Trey Sermon

[Bronco Billy]

- I believe that Matt Waldman (of the RSP) had him ranked as his top RB in this draft.

I hope you didn’t draft some other guys that Waldman had as the best in their class:

QB Paxton Lynch
WR Hakeem Butler
TE Virgil Green

The guy watches as much or more film than maybe any analyst on the planet, but I’m not sure that he understands what he’s looking at. That’s pretty apparent every year with some of the comments he makes, and there’s little question that he gets attached to some players and won’t back off his position. He’s a great example of quantity being less desirable than quality.

If Waldman likes a player like Sermon over the top 3 RBs in this draft, that’s more of a red flag to me rather than a flag to plant.

[tresskid84]

I apologize on Waldman's behalf that he is isn't perfect

[Bronco Billy]

I apologize on Waldman's behalf that he is isn't perfect

A guy who charges a significant amount for his expertise and is promoted relentlessly by a very well attended pay site shouldn’t miss as often and as badly as he does. I’m not sure why you’re offended by that concept.

Look at those names up there - and they are just some examples. He promoted them as the best in their class at their position. It isn’t like they were only mediocre players. They had no FF value whatsoever.

[Pet_Smith]

- I believe that Matt Waldman (of the RSP) had him ranked as his top RB in this draft.

I hope you didn’t draft some other guys that Waldman had as the best in their class:

QB Paxton Lynch
WR Hakeem Butler
TE Virgil Green

The guy watches as much or more film than maybe any analyst on the planet, but I’m not sure that he understands what he’s looking at. That’s pretty apparent every year with some of the comments he makes, and there’s little question that he gets attached to some players and won’t back off his position. He’s a great example of quantity being less desirable than quality.

If Waldman likes a player like Sermon over the top 3 RBs in this draft, that’s more of a red flag to me rather than a flag to plant.

That's... A pretty ugly list. I wouldn't say it's a red flag for sermon. But definitely wouldn't be adjusting my opinion based on his take

[tresskid84]

I apologize on Waldman's behalf that he is isn't perfect

A guy who charges a significant amount for his expertise and is promoted relentlessly by a very well attended pay site shouldn’t miss as often and as badly as he does. I’m not sure why you’re offended by that concept.

Look at those names up there - and they are just some examples. He promoted them as the best in their class at their position. It isn’t like they were only mediocre players. They had no FF value whatsoever.

I just think the Waldman, Cosell, PFF critics/dismissals, among others, gets very tired . They all put in plenty of work and research into what they do, including talking to coaches & scouts often to improve their own craft. If doing draft scouting was a perfect science, you would never see any busts in the NFL draft and fantasy football would be incredibly boring.

I think its fair to have disagreements with someone's opinion on players. But saying something like its a red-flag if they like them is just tiresome and unnecessary. As is saying he doesnt know what hes looking at. He has a platform and people pay for his work because the market has said they value his work. You may not, and thats ok, but stop with the demeaning bs. Everyone has their preferences in what they like of a prospect. If you put yourself out there like waldman does on that large of platform, we'd all be able to look at your history as well and pick out your worst takes to belittle as well. If you want to be critical of what he likes about Sermon, then provide actual counterpoints to what he says he likes and have an actual constructive discussion.

[Bronco Billy]

I apologize on Waldman's behalf that he is isn't perfect

A guy who charges a significant amount for his expertise and is promoted relentlessly by a very well attended pay site shouldn’t miss as often and as badly as he does. I’m not sure why you’re offended by that concept.

Look at those names up there - and they are just some examples. He promoted them as the best in their class at their position. It isn’t like they were only mediocre players. They had no FF value whatsoever.

I just think the Waldman, Cosell, PFF critics/dismissals, among others, gets very tired . They all put in plenty of work and research into what they do, including talking to coaches & scouts often to improve their own craft. If doing draft scouting was a perfect science, you would never see any busts in the NFL draft and fantasy football would be incredibly boring.

I think its fair to have disagreements with someone's opinion on players. But saying something like its a red-flag if they like them is just tiresome and unnecessary. As is saying he doesnt know what hes looking at. He has a platform and people pay for his work because the market has said they value his work. You may not, and thats ok, but stop with the demeaning bs. Everyone has their preferences in what they like of a prospect. If you put yourself out there like waldman does on that large of platform, we'd all be able to look at your history as well and pick out your worst takes to belittle as well. If you want to be critical of what he likes about Sermon, then provide actual counterpoints to what he says he likes and have an actual constructive discussion.

