Fantasy Football Daily - Zach Evans, Xavier Hutchinson, Jayden Reed, Quentin Johnston with Matt Waldman | On the Clock! NFL Draft Podcast

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Different perspectives are the lifeblood of the NFL Draft. Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) gets one of the most unique perspectives in the game from Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman), the brains behind the Rookie Scouting Portfolio. Brett's picks Matt's brain on his scouting process, which the guys then apply to Ole Miss RB Zach Evans, Iowa State WR Xavier Hutchinson, Michigan State WR Jayden Reed, and TCU WR Quentin Johnston. BRETT WHITEFIELD'S 2023 NFL DRAFT PROSPECT GUIDE IS FREE TO READ WITH A NO-CHARGE LOGIN AT FANTASY POINTS. Interested in playing Best Ball in 2023? There's no better place than Underdog Fantasy. Use our code FANTASYPTS to sign up for a new account at Underdog, and not only will you get a 100% deposit match up to $100... but you'll get a Fantasy Points Standard subscription for only $5! https://www.fantasypoints.com/underdog --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome into another episode of On the Clock. I am your host, Brett Whitefield. And today we are joined by one Matt Waldman. Matt, welcome to the show.

Hey, Brett. It's a pleasure. much for having me. Heck yeah, man. I think I scheduled this, what, about a month ago. I kind of knew you'd get busy this time of year. So I reached out pretty early in the process right when the podcast started and had to get you on the calendar. You were a priority for me, Matt. Well, I really much appreciate that. And to tell our customers the truth, I was late today. So, and I don't normally am late for anything. And I was late for this. So I really appreciate Brett's generosity here on that end.

Heck yeah. So for those that don't know, Matt is the creator of the rookie scouting portfolio, and he's a senior staff writer at football guys. He's been there for about 14 years now. You can find him on Twitter at Matt Waldman. That is W-A-L-D-M-A-N at Matt Waldman. All right, we got the business out of the way,

so let's get into talking football. Yeah, man. So, Matt, I've been a fan of your work for a while, while you do these really, I would say high-level breakdowns. One thing I find fascinating about your work is you tend to find little intricate details about each player that, you know, I don't want to, I don't know fixated is the right word, but you point them out in a way that I don't think most people are seeing when they're watching guys. And it's kind of a cool part of your process. So I just, I want to talk about that a little bit. What is your process when you're, when you're scouting guys?

What do you, I'm sure each position is different, but what are you looking for, generally speaking? Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, I came from an operations management perspective, a quality management perspective, worked for like a 10,000 employee company where I was, not only did I run an operation of, you know, probably about 2,500, 3,000 labor hours over for a couple of years. So then I then implemented quality processes into a company. So I had learned or got certified in basically a process and how to really create the way that you monitor and evaluate talent and you try to objectify as subjective things as much as possible.

So I thought I could implement that for football and it was a good process because it helped you kind of grow as your knowledge-based grow. And it really helps your knowledge-based grow, too, if you implement it in the way that they expect. So I use a checklist. I define everything that's on that checklist in writing and give it a weight. I use a 100-point waiting score points total because it's intuitive. And I weight those details basically, or I define those details by position. So I studied things like coaching guides, coaching manuals, talking to different coaches at those positions, players at those positions, you know, my own power of observation. And really just these things that I look at, the criteria I look at is way to you scored yes or no.

Either they performed it as written or they didn't. And if there's something that's in that kind of netherworld between one or the other, that means I need to redefine what it is that I'm looking at. And that's happened over the years that I've been doing this. You know, I score them on that, and there's a breadth of talent, and then there's a depth of talent. The breadth of talent is that checklist. It's like looking at a resume and saying,

these are all the things that someone can do, but it doesn't really say how well they really do it. And then I do stack rankings, and those are defined based on tiers of skill level. So, you know, you can say someone has basic, you know, agility or good footwork as a running back. But what's the difference between star caliber talent in that area and passable NFL level caliber talent on that? And I define those things, stack rank those players, and those are weighted. And those weighted values give you a depth of talent. and that depth of talent is all that's defined too.

