also is like the way Jamal Charles would dictate to. Jamal Charles would be someone who. You could watch him accelerate towards a defensive tackle and then be the first to make contact by using a stiff arm or using his pad and then spinning off of it just as the defender is reacting. And Montgomery has that in his game. I've watched him in a lot of short yardage plays where he. He combines move so well to create a chain of movement that gets him into an open crease. He's someone that when things go off script, he's good at it. And I think that he could be one of the bigger sleepers in a class that's seen as a dud. And to me, it's kind of. There's like four or five running backs in this class for me that are in my top 15 that I'm not sure anybody has them in that level. And it's not that I'm trying to make a splash or anything, it's just how I see that they process well. They. I value speed a lot less than a lot of people, so it's like I'm, you know, they have the minimum amount of speed, and I think that they have to succeed. They have the, this, the baseline level that they need, and I think that they are fluid players who show some contact, balance and power and all of that. And I think Montgomery is one of those guys that you're probably not drafting them in a rookie draft. You're probably going to. You're probably going to be able to wait till you get expanded rosters in your off season and you can add them and just see what happens. And it's kind of just like a free square at somebody with high upside, just because I think he might add that. And, you know, the only way that doesn't happen is if there are some teams that actually really like him and somehow he gets drafted and the fifth or sixth round and they're like, oh, yeah, we love this guy coming out and we just didn't want to say anything to anybody about, about it. And now he's on a depth chart that's really promising or somebody gets hurt. Now he's going to get a shot. Kind of like Kyle Menon guy last year. He was another one that I felt that way about.
- [35:25]
Dave
Jacori Kraski. Merit was another guy who didn't get a combine invite. But the commanders decided, like, we saw enough on tape that we're going to take a shot without the combine. And I was upset about the Miles Montgomery snub because in my write up, I, I said there are some questions about his athleticism, but if he answers those questions at the combine, he's going to be a big riser. And then he did get a combine invite, so we weren't able to ever get there, but I liked him as well. Again, my, my comp with him, Alfred Morris, a guy who, not a great athlete, but a guy who was just a violent runner, you know, had just enough speed to beat guys around the edge when he needed to. And Miles Montgomery Was a guy that, you know, all of the team fits, that I was, was, you know, hypothetical. Hypothetically, like dreaming about him landing in. They were all from that Shanahanian tree. You know, I wanted to see him with the 49ers or see him in Los Angeles with Mike McDaniel behind that offensive line. Because if you can give like, like you said, he is a quick processor and as soon as that crease opens up, he's able to get through it. So I'm not quite as bullish as you. I don't have him inside my top five, but he was a player that
- [36:24]
Matt Waldman
I liked a lot.
- [36:24]
Dave
And when that combine list came out, there were quite a few guys that I like. Barika Capino was another one. Jaden Ott was another one. Jamari Taylor. There were some good players that I would have liked to see at the combine. And I'm hoping that last year, Jakory Crosby Merit's success despite the lack of a combine invite will push some other GMs to think outside of that combine box and start looking at some of these other guys. Because I think Miles Montgomery has all the makings of an NFL back.
- [36:47]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, I mean like my comp form was Kenny Gainwell, so. Oh, yeah, you know, you just, you know, better word. I like that a lot.
- [36:55]
Dave
Yeah.
- [36:56]
Matt Waldman
Yeah. Because he's got more all around game. But Alfred Morris I like too, because Alfred was a very smart runner with very good feet. So I get it. You know, not the most athletic. The way you explain is perfect.
- [37:08]
Dave
Well, let's talk about. You got another one. I know we've been leaning on the running back so far. If you got another running back, we can hear it. If you got a wide receiver, quarterback, tight end, wherever you want to go. Another guy that you find yourself liking a bit more than most this year.
- [37:18]
Matt Waldman
Devon Booth is another running back. And then we'll go on to some other players because I got a wide receiver and a tight end I definitely want to talk about. But Devon Booth is out of Mississippi State, used to be. Before that, Utah State. He's like five eight, one, nine nine. And I, I basically, I basically stole your, your comparison to him. I saw it online and I think I mentioned it in my chart in my chapter. Is that Khalil Herbert, you know, another guy I really like, but he's, you know, he's, he's explosive, but more like he doesn't have. I described him as. He's like Kyle Menon guy with more explosion but without the relentless open field power. Or you could say That's Khalil Herbert with more promising third down chops. You know, and all in all, if you add that all up, he's basically like a less advanced J.K. dobbins. That's kind of, you know, sometimes you have to get to it in a roundabout fashion. But he's 581-99. He's a smooth runner. He makes, he's a good cutback runner. He, he plays hard, he finishes hard for his size. He's one of those guys that may start his career as kind of a third down, two minute drill back. At some point, if he can get on the field with the, you know, pass protection, he can certainly catch. But he's one of those guys that he's like instant production in a bottle when he starts, when he starts running, he's a very good decision maker.