I highly commend them for the work they put in. If they were getting paid for the amount of effort they would certainly earn it. But they aren’t getting paid for their effort. They’re getting paid because they promote that they have a significantly higher level of expertise.

People pay guys like Waldman because of how they portray themselves. For a casual FF player that’s probably true. But their results don’t stand up as being anything extraordinary. And to use their judgment as some kind of authorization of a player’s capability like the quote I posted is not some kind of seal of unimpeachable credibility like some like to portray.

I’m not certain why you feel such a need to defend a guy like Waldman. If you read his defense of his positions he’s a close minded arrogant self promoter. There’s always some other excuse why his analysis was wrong and he’s shameless in his chest thumping when he gets some right.

And then you want to make a game of comparing my record to his. I belittle my own misses and own them outright. You’ll very rarely see me post “I told you so” and when I do it’s in a lighthearted way. And more importantly, I don’t sell myself at a significant price for claiming that I have some kind of special knowledge that others don’t have. I do have some practical background in the game that extends well beyond watching games on TV and highlight films, but I don’t promote that either, nor will I beyond this rebuttal.

And that’s as far as I’ll take this discussion in derailing this thread.

[tresskid84]

A guy who charges a significant amount for his expertise and is promoted relentlessly by a very well attended pay site shouldn’t miss as often and as badly as he does. I’m not sure why you’re offended by that concept.

Look at those names up there - and they are just some examples. He promoted them as the best in their class at their position. It isn’t like they were only mediocre players. They had no FF value whatsoever.

I just think the Waldman, Cosell, PFF critics/dismissals, among others, gets very tired . They all put in plenty of work and research into what they do, including talking to coaches & scouts often to improve their own craft. If doing draft scouting was a perfect science, you would never see any busts in the NFL draft and fantasy football would be incredibly boring.

I think its fair to have disagreements with someone's opinion on players. But saying something like its a red-flag if they like them is just tiresome and unnecessary. As is saying he doesnt know what hes looking at. He has a platform and people pay for his work because the market has said they value his work. You may not, and thats ok, but stop with the demeaning bs. Everyone has their preferences in what they like of a prospect. If you put yourself out there like waldman does on that large of platform, we'd all be able to look at your history as well and pick out your worst takes to belittle as well. If you want to be critical of what he likes about Sermon, then provide actual counterpoints to what he says he likes and have an actual constructive discussion.

I highly commend them for the work they put in. If they were getting paid for the amount of effort they would certainly earn it. But they aren’t getting paid for their effort. They’re getting paid because they promote that they have a significantly higher level of expertise.

People pay guys like Waldman because of how they portray themselves. For a casual FF player that’s probably true. But their results don’t stand up as being anything extraordinary. And to use their judgment as some kind of authorization of a player’s capability like the quote I posted is not some kind of seal of unimpeachable credibility like some like to portray.

I’m not certain why you feel such a need to defend a guy like Waldman. If you read his defense of his positions he’s a close minded arrogant self promoter. There’s always some other excuse why his analysis was wrong and he’s shameless in his chest thumping when he gets some right.

And then you want to make a game of comparing my record to his. I belittle my own misses and own them outright. You’ll very rarely see me post “I told you so” and when I do it’s in a lighthearted way. And more importantly, I don’t sell myself at a significant price for claiming that I have some kind of special knowledge that others don’t have. I do have some practical background in the game that extends well beyond watching games on TV and highlight films, but I don’t promote that either, nor will I beyond this rebuttal.

And that’s as far as I’ll take this discussion in derailing this thread.

And that is fair enough, and I will move on as well.

[Bronco Billy]

I just think the Waldman, Cosell, PFF critics/dismissals, among others, gets very tired . They all put in plenty of work and research into what they do, including talking to coaches & scouts often to improve their own craft. If doing draft scouting was a perfect science, you would never see any busts in the NFL draft and fantasy football would be incredibly boring.

