Every April 1st, friend-of-the-program Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) releases his Rookie Scouting Portfolio. The RSP is, well, insane. It’s a 251-page draft guide that not only provides rankings and analysis of 164 players, but also provides over 1,000 pages of scouting checklists and play-by-play notes.
Matt does top-notch work year round, and I can confidently state that the Rookie Scouting Portfolio is the most comprehensive analysis of rookie draft prospects at the offensive skill positions I’ve ever seen. But it’s not just about rankings and his analysis; he makes the evaluation process as transparent as possible to the reader, by identifying:
- Players that have boom-bust potential, players who may have already maxed out their potential, or players with great upside.
- Breakdowns/rankings of players by individual skills at the position.
- Player comparisons to past NFL players based on style and builds.
- Overall rankings and comparisons in cheat sheet/table format with pertinent measurements and workout results.
- Overall rankings with written explanations in paragraph form.
- Overrated, underrated, and long-term projects.
- Fantasy-friendly tiered cheat sheets.
Matt documents what he sees with play-by-play detail. Yes, that’s a lot of work. No, you don’t have to read that part of the book to get tremendous value from the RSP. And here’s something pretty neat: Matt ranks every player graded by position and then writes a post-draft analysis with rankings assembled in a tiered cheat sheet. This is free with the RSP purchase and available a week after the NFL Draft.
The RSP is $19.95 and available at www.mattwaldman.com. Matt donates 10 percent of every sale to Darkness to Light, a non-profit that combats sexual abuse through individual community and training to recognize how to prevent and address the issue. All told, the RSP contains nearly 1300 pages this year. If you’re the type who likes to read testimonials, well, Matt has lots of those. He’s also provided a few sample evaluations from prior years that you can review.