- [38:50]
Dave
I like that. You know, of course, that was, that was my comp. Khalil Herbert, I saw so many times where he was just able to like turn nothing into something. And that's like Khalil Herbert wouldn't have the long speed. There's one play and I'm trying so hard to remember who it was against. But in the NFL, Khalil Herbert had this run that I think just perfectly encapsulates the type of player he is, where there's nothing at all, it's just not blocked for him. So he cuts back, he breaks a tackle in the back field. He's weaving through, just making defenders miss left and right, and then gets to the open field where there's nobody ahead of him and it's just him and 40 yards to the end zone. And then he inevitably gets chased down because it's Khalil Herbert. And that's what I saw with Devon Booth too. Like just making something out of nothing, but just doesn't have the high end speed to finish the runs. But yeah, there's a lot of running backs in this class that I think could end up potentially getting drafted without the combine. You said you've got some other players though, and you said tight end. I'm really interested to see because you and I almost never talk tight ends. Like that's something I, I do kind of just athleticism, draft capital. I let that be my guiding light for tight ends. It's a, it's, it's a position that I struggle to analyze. There's so much to it. So who's a tight end that kind of jumped out to you in this class?
- [40:02]
Matt Waldman
And in context, let me just add that this is a weird year because after you look at Tyler Warren and Tucker Kraft last year, you can see that a lot more teams are beginning to adopt two and three tight end sets. And what they want is. I look at tight ends in two ways now. The traditional fantasy value tight end, like a Delaney Walker, is basically an oversized wide receiver. Like he was a good example of calling an oversized wide receiver. Or Travis Kelsey, you know, from that standpoint, you have your unicorns like Colston Loveland and George Kittle and Rob Gronkowski, guys like that, who can do it all, but there's very few. And then you have what I would call the oversized fullback role. Doesn't mean they might not be able to do more. But Tyler Warren and Tucker Kraft, basically, they're asked to make it believable that they're blockers, and either they are or they aren't. But they, they put them in situations where it's got to be respected that they can block, and then they. They leak out into a wide open flat, and then they make like a fullback with the ball, and occasionally they're asked to go downfield. Sometimes they're given some contested catch stuff, but they're not. The key thing is that they're not running primary wide receiver one routes against cornerbacks. George Kittle can do that. Gronkowski could do it. You know, those are the guys that could do that kind of stuff. So if we're switching more towards a heavy offensive style to counter nickel defenses and with COVID two and cover three and things like that with smaller defenders, well, then now we might be seeing the teams covet players more like AJ Barner or Tucker Kraft. Right, Or Tyler Warren, where, yeah, you running primary wide receiver routes isn't as important anymore. You got to be able to block, and then the catching part's important, but the, the route running doesn't become as important. So I've kind of actually developed two scoring methods this year to account for oversized wide receiver. Oversized fullback. That's the simplistic way of putting it.
- [42:07]
Dave
And I remember last off season, I remember you and I talking a bit about Tucker Kraft saying that, like, he is very limited as a route runner, but he's a freak athlete. And it was about halfway through the season, I kind of broke it down where I'm like, he isn't running routes. Like, I never see Tucker Kraft lining up in the slot. Like, he is just blocking, blocking, blocking. And then after he is just blocking, beat down his defensive end, then he'll just pop out for a screen pass and then he's big and strong and fast enough that he could just rumble through the defense for 40 yards. So, like, he doesn't have a polished skill set, but he's so good at what he does. And Matt LaFleur knows his strengths and knows his weaknesses and tailors the game plan around what he does well and what he doesn't do well. So I, I remember talking to you about that last offseason and I'm, I'm glad to see that you have said, like, no, I mean, like, these types of guys that might be limited in their skill set can still be valuable in the pros.
- [42:54]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think my picture was on the, on the post office and then every county in Indianapolis after I talked about Tyler Warren this year because I liked Colston Loveland more and I was still adamant about that all year. But like, it was because I was saying, you know, this is how they're using him.
- [43:14]
Dave
And I guess who you're going to talk about, the rookie.
- [43:17]
Matt Waldman
You can guess. Yeah, go for it.
- [43:20]
Dave
Is it the Quan right out of all this? No, the way you were talking about,
- [43:24]
Matt Waldman
just like an athlete, limited, athletic.
- [43:27]
Dave
That's kind of where I thought you might be going here.