I think its fair to have disagreements with someone's opinion on players. But saying something like its a red-flag if they like them is just tiresome and unnecessary. As is saying he doesnt know what hes looking at. He has a platform and people pay for his work because the market has said they value his work. You may not, and thats ok, but stop with the demeaning bs. Everyone has their preferences in what they like of a prospect. If you put yourself out there like waldman does on that large of platform, we'd all be able to look at your history as well and pick out your worst takes to belittle as well. If you want to be critical of what he likes about Sermon, then provide actual counterpoints to what he says he likes and have an actual constructive discussion.

I highly commend them for the work they put in. If they were getting paid for the amount of effort they would certainly earn it. But they aren’t getting paid for their effort. They’re getting paid because they promote that they have a significantly higher level of expertise.

People pay guys like Waldman because of how they portray themselves. For a casual FF player that’s probably true. But their results don’t stand up as being anything extraordinary. And to use their judgment as some kind of authorization of a player’s capability like the quote I posted is not some kind of seal of unimpeachable credibility like some like to portray.

I’m not certain why you feel such a need to defend a guy like Waldman. If you read his defense of his positions he’s a close minded arrogant self promoter. There’s always some other excuse why his analysis was wrong and he’s shameless in his chest thumping when he gets some right.

And then you want to make a game of comparing my record to his. I belittle my own misses and own them outright. You’ll very rarely see me post “I told you so” and when I do it’s in a lighthearted way. And more importantly, I don’t sell myself at a significant price for claiming that I have some kind of special knowledge that others don’t have. I do have some practical background in the game that extends well beyond watching games on TV and highlight films, but I don’t promote that either, nor will I beyond this rebuttal.

And that’s as far as I’ll take this discussion in derailing this thread.

And that is fair enough, and I will move on as well.

Commendable! And despite my response I sincerely do appreciate your position and the discussion. Thanks!

[Ice]

So Waldman and this site were both really high on Hakeem Butler..... Who Knew!

[tresskid84]

I highly commend them for the work they put in. If they were getting paid for the amount of effort they would certainly earn it. But they aren’t getting paid for their effort. They’re getting paid because they promote that they have a significantly higher level of expertise.

People pay guys like Waldman because of how they portray themselves. For a casual FF player that’s probably true. But their results don’t stand up as being anything extraordinary. And to use their judgment as some kind of authorization of a player’s capability like the quote I posted is not some kind of seal of unimpeachable credibility like some like to portray.

I’m not certain why you feel such a need to defend a guy like Waldman. If you read his defense of his positions he’s a close minded arrogant self promoter. There’s always some other excuse why his analysis was wrong and he’s shameless in his chest thumping when he gets some right.

And then you want to make a game of comparing my record to his. I belittle my own misses and own them outright. You’ll very rarely see me post “I told you so” and when I do it’s in a lighthearted way. And more importantly, I don’t sell myself at a significant price for claiming that I have some kind of special knowledge that others don’t have. I do have some practical background in the game that extends well beyond watching games on TV and highlight films, but I don’t promote that either, nor will I beyond this rebuttal.

And that’s as far as I’ll take this discussion in derailing this thread.

And that is fair enough, and I will move on as well.

Commendable! And despite my response I sincerely do appreciate your position and the discussion. Thanks!

I appreciate your response as well. Communication leads to better understanding. I often disagree with Waldman myself, so its not like I think he's some brilliant genius. I just think we could/should strive to have more constructive convos around these things, especially with all the negativity we are all enduring these days. I am completely guilty of throwing out comments that were belittling in the past, and am trying to make a very conscious effort not to do so in the future, because the discussion were then not helpful, and often harmful to the community. Trying to do better myself every day, so i'm not excluded from my own criticisms in this regard.

[tresskid84]

and honestly, my first response was not helpful or constructive response, so again, I am just as guilty and need to do better myself

[Pullo Vision]

I think he's getting pushed up for 2 reasons-
-landing spot and draft capital
-no strong RB options/gambles behind Harris/Etienne/Williams/Sermon

In an RB heavy league, I'm considering how early I'd go with him, but it feels heavily driven by positional need/value.

[Bronco Billy]

And that is fair enough, and I will move on as well.

Commendable! And despite my response I sincerely do appreciate your position and the discussion. Thanks!

I appreciate your response as well. Communication leads to better understanding. I often disagree with Waldman myself, so its not like I think he's some brilliant genius. I just think we could/should strive to have more constructive convos around these things, especially with all the negativity we are all enduring these days. I am completely guilty of throwing out comments that were belittling in the past, and am trying to make a very conscious effort not to do so in the future, because the discussion were then not helpful, and often harmful to the community. Trying to do better myself every day, so i'm not excluded from my own criticisms in this regard.