That makes up what I do to grade those players. So I watch, you know, and I chart games for quarterbacks. I have like this massive kind of Byzantine structure for how I chart accuracy. I also chart running back contact balance and elusiveness based on how I want to see it graded and have that kind of well defined. And those are things that I look at. I provide both a breadth of talent and a depth of talent. I do my rankings based on depth of talent.

And, you know, it just, as I start to, if I learn more or observe more with the player, or observe more with certain situations that don't really have a good definition, you know, I go in my white board. I start writing down things of what I'm going to continue to work on to try and implement in my system within the next couple of years. you know, so my system, my evaluation process has changed over the years for sure, a fair extent as I've learned more about each phase of, you know, of playing each of those positions. And I used to really write down everything I saw. I was like I played a giant game of eye spy and like literally was writing thousands of pages

worth of information to learn the game. And it worked out that way very well. And I got good feedback from scouts and from, um, analytics people in the, in the, um, in the league and,

um, coaches, um, quarterback coaches, wide receiver coaches and, and, and kind of had that back and forth to learn more and implement more. So that's kind of,

that's, that's the gist of it. That's super fascinating. Your, your, your process doesn't sound too dissimilar from mine. I also use a weighted score. I have these traits I look for,

but so I score them on, you know, if they're proficient in these certain traits. But then I also score them on the frequency in which they use these traits or how developed as trade is. So it actually sounds fairly similar. One interesting too is your process management background. I recently read an article. I got to try to dig it up because it was fascinating, but among NFL scouts, the most common degree is engineering, some type of engineering degree, which I thought was fascinating. And it's that process management I think you're talking about

there where it's like it really kind of, even if you don't know the game of football and you start to learn it with those skills to identify those traits and frequency of those traits. I think that's kind of baked into the cake there. And it's a really good easy transition for guys. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. It's fascinating, though, because the NFL, the scouts, I never bang on the scouts with this, but I would say that the decision makers who are above the scouts are very much embedded in this is that they don't have that kind of background.

So what ends up happening is, as you know, if you've worked in corporate America, for any length of time. You look at employee evaluations, and it's like everybody knows that no one, if they used to have them on like a one through seven scale, no one gets the seven, no one gets the one. If you're getting to two or three,

you're usually having like management, you know, kind of give you the go ahead to do that in the same way that you, if you score them a five or six. And then everything's usually a three or a four unless they're, you know,

as a result of that. And nothing's well defined. You know, you can ask people, with variance levels of skills and experience around the room how to do a basic task, and they'll give you five different answers, and you have to kind of work with that. And that's one of the problems with scouting in itself. And I've had scouts talk to me about that exact thing that you mentioned is,

and you can tell they have that behavior, one such scout that I've talked to for a long time, who ended up working in the league in a different capacity. he had a biomechanic all engineer background, a heavy stats background, played Division I football, and, you know, developed his own system. And like you, you know, it was like they get it, but sometimes, you know, you can do all your process and then your GM see something on ESPN and says, that throw was amazing. and I want you to regrade these throws based on this videotape that I have, or disc now of 20 throws that you could have pulled off YouTube, you know, and they want the scouts to change that when they've done like, you know, 17 games worth of study and have run it through a system because, you know,

it's they, you have folks who just kind of make those 13th hour changes that they shouldn't make, you know, but you can't be based on emotion, not the process. Yeah, I think we're in a new era of scouting where a lot of the younger scouts coming up. They're more interested in using analytics with their process. They're more interested in developing those really finite processes and defining what everything actually means. And eventually those guys will become GMs, right? Because the current brass of GMs will start to get old and then, you know, we'll swap.

Yeah, that's the hope. So the game is developing in that way. But, well, cool. So let's transition a bit to talking about specific players, man. I know you do a lot of work. I don't know how far into this class you are. I'm assuming you've got most of the top guys covered, though. So let's talk about a guy.