- [43:29]
Matt Waldman
No, but like, actually there's a guy that I think could fit either method, either way of going, depending on how it is, and it's BYU's Carson Ryan. I, a huge Carson Ryan fan. I have him as my favorite fifth tight end on the board. He is, pound for pound, the best blocker in this class. The way he sets up angles either in the open field or against inline defenders is better than just about anyone I've seen in this class at that. He can deliver a punch, he can move guys. But here's the other thing. He's a very good pass catcher. And every stop he's been at, whether it's been ucla, Utah or byu, they go deep with him. They'll throw it deep and he works open. He. It's like watching lad McConkey work open in the end zone when it's well covered and they. And the quarterback still throws it anyway. He has soft hands, he tracks the ball over his shoulders well. And he's he's like 64250. So he's in that range where you're like, he can legitimately. I've watched him hold his own against the Miami defensive events in an impressive fashion. And I'm thinking, wow, for 64250 to do that against Ruben Bain. Okay, so there's some of that. And then on top of it just watching him work open and get free, I'm thinking this guy could, he's probably the most versatile option available now. The defunct, now defunct Pro Football Focus had him graded as their top tight end in the college, college season. And you know, everyone often jokes about grades and has been critical about their grades but, and I would say I was never one to really look at grades, but I found it interesting that they liked him because I looked at that after I had scored him and I was like, this guy might be my favorite tight end on the board, even though he's not my top ranked guy. And he reminds me of Jake Ferguson, you know, kind of a guy who, you know, if you give him a chance, he might not get. He might, you're not going to be able to get that job back from him because he can do a little bit of everything. He can block everywhere. So I see him as a high end contributor who, you know, should be able to see the field early. He may never become a top end starter, but if he gets the opportunity to, he might not. He might make it very hard for an earlier round pick to like get rid of him. You know, he's just, he's. To me, when quarterbacks trust a guy that much the way they did and it was different quarterbacks at different teams doing the same thing. And I'm literally going, yeah, this guy has. Must have lit people up in practice on a level that they trust him that much. And then to watch him take on des and linebackers and whether you're, whether you're out in space or like if, if you ask me if you want to replace Travis Kelsey, I think they should draft Carson Ryan and in Kansas City, you're not going to get the high end Travis Kelsey stuff, but you're going to get like an, maybe an upgrade of Noah Gray. Like what where Noah Gray wants to go but can't go quite get there. I think Carson Ryan could do that. And with their ground game, he becomes an asset as a blocker. But he's going to be able to sneak through and give you some of that Jake Ferguson, Zach, like Zach Ertz with blocking skills, you know, kind of thing.
- [47:08]
Dave
Matt, as much as I'd love to pretend like I have watched Carson Ryan film and tell you my thoughts on this player, you're going too deep for me on this one. I got to be honest with you. All I'll say is looking at our rookie guide here, it's kind of funny, you know that a Steelers fan wrote this one because the comp that he came up with was Jeremy Tooman, which is a name that not a lot of people outside Steelers Nation are even going to know. So shout out to Mike Kashuba for that poll there. But before we talk about some more players one more time, just in case somebody missed it earlier, let people know where they can get the rookie scouting portfolio and all this information.
- [47:39]
Matt Waldman
Sure, you can go to matwaldman.com and you'll when you pay for it, it'll ask you to create a login and a password and it'll take you back to the page and you can click the link and download the PDF format of it if you have a problem with it occasionally. You know, I did the website a long time ago, so if it looks a little, a little old and you have a question about what you're looking for, you can email me at Matt Waldman RSP gmail.com and I usually get back to people within 24 hours. Most of the time it's, you know, once you figure it out, it's pretty, pretty easy to do. Otherwise I'd wouldn't have time to write this book if I was like doing my since I do my own customer service. So you're a writer, not a website. Yeah, that's right.
- [48:23]
Dave
It's so weird. This app shows that my credit score
- [48:26]
Matt Waldman
is pretty good, but I couldn't get the car loan. Are you using myfico.com? no, it's some other company.
- [48:32]
Dave
Oh, you should get a Myfico account instead. FICO scores are the ones used by 90% of lenders and other credit scores
- [48:38]
Matt Waldman
can vary up to 100 points.
- [48:40]
Dave
That would have been helpful yesterday.
- [48:42]
Matt Waldman
Get the scores lenders use. Get the right FICO credit score for
- [48:45]
Dave
your credit goal, including your FICO scores
- [48:47]
Matt Waldman
used for mortgages, auto loans and credit cards. Visit myfico.com or download the MyFico app to get started today.
- [48:53]
Dave
Well, let's keep talking about some more players here and maybe you can throw me off my game again. Going too deep for me. You know, I did all of the running backs, so like 58 running backs I can talk pretty deep on. When you get to the wide receivers, tight ends, quarterbacks, I know the top end talent. But where do you want to go with some of the other positions, some guys that you prefer more than the consensus?
- [49:11]
Matt Waldman
Well, I don't know where people are ranking Skyler Bell these days. I have to imagine these like Big
- [49:16]
Dave
Riser 12 and a Jeff Bell favorite. Jeff Bell, who did our wide receivers in the Rookie Guide, is A big fan of Skyler Bell?
- [49:25]
Matt Waldman
Well, he's wide receiver five for me, so I'm. I'm a big fan too. And he's a unique case because most, you know, if you follow me on X, you know that I often talk about catching technique and how Marvin Harrison was a bit. As much as I liked him, I thought he was a bit of a concern and nowhere near malik neighbors because he caught. He clap attacked targets. You know, he would clap his hands onto the ball and he would lose. And he had some tracking issues with specific types of targets that could be problematic. There are only, I think, four or five receivers that I have studied who've been reasonably productive when they. They're like serial clap attackers. Terry McLaurin was one of them. Golden Tate was another. Early Doucet was another. And I didn't study this player, but Marvin Harrison was the best of them. Marvin Harrison, senior, he, man, that dude trapped and clap attacked everything. He was like an old school 1970s receiver.
- [50:32]
Dave
And he's got to wonder that maybe some of the reasons that his kid is struggling a bit.
