Each year, in the run-up to the NFL draft, we produce the RotoViz Scouting Index (RSI). The RSI aggregates and compiles NFL prospect rankings from a variety of more traditional scouting outlets. This accomplishes a few things:
- It saves time. No need to check rankings on several sites, we’ve done the work.
- It reveals the general consensus. No need to guess which players are held in high – or rising – esteem, we’ve done the math.
- It checks our bias. We do love statistical analysis, but it’s important to consider what the more traditional football community thinks about a given player. The consensus opinion is what will largely determine a player’s initial fantasy value, which is especially important for dynasty rookie drafts. It’s also possible we’re missing something; seeing which players the film community holds in higher regard might prompt us to look more closely at a prospect.
2020 Calculation and Sources
The outlets that will contribute to the RSI calculation are CBS, DraftTek, DraftCountdown, OurLads, TheDraftNetwork, and DraftScout.
A player’s RSI score will be calculated as follows:
- Determine a player’s positional percentile rank for each outlet
- Sum each player’s percentile ranks and divide by the number of sources
- Scale to 100
- If a player is not ranked by a given source he is assigned a zero for that source
This rewards/penalizes players for being/not being ranked at multiple sources. It also does a better job of addressing the variance in the number of players being ranked by each site than simply reviewing average rank.
