Late-Round Perspectives: Matt Waldman Returns Again

**JJ** (0:00)
Matt Waldman is a Footballguys senior staff writer who's best known for his intensely detailed prospect work with his Rookie Scouting Portfolio. He's been around the fantasy football industry for over two decades, he's a musician, and he's now a Late-Round Perspectives staple. These are his Late-Round Perspectives. We just sent a bunch of humans the furthest spot away from Earth that any human has been, right, out to the moon, and yet, it might still be less impressive than the Rookie Scouting Portfolio length that you have each year.

**Matt Waldman** (0:44)
Well, if they just needed a ladder, they could have told me, I mean.

**JJ** (0:50)
How many pages is the portfolio this year?

**Matt Waldman** (0:53)
1,267, and that's not even the longest one I've ever done.

**JJ** (0:57)
I was going to ask that next. Yeah. Well, it was really funny because this year was the first year that we built. So I hired on Brandon Gadula, who I worked with at Numberfire and FanDuel, and we built out a new tight end model this year. And as a result of him helping me out now and me having more help in general, he wrote the tight end profiles for the prospect guide this year. And we always do, you know, whatever whoever gets invited to combine is who we end up writing up. And of course, this year, more tight end invites than we've had since like 2004, I think it was.
So of course, this is the year that we are introducing this new model and this new idea of the tight ends. And then we have, you know, 27 pages worth of guys that we're writing up. But I mean, the Rookie Scouting Portfolio, I mean, I'm assuming you're just in a cave for like months, and then you just emerge and you're now, you know, it released yesterday, right?

**Matt Waldman** (1:51)
Yeah.

**JJ** (1:52)
And you've now officially emerged.

**Matt Waldman** (1:54)
Yeah, I mean, it kind of feels that way because March doesn't exist for me. It's literally no longer as a month on my calendar. It's like February and then suddenly there's sunlight, you know?

**JJ** (2:06)
Right.

**Matt Waldman** (2:07)
But honestly, I'm going to something I do throughout the year. So I'm working a lot throughout the year. It just gets super focused between late December and now. So it does feel that way other than walks with the dog and occasionally making time with my wife and I and things like that. But it's gotten a little more efficient over the years. So that's been helpful, too. I mean, there was a time I was working two other jobs while doing this thing. And that's why my hair is the color it is right now. And when I was 36, I had brown hair.
So the joke is my wife goes, you look like Russell Crowe when I met you. You look like shipwrecked Russell Crowe. Or like, what was it? Go type up Russell Crowe lost at sea. And that's me on a bad day. It literally is.

**JJ** (3:01)
Yeah. So March Madness has a different meaning for you.

**Matt Waldman** (3:04)
Yes. I used to be a big Georgia Tech college basketball fan in the 80s with Bobby Kremmons and Mark Price and Dennis Scott and all of them.
I haven't watched a basketball game since Dwayne Wade went to the pros. Yeah. So it's like, it is a totally different meaning now for sure. It's like, should I leave the house? What happens if I leave the house? I don't have this thing done. Should I be walking my dog in the woods down these hills like I am at 56 and falling down these hills and laughing? Or should I be considering the fact that I should probably get this book done before I start doing foolish things like that? I still do it, but there are implications when I fall down a hill and I go, yeah, in about 10 years, this might not be a good idea for me, and I'm putting my business at risk. Yeah, true.

**JJ** (3:56)
Very true. So anyone listening, we're recording this on the second. This is going to be going out a week later because I'm actually, I am taking a vacation next week. Look at you. Where are you going? Well, I got an email from somebody, from a listener actually last week, and they're like, do you ever take a vacation? The funny thing is that I'm prepping for being gone next week, so I'm recording a couple of shows that there are still shows out there for people while I'm gone. I mean, I'm running a business, you have to think through this stuff. My daughter's on spring break, we're going with a couple of families down to Florida and just having a beach and pool vacation, just hang out for a little bit. But the nice part about the prospecting stuff is that it is in the time frame pre-draft, it is relatively timeless unless something like crazy off the field happens. So if anything like that happens over the next six days or whatever the case may be, you guys know that we're recording this now and we didn't know that that thing was going to happen, but hopefully nothing does happen. It seems like the things that are happening are more...