- [50:37]
Matt Waldman
Maybe that's what I would think, you know, and that is, you know, that he hasn't focused on it. It's. The thing is it's very hard to do that and do it at a high level. And so the fact that I'm only mentioned out of the. Probably at this point, thousands of receivers that I've watched, and I've only can come up with four that I studied who were, like, pretty good at it. None of them set the world on fire. You know, they were wide receiver twos. Terry had a wide receiver one season for once, you know, two years ago. Yeah. So. But these are guys that did it completely the wrong way and still got away with it. So Skyler Bell is a serial clap attacker. Normally I would be like, ooh, I've got some concerns about them. But when I studied, you know, one of the things that I try to do is examine, again, context for what they do. And what I saw is that the guys who I worry about are the ones who seem unconfident about using the correct technique, so they substitute the bad technique for it. And then when they get to the NFL and this. And the difficulties magnified this becomes flawed. And then they drop more than they dropped in college. And. But the guys who, when I mentioned those five guys and I watched their games, that was like their first mode of trying to do it. But they could also make the correct. Some of them could make the correct technical catch, but Like Robert Meacham. I remember watching moves on New Orleans Saints deep threat who was like big, strong, tall, fast. And at Tennessee, he was trying to do it the right way, but he dropped so many passes that he had to revert to doing it the other way. And it was like he was overthinking. Skyler Bell can catch the ball the technically sound way, but he's just more natural doing it the other way. And he makes a lot of difficult catches and he doesn't drop a lot of passes, even though he's clap attacking them. And so if there's. And I thought, well, that's kind of like Terry McLaurin. It's kind of like Marvin Harrison Senior. And it's a lot like Golden Tate where it's like. And Tate could catch the ball properly. And I saw, I saw some of that too. So I thought, okay, it's not that he's so unconfident doing it the right way that he's just got to do it this way. It's the only way. It's just more that he's so good at doing it this way that, you know, why, why change? And I, And I think because he can do it at a highly difficult. What level? I've kind of seen him as maybe he is going to be the exception to the rule. And so I'm. I'm going to bet on him being the exception to the rule. I don't normally do that, but I have him in kind of a level of like, imagine if Khalil Shakir was a little bit more dynamic as a player in terms of athletic ability.
- [53:36]
Dave
I like your comp a lot.
- [53:37]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, yeah. And then like, if the top dog
- [53:40]
Dave
in him, just the way that he plays, like he is just an aggressive, violent. Wants to make every inch he can after the catch. Yep.
- [53:47]
Matt Waldman
Yes, exactly. And then the top of that heap is the guy who's probably never going to get there. But that's Jamar Chase. Jamar Chase is that kind of player, but he's the. He's the apex. Whereas like, maybe if Jamar Chase is like the orca, you know, of the apex predators in the ocean of football, then maybe like Khalil Shakir is like a tiger shark, you know, and then like. And then like maybe Laverneus Coles, if you remember him.
- [54:15]
Dave
Oh, yeah.
- [54:16]
Matt Waldman
It's like more of a great white shark, but, you know, when the orca comes around, they flee. You know, I think Skyler Bell is kind of more in that Laverneous Coles kind of kind of tier of player where it's like, you know, he's definitely a dangerous shark.
- [54:31]
Dave
And I, I love that you brought up Skyler Bell because in most rankings he's outside of the top 20. Jeff Bell has him even higher than I do. He's got him as wide receiver 9. I've got him just outside of my top 10. I've got him at wide receiver 11. And then you like him even more than both of us. But you know, sometimes, and I'll steal this straight from Jeff Bell, he's like, sometimes you're watching a guy and he's just a dude and he just like jumps off the screen and that's it with Skyler Bell. I don't know if you're familiar with this term, Matt. I hung out at skate parks a lot when I was younger and now I do a lot of snowboarding and skiing. Steez, are you familiar with the term? No.
- [55:03]
Matt Waldman
I'm going to learn something new today.
- [55:05]
Dave
So it's a mix of style and ease they say like, you know, steezy. It's just like you can do something that is just like otherworldly difficult but you just make it look easy. And that's what I see when I see Skylar Bell. Like he is just a steezy football player and he goes up and he makes those easy one handed catches and he claps on the ball. But he's also got 10 inch hands. Like you can make up for some fundamental deficiencies when you have hands the size of a catcher's mitt. So I think that helps him as well. And then I know you said you don't get too hung up on the relative athletic score, but the athletic testing for him, oh my goodness, like this is not a big guy at all. Height and weight were Both below the 50th percentile. His vertical jump 98th percentile. Broad jump 99th percentile. 40 yard dash 94th percentile. 3 cone drill 98th percentile. So even though he's a bit undersized, he was still able to log a relative athletic score inside the 98th percentile. This is a good athlete. He just does effortless things on the field. So I'm glad you brought up Skyler Bell because he has been one of my favorite sleepers in this class as well.