Who's someone you are objectively higher on than most? I know people don't look at consensus rankings, but if you're aware of them, I'm sure. Sure. And I've done my 100, I've done 150 prospects that the rookie scouting portfolio is out. So, you know, folks are interested in seeing some of what I do, you know, the 1163 page publication is out as April 1st at Mountwallman.com. But, you know, when I think of a player that I'm higher on than most, I would say,

you know, from the standpoint of, say, wide receiver, a player that kind of fits that to me are guys like Xavier Hutchinson and Jaden Reed. I like Xavier Hutchinson. I think he's a capable flanker with strong ball skills. I think he has ceiling to be kind of that slot flanker hybrid who could give you starter worthy numbers. The things that he does well is, you know, he has a wide catch radius, which is great,

but he's also very good at precise movement, not only just in and out of breaks, but transitioning downhill. There are a lot of guys who have far better athletic ability, but don't know how to transition downhill to gain yardage. and Hutchinson is really good at that. So I don't think he's Justin Jefferson, but certainly he could be, you know,

a plus version of what Marquez Calloway was, which meaning that like a starter version of what Calloway was bringing to the table as a temporary starter, more than that. Like I, so it's a, you know, he's a type of guy that he's not going to win one-on-one against your best corner on a consistent basis. but he'll have some routes that he can match up well against.

And Jaden Reed would be another where I just look at his game. He plays all three positions. He has some drops, but you look at his route running. The flaws that he has with his hands, I think, are things that you can fix. They're either concentration oriented or they're really just minor, minor position issues with his hands that he can address. I think he could be a top starter one day. think he has that level of skill with his game.

Smart player has showed up well against some quality competition and demonstrated those skills. And I think of a player like Laverneus Coles. And if people don't remember Laverneus Coles, then I would say, say in a guy who's better than KJ Hamler and aspiring to be in Stefan Diggs's territory one day, if he could put it all together. Yeah, Coles was a bad man. He was a little before his time.

Like the NFL would be way more receptive to him today. Yes. And when he was playing. So I love the call on Hutch, by the way. This is a player I want to love. I do think some athletic limitations in there probably cap what his what his ceiling is. And thus he won't be a super high draft pick because of it. But I do agree.

I think he can develop into a good starter for you. I love the idea of using him in that bigger slot, longer slot role. Maybe like a Tyler Boyd, the way he has been used in Cincinnati. I see a lot of similarities to their athletic ability. and kind of what they bring to the table. So I love that call. Reed is another one where every guest I have on this pod, Matt, they want to come on and talk about Jaden Reed.

And this has me feel in like a good way. And this has me feeling like if we're all thinking that, and maybe the NFL is also, maybe this guy actually gets drafted a lot higher than people are realizing. I'm kind of starting to think he's a lock to go day two and might creep in, you know, up that board a little bit. So I wouldn't be surprised if he was a guy who maybe was just outside the top 50 or something like that, you know?

Yeah. And I can give you a couple more at a different position if you'd like. Yeah, for sure. Just real quick. I'm a big Zach Evans fan out of TCU, Ole Miss. And I think, honestly, if you asked me last year, after just studying last year's tape, I would have told you that he was a more refined player between the tackles as a decision maker than Bejohn. John Robinson was at the same time.

But Robinson has improved. Evans, I've seen some folks who watch a couple of clips and see a play and don't really see it from a coach's tape standpoint. And they go, oh, well, he should have made this cutback or he should have made this bounce. And it showed really what they didn't understand the run scheme. He's very good at really setting up a variety of run schemes, whether it's gap-oriented blocks like counter. power trap or zone. Zone plays. He's good at both. He has the speed. I think he plays heavier than his 202 pound combine was.

I think he's probably more than that 210, 212 Ranger will be there. He was a five-star prospect, and a lot of people banged on him because he was supposed to go to Georgia, then he dropped out of that, and then he had this quixotic journey, and people think of him as immature. He got suspended for his championship. game because he wouldn't give up his cell phone per the team policy. And then he transferred from TCU just the year before TCU went to the national championship. So it looks like this kid who makes a series of bad decisions. But what you don't hear is, A, Gary Patterson, telling the alumni the season, you know, before the transfer, that he had 30 players who were thinking

about leaving and that TCU wasn't getting the time of L. I. NIL deals together, right? And that they were about to lose 30 players. So Evans was one of those guys. And Evans also had like a 3.75 GPA as a freshman, was all academic honors. He's a good student. And he had to handle his own recruiting because I think his parents weren't really there for him on that level. He had a grandparent who was.