Wow. Well said. I’ll try to be better myself. And another thanks is in order.

[Vcize]

Commendable! And despite my response I sincerely do appreciate your position and the discussion. Thanks!

I appreciate your response as well. Communication leads to better understanding. I often disagree with Waldman myself, so its not like I think he's some brilliant genius. I just think we could/should strive to have more constructive convos around these things, especially with all the negativity we are all enduring these days. I am completely guilty of throwing out comments that were belittling in the past, and am trying to make a very conscious effort not to do so in the future, because the discussion were then not helpful, and often harmful to the community. Trying to do better myself every day, so i'm not excluded from my own criticisms in this regard.

I'm jumping in late to the Waldman convo, and maybe it's a mistake to bring it back up as it seems to be petering out, but his rise has been really interesting to me. Waldman seems like a nice enough guy in his podcast and is nice and articulate, but I think his rise to notoriety has been largely artificial.

His name is really only so commonplace now because of a series of hot takes he made, all of which were wrong. Hakeem Butler is the well known one, where he really became a household name as the only real analyst that was willing to endorse the "Butler #1 WR prospect in this class" rhetoric that was common on forums at the time. Naturally that confirmation bias by the multitudes of people that were high on the sexy-at-the-time Butler led to them referencing Waldman repeatedly, and that's how he became a household name. Ironically on something he was completely wrong about.

I'm not sure if he really believed in Butler and his other hot takes at the time, or if pessimistically he just chose a series of hot takes to get his name out there as something different. Either way though I've been a FBG user for more than a decade so was following him before he got popular (look at me, the FF hipster) and I never really got the impression that his hit rate was any better than any other random analyst, or even any well versed forum poster. His name became commonplace not on that, but his outlier rankings, all of which ended up being wrong.

It would be one thing if he stuck his neck out there for 5 guys that he had way above the consensus and 3 of the 5 ended up being studs or something. But that's not really the case. Average on day to day rankings/projections and 0-for on outlier hot takes isn't any kind of special track record or anything, but just his name getting tossed around so much with the hot takes made him popular. In a world where there is no real grading of analyst performance and there are hundreds of names out there, just hearing his name a bunch over time kind of made people naturally latch on to the idea that he is some kind of special reference that is really good at this.

Again, I'm not sure if that was his intent all along or if it just worked out that way.

[Shoreline Steamers]

I've said it earlier. I won't reach for Sermon, but if he's there for me at 1.12 I'll consider him among the other options I have. I think he's underrated. But we'll see.

As for the above comment by Vcize, I'm sure you're aware of Waldman since he's been at FBG for a number of years. I like to visit that site too, mostly for re-draft. He has also been writing the RSP for something like 13-15 years (maybe more?). So you know he's not some Johnny-come-lately who people only know about because of his big whiff on Hakeem Butler. People have known about what he does for some time.

We all miss from time to time, and I think from reading the RSP, the point is that he follows his process and doesn't deviate. He believes in it. He also acknowledges that the results don't always align with the process. Hence, the Hakeem Butlers of the NFL world. There's a number of factors that determine whether a player succeeds or fails at the next level, talent and opportunity being only two of them. Nobody can discern from tape what a player's work ethic is. Is the player motivated to be great, or just happy to get into the league? Are their personal habits including diet, workout regimen, and social life (partying, staying out late, people they hang out with) conducive to success in the NFL? Are they smart enough to learn advanced football concepts once in the NFL, or have they got by on sheer talent/athleticism prior to being drafted?

We, including Waldman, really can't know any of that. It's all guesswork. On the flip side, he was also higher than consensus on guys like Frank Gore, Marshawn Lynch, Nick Chubb, Michael Thomas, and Travis Kelce than many other analysts. Those are just examples off the top of my head.

I don't take the RSP as gospel, and neither should anyone else. Waldman is the first person to tell you so if you read his publication. But to say he's where he's at on the rookie scouting landscape because of some terrible "hot-takes" seems disingenuous, since you're familiar with the other work he does at FBG.

I think it will be interesting to see if he's anywhere close as to what Trey Sermon becomes in the NFL.