- [56:08]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, go watch Boston College. The Boston college tape from 2025. And there is a play where he bends a run in a curvilinear with curvy linear speed where he's got a balance touch with his left arm to Stay upright. But the degree of turn that he makes is the tightest change of direction without cutting I have ever seen someone make. It is one of the prettiest plays I have ever seen in terms of athletic displays using curvilinear movement. And I was like, I was kind of in awe of what I saw. And it's funny because again, I saw that after I did the evaluation, I was looking up one thing and I saw that and I was like, oh my gosh, I think I'm gonna have to make a clip of this. Just instead, I already had his score done and everything, but I have him as a guy who could probably start this year if he's, if he lands on a team that doesn't have two clear cut starters.
- [57:07]
Dave
And that's what, you know so much of this. And this is why, like you have your own approach to analyzing prospects. And I try my best to like ignore what the consensus opinions are about players as well. And that was one of those. Like me. Like when I watch Skyler Bell, I'm like, this is a guy who I think is going to end up getting drafted in round two or three. Like I think that a team is going to fall in love with these traits. But because the monolith of fantasy analysts have just decided that he is the consensus wide receiver 23, that's where everybody else just kind of like lumps him in. And I'm like, I don't see that. I don't see 20 receivers in this class that are better than Skyler Bell. But let's go. Any other players that you like more than the consensus or do we want to turn the page and talk about some players that you think might be getting a little bit overhyped?
- [57:50]
Matt Waldman
I'll give, I'll, I'll give you one more. Malachi. Malachi Fields of Notre Dame. All right, I'm, I think he ran a 46140, so of course everyone's like fleas off of a dog that's just been medicated, you know, kind of thing. They're gone from Malachi. But he, you know, his 20 shuttle 435 is good, very good. And a 6983 cone is excellent. And, and we're talking about a 6 4, 218 pound guy who earns great position to the football. And then he's excellent after the catch. He makes people miss, he runs through people. I think that he could play flanker or split end. He's. To me, he's kind of a mix of T. Higgins and Nico Collins, like you, you know, Nico was faster than that, you know, much faster than that. But you could see Fields getting early separation against press with both his. His footwork and his size. And I don't think. I don't think the slow speed is going to be a bothersome thing if it's even an issue, even if he's. He might be faster than how he looks anyway. So I was, I was impressed with him and I think that he's a guy that can be a starter pretty fast.
- [59:11]
Dave
He was a tough eval. Just because Notre Dame doesn't throw the ball like you got to go to Virginia to kind of like see what he can do. And it felt like when he was at Notre Dame, it was just like, get as deep downfield as you can so we can just let Jeremiah Love have some space underneath. Like, kind of seemed to be his role in that Notre Dame offense. But, you know, I wasn't in Mobile at the Senior bowl, but so many people I know that were there were saying that, like, Malachi Fields just looks like the best receiver here, like that he is bigger and faster and stronger than everybody else getting in and out of his breaks. So I wasn't at the Senior Bowl. I didn't get a chance to watch him up close like that. But, you know, a lot of people I trust that were there had good things to say. And then you liking him as well. I might have to go back and reevaluate this one.
- [59:51]
Matt Waldman
Yeah. His tape. His tape definitely shows skill with breaks and with routes. He's a good route runner, so. And then on top of that, he's so good after the catch for what. What's asked. He makes first man miss. He makes people miss in succession. So I think he's one of those guys, again, that we might not need to pay attention to the, to the, to the times. They might not be an accurate reflection of what he actually is.
- [60:15]
Dave
I also always want to give just like a little plus one to guys who are quarterbacks in high school and then transition just because when you played quarterback, you kind of know what the quarterback is looking for. And I think it just makes you a better target for the quarterback. So Malachi Fields, a prolific high school quarterback that transitioned to wide receiver at the college level. That's something that always helps, you know, earn that chemistry a little bit or once you make it to the pros. But Matt, now for the, you know, we don't want to dog on anybody by any means.
- [60:40]
Matt Waldman
That's.
- [60:40]
Dave
That's not what we're doing here. But it happens every single year where people just kind of like latch onto a guy, that guy starts rocket shipping up the rankings and everybody's along for the ride. Is there anybody right now when you're looking at consensus rankings that you're just saying, like, I'm not seeing what everybody else is here?
- [60:56]
Matt Waldman
Yeah. Mike Washington Jr. Of Arkansas. Oh, no, no.
- [61:01]
Dave
Thank you for everybody who took the time to hang out today. I'll be back next week year with Matt Waldman as we talk about the 2027 RSP.
- [61:11]
Matt Waldman
Good night everybody. But no, I mean, I think.
- [61:14]
Dave
Let's hear it.
- [61:15]
Matt Waldman
I probably need this.
- [61:16]
Dave
I probably need some cold water on me. So let's hear it.