The grandparent died the year before he got recruited and he decided to take it all on. So when you think about all that, and he's a great. a good student and then Quinshawn Jutkins as good as he was as a freshman. Listen, Zach Evans to me is a very well-rounded player who can pass protect. He can catch. He has good speed. Love is decision-making. He reminds me a little bit of like a little bit of Dalvin Cook in the way that he can use that curvy linear movement to bend around at a high speed. Patrick Mahomes does that well as a runner when he's scrambling, but Cook is really great at it. Zach Evans does that, but he can also make cutbacks and make strong decisions and run with a level of power that's a lot like Clinton Portis.

And I'd rarely compare somebody to Clinton Portis, but I think there's some elements there to his game. If he truly is more mature than what people are kind of glossing over and saying that he isn't, somebody's going to get a steal because he's probably going to drop to the third or fourth round in this class. Yeah, I think you're the first one to come on here and sing Zach Evans praises, to be honest. And I'm guilty of falling in that trap of just looking on the surface and thinking maybe this is a guy's little immature. I even had someone come on and tell me that Evans left TCU because Kendry Miller was going to take his job. So, you know, and that speaks to a lack of competitiveness, which nobody wants to talk about. So you're changing my mind a little bit on Evans.

I didn't know some of this background info, and that's good stuff. A couple things. But the thing about Kendra, it's fascinating. I mean, if you're not getting the NIL deal that you need to, and in today's marketplace, you want to make some money and you're running back and you know that your opportunities are going to be limited, I get that. Miller is a very good player. I have Miller just a couple of spots behind him, but Miller did not touch him when Evans,

and really Patterson was the one that kind of held. back Evans a little bit too so there was a a little bit of that in that respect but I mean the the way I look at it is he went to he went from TCU which was no one thought they were going to be a national championship level team to an SEC team so it wasn't like he went it wasn't like he dropped down to Toledo okay and you know to to to just get playing time he he went he what would have looked like at least a lateral move if not a move above that So yeah. That's a great point actually.

Noted. So I guess my big concern too with him. So I wrote a bunch of good stuff about him. I'm looking at my prospect report of him right now. He plays with good physicality and pad level. He's at his best when he gets his pads north and south and is dealing out punishment. I wrote that he's got great burst in acceleration. And then he shows up to the combine.

He only weighed 202 pounds. And I know you said he plays bigger than that. But that was concerning to me because when I watch him on tape, I would not have guessed that. I would think 212 to 216 somewhere in there. I would have thought the same thing. Yeah. But,

but, you know, there's a really good point that's made about this is that, first of all, guys who were in their early 20s, and we were once there, that we know that 10 to 15 pounds is nothing. Like,

you could, you eat a couple of pizzas in the week and a plate of brownies and you can probably convert that to, you know, or you lay off something and you're like, you can, lose five to seven pounds like nothing. I have to imagine that

he wanted to maximize his 40 time. So he cut weight, just like wrestlers do or fighters do. And then he got banged up and got nicked up and couldn't run. And then he ran at his pro day and his pro day was good. But of course, we all know that

the tracks are faster on the pro days. What did he do? 208. He weighed at 208. And I think he ran, I want to say he ran in the four fours. Okay, well, that's great. Because that confirms what I see on tape. The weight stuff is interesting. You mentioned how easy it is to gain weight when you're that age. I remember Ronald Jones when he came out. He was 20. He was another guy who played like, just a, he was a menace,

just an absolute monster. He had no regard for his own safety. He would just drop kick people, lower his head, lower shoulder, just crash collision on every single run. And he did that at $2, pounds and then he gets the NFL and he's like 220 easily like I think he was listed last year at 226 which I'll give you two I'll give you two cases just like that Terrell Davis was in the 190s and then he worked his way to 220 by year two ray rice was I had this conversation with Greg CoSell the year that Ray Rice was a rookie and rice was a 195 pound back who carried the load at Rutgers and when we were I liked Ray Rice for a lot and I asked Greg what he thought of him and he said you know I really liked him at Rutgers

but I don't think he's heavy enough to really play in the league as a lead back though I like it you know it was year one well year two he went from 195 to two 15 220 and it was all over he was he ended up being the top guy so I think Evans has the build to be that type of player we'll find out yeah for sure I like that um real quickly before we let you go Matt What about a guy maybe you're a little bit lower on the most? Sure. Well, Will Levis, I think a lot of people are lower on. I'm super low on him.