- [61:18]
Matt Waldman
So listen, I have a contributor grade for Mike Washington, a rotational starter. Excuse me, Someone who could come in right now and he could give you start a production as part of a committee. I think he can do that right now. No problem. If he can hold on to the flipping ball. Okay. Like he has one fumble for 51. One fumble every 51 touches. That is bad. Like, bad bad. And it wasn't like the Mon Claiborne who had a lower score because he had seven fumbles in one year and his otherwise sterling track record with a high degree of touches. It just happened to be a bad year for him with that. Washington was bad every year with, with holding onto the ball. And he's a power runner who's working to get through with the termination. So it's kind of like, that's a, that's kind of like putting gasoline on a fire in the NFL. So he's got to fix that. Then on top of that, for his big and strong and powerful as he is, there are way too many reps where he turns his back into the collision. When you turn your back into the collision, you're now your, your power base of your hips have been basically eliminated from the, from the equation. So you're not running with power. You can't get your, you're not getting your knees up and into anyone reaching for you or your feet up. Yeah, so you basically. Yeah, so that's bad. Your pads are high, so now you're even more accessible with the ball. So you're basically, you know. Another guy who had this problem was Isaiah Spiller from a number of years ago who was a considered an early round pick. And, and he certainly could do some good things. But when you get thrown down or lose collisions with cornerbacks and safeties because you've turned your back, it's, it's not a Good thing when, when your game should be drop those pads and run through people and accelerate through contact. And he can do some of that, but he doesn't do enough of it. So if he, if he had a starter level ball security rate, from what I do, he would probably be the number two or number three back on my board, even with some of the. It's not a great class scoring wise, but he would probably be top five. He'd be in my top five, probably. So there's a chance that happens. But from the preliminary looks I've done with my work, and I've looked at, like, many, many running backs over the years, and I just took a sample from the past 10 years and said, what percentage of backs who scored below a certain threshold on my ball security list, what percentage of them were Fantasy starters? Top 24. 10%. 10% of the sample. And it was 1% to even be a running back one if you fell below that number.
- [64:36]
Dave
So you remember who that was by chance?
- [64:40]
Matt Waldman
Marlon Mack.
- [64:41]
Dave
Oh, yeah. All right.
- [64:43]
Matt Waldman
Yeah.
- [64:43]
Dave
I also, I, I did kind of a little study myself on, you know, guys who came into the league with fumbling problems and were able to fix those problems. Because that is like, I'm not going to deny the fact that Mike Washington ball security is terrible, but I do think that's a little bit of a coaching thing.
- [65:01]
Matt Waldman
Right.
- [65:01]
Dave
Like, we saw, like, Tom Coughlin taught Tiki Barber how to hold onto the football. I remember Adrian Peterson used to cough the ball up all the time, and he also used to do the turning his back into defenders a lot early in his career, kind of got that out of his game. So the one thing that, like, maybe gives me a hope and maybe this is just me, like, totally big brain, this tale. And green also had 17 fumbles over the last two years. So I just wonder if, like, the coaching staff at Arkansas just gave no thought whatsoever into ball security because it wasn't just Mike Washington. It was. Everybody on Arkansas has been coughing the football up.
- [65:34]
Matt Waldman
That's true. And I love that you brought up Adrian Peterson because he had like nine fumbles that first year as a starter. Now back then, they, they lived with that better because it was a running. It was a running game at that point.
- [65:47]
Dave
Right.
- [65:48]
Matt Waldman
So there's a little bit. And he was a superstar, but.
- [65:50]
Dave
Oh, you fumbled. He was for a couple weeks.
- [65:52]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, he did. That's true. And. And you know who benched him or you know who was in. Whose running back coach was. I think his running back coach was Eric B. Enemy at that time
- [66:05]
Dave
he's a tough
- [66:05]
Matt Waldman
coach, you know, so. But I think I remember that correctly. If not, you know, you can correct me, but. But yeah, I mean, Tiki Barber was a good example as well. But that's the thing is we can name them, but are they exceptions to the rule? And how is he going to be the, the exception to the rule with this? Again, I still think he can contribute, but I'm not sure. You know, again, we're going to have to see if he can be that exceptional guy who learns and gets better at this type of stuff. And you know, also what I quoted in terms of what I studied, I understand that it may not be a straight, clean statistical correlation either. There may be other factors involved that why these guys didn't work out. And that's why I'm kind of like, that's a layer. But I would say the bigger layers, that he just coughs the ball up an awful lot.
- [67:01]
Dave
And you also, you know, you talk about he does get tackled by safeties and quarterbacks and that's not what you want to see. He's a very upright runner. And I think maybe that's where my judgment might be a little bit off. Because when I see the upright running, the big square shoulders, the muscular arms, the high knees, I can't help but see some Matt Forte in his game now. Matt Forte, much better at the jump cuts and running through traffic. But maybe it's just like the Bears fan in me is seeing some shades of Matt Forte in his game and that's what blinded me a little bit here because Mike Washington was my RB2 going into the combine. So when he came out and, you know, smoked the 40 yard dash and the bird and the broad jump and all that, you know, that just galvanized my take of having Mike Washington there. But I'll admit that in this running back class, like still the gap between Mike Washington at RB2 all the way down to like RB8, I mean, we're, we're splitting hairs between those guys. Like, it does not seem like there is a really strong opinion you can have about these running backs at the moment.