So we'll keep that to the side. I'll say Quentin Johnston. Quentin Johnston is if he can correct his hands positions and how he addresses the football, both in tight coverage and just with where it's placed on the trajectory of where his body, as in relation to the ball. He could be the top receiver in this class. Fast, good rot runner, good after the catch, got the size you're looking for, does not use his size well.

Reminds me of Robert Nietzsche in the way that when the ball is above his chest, he's still trying to use underhand technique or trying to clap onto the ball. He doesn't do a good job on those tight coverage throws where you need him to jump back and attack the ball at the earliest point, again, with hands together. He claps on a lot of targets. And the guy who does that a lot, very few players who primarily clap attack targets end up being good productive starters. Taryn McLaurin is the grand exception to that.

He does the craziest things to catch the football that I've never seen anyone do and get away with it to the degree that he does. So Quentin Johnson, if he can do that, he's the top guy. If not, and he has trouble, well, look at Gabriel Davis. David was the career 51% catch percentage. Hey, he can still be a big play guy for a team, but you're not asking him on, you know, third and 15 to run a 17-yard comeback with Jalen Ramsey on him, who knows that that route's coming but still can't stop it. You're not asking to do that. You're asking your scheming plays for him to get open and you're throwing it up and you're

hoping that he catches, you know, two out of five or three out of six. And those three, that he catches are going to be huge plays that can make a difference. Yeah, I don't, the funny thing is I don't, I'm a huge Quentin Johnson guy, but I don't disagree with anything you just said. I think I'm just, I think we see him the same way. I just might, you know, be willing to live with the consequences of the hands issues, but you're 100% correct with that. The other guy I think of about weird hand technique is Mark Andrews.

Like a guy that's successful. He greets to football, very weird. Yeah. And Quinton Johnson does the same things. I do like I bet on the trades guy ankle flexibility and hip flexibility for a guy that size is tremendous. Oh yeah. So I get worked up about that in a good way, you know. And I think the problem with with Quentin is I think he's been billed wrongly by a lot of NFL media guys.

He's not this big contested catch monster, at least not yet. He is more of a finesse player. He's more of a route runner, yards after catch kind of guy. You're going to have to scheme him some stuff early in his career. I can live with that because I think the upside's huge. but I do agree he's got some stuff to fix. Yeah, he's still on my, he still has a starter grade for me. It's just on the low end of it.

But I think there's about eight receivers in this class who, if you ask me, they're going to be in a scenario where there's a landmine under their game if they can't correct some things and there's too much expectation for what the team expects him to be. But, you know, to me, Johnston is at the top of my second tier starter. you know, borderline starter grade, meaning that right now you can put him into, you can scheme him open

and you're going to get starter caliber production out of him. You're just not getting, you know, that Julio Jones, Stefan Diggs, Odell Beckham, like, we're going to put you on an island

and you're going to win it for us no matter what. That's fair. All right, before we let you go, one more question. Who is your wide receiver one in this class? Jackson Smith and Jeepa. I just think he's the safest guy.

Yeah. And sometimes safe has a bad connotation. People automatically assume lower ceiling with safe. I think Jason is both high floor and high ceiling. I think he is a very safe guy. And I think his upside is tremendous. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, routes, hands, everything technically is very sound.

Decent after the catch. To me, he's a high volume slot receiver who can do a little bit on the outside. If you took Julian Edelman and Greg Jennings and you put them together, I think you've got Jackson Smith. G-K. I like that. I like that a lot. All right, Matt, this was awesome. That's going to do it. Thank you so much for joining the pod. Hey, man. It's my pleasure. For the, for the listeners, one more time, you can find Matt on Twitter at Matt Waldman. And he is, you can find us where the rookie scouting portfolio is on his website. Is that Matt Waldman.com? You can, yeah, you can go there to purchase it and directions are there on what to do with it. And, you know, you get that and a post draft along with it for 21. 95. Awesome. You can also find his work at football guys.com. Thank you so much to the listeners.

We are out. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points Podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com.