- [67:57]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, so, I mean, you know, we'll see. It could work out very well. I mean, people felt that way about Marshawn Lloyd and. But Lloyd has had other reasons why he's not seeing the field, you know, more than it has been fumbles. But we haven't seen him on the field yet to see whether he's corrected that issue. Sony Michelle had an awful track record and his fumbles he fixed those. He just had injuries, so it didn't work out for him. So there's hope for sure. I'm another guy. Jordan Tyson, aren't you? Oh, God, Matt, what are you doing to me?
- [68:30]
Dave
I love Jordan Tyson.
- [68:32]
Matt Waldman
I think Jordan Tyson is very good. He has a borderline starter grade for me. He's in my top 10 easily. He's close to my top five. But I don't have him in the same tier as Carnell Tate, and I don't have him in the same tier as Makai Lemon. And the reason being is that besides the injuries that, like, you know, he's had injuries that he should probably have healed from, that he hasn't. And that's a concern.
- [69:00]
Dave
Still dealing with that hamstring injury. Yeah. In April now.
- [69:03]
Matt Waldman
Yeah. So what's going on there? That's a problem. But also, he's one of those guys that when he has a lot of tools, but he doesn't know how to express them with the level of nuance that you really need. Like, you know, we talked about Ross last year with patience and suddenness and how you want to. And he has a lot of that. But when he's sudden with movements, he's so fast with them that the defender can't even register what the guy just did. Like, you know, if. If someone was so fast that he just did something like that, you know,
- [69:41]
Dave
I haven't even flicked.
- [69:42]
Matt Waldman
They didn't even register what I did, you know, but if I went boo, you know, that might have been a different story. It was long enough, you know, but, you know, you've got to. Your suddenness still has to register enough long enough for the defender to be able to react to it. And if you're delivering the move so fast that the defenders doesn't change their stride, then it's not effective. So. And sometimes it's easy for us as technique evaluating technique to go, well, he's got this, he's got this, he's got this. I saw him do that. But did the defender react to it? And it's not even whether the defender react to it, is it was. Is there. Was there a technical reason why the defender didn't react to this? Was there something that he didn't do well enough to get the required response? And it was clear that, you know, you go watch the NFL and you see some of these young guys and they'll do it too fast. And the defenders are like, I don't believe you. You know, so, yeah, the tick tock
- [70:44]
Dave
routes that we see where people are just, you know, throwing their head and juking all over the place and not really doing anything or, or getting downfield whatsoever.
- [70:51]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, exactly. It can be some of that. There's just not enough. They're not bleeding the play with the patience that they need to or the suddenness doesn't show up well enough. And then there's. There's lots of loose ends with like releases, with routes, with catching the ball. It's like he can do it. He can do a lot of. At the high level, if he becomes the best receiver in this class, would not shock me whatsoever because a lot's there. I mean, I have literally half a point away from an instant starter, you know, in a lot of years that would be a top three receiver. I just, I just don't.
- [71:28]
Dave
Yeah, a very good receiver class, right?
- [71:30]
Matt Waldman
It is, it is, it's just, it's just as strong from like your second tier through your, your low end starter, high end contributor tiers of receivers as the past two years. It's just that maybe the guys at the very top, there aren't as many. That's really the difference to me. It's. But. But there may be more viable players from this class than the past two classes. If you look at it in its totality, not just the headliners, but Tyson could be a headliner, but I don't think he was consistent enough and good and had too many things going on with this game for it to happen. Like if Jordan Tyson, If Jordan Tyson tightens everything up and, and stays healthy, I think he could be what Chris Godwin could have been without Mike Evans beside him. You know, like just Chris Godwin to me is one of my absolute favorite receivers of the past 10 to 12 years. Just can do it all. And I think Tyson's one of those guys.
- [72:30]
Dave
Yeah, I like that. And you know, Matt, there's a lot of people. I do a lot of shows with a lot of people. I have guests come on this show, I go on other shows and, and sometimes people give me a take that I disagree with and I just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, not along, whatever. When you and I disagree, you know, it makes me wonder, you know, I'm going to go back tonight. I'm going to be watching Mike Washington Jr. I'm going to be watching Jordan Tyson. I'm going to be thinking about some of the things that you said here and I honestly, truly mean that because I respect your opinion. And Jordan Tyson is a guy that I do like Mike Washington is a guy that I do like, but now I'm going to try to look through a new set of eyes and see if I can see what you're seeing here. But I, I like doing this, you know, challenging these opinions that the consensus holds right now because just last week again, I'll go back the show with J.J. zacharissen, we were talking about Jordan Tyson and we both talked about how there is a scary floor here. The injuries, you know, some of the inconsistency on a game to game basis. There is a lack of floor. But what JJ said is we are way too cocky in our ability to project floor. All of these guys have very bad floors. So he wants to chase the ceiling and he sees Jordan Tyson as having one of the higher ceilings in this draft class. So I think at that point though, we're not talking about fantasy football, we're talking about finance here and like risk mitigation. Like how much risk are you willing to take when you draft players in your rookie draft? And that's just more of a personal question than anything else.
- [73:48]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, and I used to chase upside a lot and I've kind of, I've come from the opposite angle of it now because I used to chase upside more than I, I felt like I should. So there are James over Marshall Falk, right? You know. Exactly. Yeah. I was always a risk taker. I've always done that and I still do. You know, you still see that. You'll see that in football guys rankings. I mean I had Luther Burden hired pretty much anybody and Kyle Menon guy stubbornly so too.
- [74:13]
Dave
I reached out to you lad McConkey's rookie season and I remember asking you like Matt, is this a mistake? I see you got lad McConkey is the wide receiver nine in redraft. And you said not a mistake and that's right where he finished.
- [74:25]
Matt Waldman
You know. But it's, it's funny. I mean but those things happen, you know, you kind of become more confident what you're doing with that. But like I'm, you know, a lot of these guys I look at and it's like when I see the athletic upside but I don't see the technical consistency or there's something underpinning like that. We're talking about Tyson and Washington. They're both guys I would draft. They're both guys that I would probably, I would take Tyson in the first round probably in most drafts, you know, maybe at the end of it if he fell. But he, he probably won't. But I'd understand why people would take him early in the first round, even if I disagree. And then Mike Washington, I understand that too. It's kind of like, okay, I mean, you, if he gets the ball security thing together, he's as good as anybody else not named Jeremiah Love.
- [75:12]
Dave
Right? Yeah. And that's, you know, there's. It's so hard and I feel like people are so. What's the, the word? Like brazen in their rookie takes. Like every brazen. Like everybody is so sure about what they don't know. And like, really, this is one of the hardest things we do. Like, once we have the depth charts, we can start looking at projections and get like kind of a better understanding. But what we're doing right now, talking about these rookies before the NFL draft, there's so much uncertainty there. And I know you like me. You know, you're open to being wrong. And I could be wrong on Mike Washington, I could be wrong on Jordan Tyson. But that's what makes this whole process so much fun. Matt, any closing thoughts you have here? I want to try to be respectful. I could talk to you for four hours and we could do this every single night if I wanted to. But I want to be respectful of your time and wrap it up here. Any closing thoughts on the show? One more time. I want you to let everyone know where they can get the RSP as well.
- [76:03]
Matt Waldman
Yeah, you can get Matt Waldman RSP@MattWaldman.com youm can order it there for 21.95. You get pre draft and a post draft with it, you know, and you can, you can read all about it there or you can go to my site, matt waldmanrsp.com and just. And see the testimonials about it there. But I would just say this is a draft class where you're probably not going to be able to get 20, 27 picks if you were trying to get them if you waited this long. So ask for 2028 if you want to trade out and you'll get more of them and you can do that. But if you can't do that, understand that the difference between what's considered a good running back class and a bad running back class from what I've studied is basically one running back. Like plus or minus one running back. That's it. A lot of these backs, you know. So what I would say to you is probably a good draft strategy. Just to think about is there's probably one quarterback who's kind of at the level of Caleb Williams and that's Fernando Mendoza in my opinion. And Ty you know, Williams is not Williams. Ty Simpson is certainly he's on the level of like a Cam Ward, Bo Nicks. Put him in the right situation, they could thrive. Put them in a bad situation, they can struggle. If the situation changes from year to year, like C.J. stroud's, you're, you're going to get the Jekyll Hyde type of thing because that's around the grade that these guys are. Whereas Caleb's more the. I talked about this with Bloom earlier today that some quarterbacks are Caleb Wims more like a thermostat as. More like a thermostat as opposed to a thermometer, you know, and the, the quarterbacks like Mendoza's that way too. He can go to a bad team and people might not be able to tell the difference between a thermostat and thermometer in year one, but you'll see it bear out over time that he's going to shape the organization, the organization's not going to shape him. So I'm kind of feeling that. So I would say, you know, outside of Mendoza, outside of Jeremiah Love, outside of the top three to five receivers in this class, you take those guys. And then I would say take your shots at running back late, especially if you're going to get, you know, if you, if you see some of the guys that we talked about that might be underrated, they're free money at the end of a draft or at least in free agency. And don't write off the class because someone says it's a bad running back class. Just look at it as, just look at it as that it doesn't have as many high end names that people know about because a lot of the names that we see at the end of the year or pop up who are good, they weren't high end names anybody knew about either.
- [78:54]
Dave
And I think that's exactly the right approach to have here. These running backs especially are such wild cards, they can be situation dependent. There's a lot of guys with the traits here. So like there's guys that we didn't talk about on today's show, but like if Adam Randall or Jonah Coleman or Le'Veon Moss or Demon Claiborne Land in a position where they're getting volume. Those are all guys who have skill sets that can be translatable to fantasy production. So take those shots in your rookie class and I think that's a good note to wrap up on is like don't let the talk about this being a bad draft class scare you away. From drafting players in this draft class because there's gold to be found every single year. But want to thank everybody so much for taking the time to tune in today. Thank you, Matt, as always for thank you, Dave, hanging out with me. Always a pleasure. I will be back next week with Joey Wright on Monday, Jeff Bell on Wednesday, then another fun guest on Friday as we do every week right here on the football Guys fantasy football show. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you soon. And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front or row at a comedy show. Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird.
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Matt Waldman
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Dave
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Matt Waldman
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Dave
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Matt Waldman
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Dave
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Matt Waldman
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