Devy League: A Fantasy League Where You Draft "Developmental/Devy" Players, i.e. players that are not yet declared for the NFL Draft
Back in 2012, I remember thinking to myself that it would have been cool to be able to draft Andrew Luck in a dynasty football league when he was still 1-2 years away from the NFL Draft. Luck was a big time prospect and there was talk of him being a future #1 overall pick well before the 2011 college season. What I had in mind was fantasy football, but with a draft that looks more like the NHL than the NFL.
I didn’t realize at the time that this was a thing, so instead of joining a league that played like that, I popped open good ol’ Mr. Excel and started doing it myself.
This is that story. Each draft took place before the college season started for that year. For each pick I’ll put the rough number of fantasy points the player has scored in his career so far.
2012
- Matt Barkley, QB, USC
Active 2013-Present; 141 Pts
Yeah, this is how it’s gonna go. Matt Barkley was the consensus future #1 pick in the 2013 draft as of the beginning of the 2012 season. He’s been a career backup with only one year of any production (2016 w/ Chicago). Matt Barkley was also the first player I remember watching play College football and thinking “holy crap, he’s younger than me”. Jimmy Clausen was too big of a recruit to give me the same feeling. - Robert Woods, WR, USC
Active 2013-Present; 1,677 Pts
Bobby Trees! While he wouldn’t stay the prospect he was at this point in his career, which was a projected top 5 pick, he’s done pretty well for himself. He’s one of the players that led me to develop my “sustained prospect” method for evaluating NFL prospects. Yes, that’s a teaser. - Logan Thomas, QB, VT
Active 2014-Present; 404 Pts
This one is a fun one. I wonder how many people know he used to be a QB, much less a highly touted prospect at one point. - Marcus Lattimore, RB, South Carolina
Active 2013-2014; 0 Pts
Lattimore was the clear top RB prospect when…Warning: Content May Not Be Suitable For All Viewers. This one sucked, especially for the imaginary team team that drafted him in this mock draft. - Le’Veon Bell, RB, Michigan St.
Active 2013-2022; 1,758 Pts
Imagine that, drafting Marcus Lattimore the pick before future #1 overall fantasy pick Le’Veon Bell. - Landry Jones, QB, Oklahoma
Active 2014-2017; 73 Pts
I think the Steelers call him every week to see if he’s available to be a backup again. - Tyler Eifert, TE, Notre Dame
Active 2013-2020; 644 Pts
Tight Ends are tough to find in these drafts. Eifert worked out, tho. - Montee Ball, RB, Wisconsin
Active 2013-2014; 151 Pts
All those college touchdowns, for almost nothing in the pros. - Marqise Lee, WR, USC
Active 2014-2019; 468 Pts
It’s funny, because Lee was one year behind Woods in the cycle of “enter last year of college as a Top 5 draft prospect as a USC WR, end up a 2nd rounder”. I always liked Lee and had him on a dynasty team myself over the first half of his career. - Keenan Allen, WR, Cal
Active 2013-Present; 2,119 Pts
Arguably would have been the top pick with hindsight for 2012, he has the 2nd most career points of anyone I’ve drafted in these mocks. - Tyler Wilson, QB, Arkansas
Active 2013; 0 Pts
Before we get used to names we recognize, let’s toss Tyler Wilson into the mix. - Dorial Green-Beckham, WR, Missouri
Active 2015-2016; 206 Pts
DGB was the pick because he was the #3 recruit on the ESPNU Top 100 at the time. Some of those types of picks worked out better than this one. - Knile Davis, RB, Arkansas
Active 2013-2017; 231 Pts
Not gonna lie, it was pretty cool when he started getting some run for the Chiefs after a Jamaal Charles injury, having “drafted” him in this mock two years earlier. - Jeff Driskel, QB, Florida
Active 2016-Present; 201 Pts
Driskel was the #10 prospect on the 2011 ESPNU Top 100. He’s probably had the most winding road of any player to actually show up in the NFL from this list, what with his transfer to La Tech and eventual spotty playing time starting around 2018, six years after this mock. - Da’Rick Rogers, WR, Tennessee
Active 2013; 48 Pts
Da’Rickest Rick. Main thing I remember about Rogers is he was part of the Tennessee trifecta of him, Cordarrelle Patterson, and Justin Hunter. Rogers went undrafted but it was cool to see him get some time with the Colts. Also, Da’Rick is a cool name. - Marquess Wilson, WR, Washington St
Active 2013-2016; 157 Pts
I’m not going to be able to comment on everybody. - Denard Robinson, OW, Michigan
Active 2013-2016; 214 Pts
I think it was clear at this point he wasn’t going to be an NFL QB, though admittedly he wasn’t an “Offensive Weapon” yet. - Eddie Lacy, RB, Alabama
Active 2013-2017; 768 Pts
Fat Eddie Lacy was RB #3 in the trend of “just grab an Alabama RB and he’ll probably do something”. - Isaiah Crowell, RB, Georgia
Active 2014-2018; 778 Pts
Crowell had a bit of a winding road, himself. He’s on this list because he was a top recruit for Georgia…then he had to transfer, and went undrafted. It felt like I knew better than NFL teams that Crowell would be good. - Ricky Seals-Jones, WR, Texas A&M
Active 2017-2021; 262 Pts
Of all the players picked here, Seals-Jones took the longest to make the NFL. Even longer than Driskel. He was a highly touted recruit but (I’m not super well read on him) seemed to get fat and never fully capitalized on his talent. He ends up a Tight End. I remember thinking at the time of this draft that Seals-Jones and Green-Beckham might be making it cool to have two last names, kind of how DeShaun Foster and LaDainian Tomlinson were some of the progenitors of the first name prefix. - Kenjon Barner, RB, Oregon
Active 2013-2021; 106 Pts
Barner played quite a while without actually scoring that much. - Tavon Austin, WR, West Virginia
Active 2013-2021; 780 Pts
If this were a regular dynasty fantasy draft, Austin would have been a top 5 pick, I’m assuming. - Terrance Williams, WR, Baylor
Active 2013-2018; 699 Pts
Another WR triumvirate member (with Josh Gordon and Kendall Wright), he was super bland with Cowboys. - Silas Redd, RB, USC
Active 2014-2016; 32 Pts
He had escaped Penn St. by this point. - Tyler Bray, QB, Tennessee
Active 2013-2017; -1 Pt
You read that right! Negative points for his career. The less productive of the two Tylers by 1 point. - Johathan Gray, RB, Texas
Tried out for the Giants in 2017
Top 10 recruit out of high school, and that was it. Tore both Achilles tendons in college. Though apparently the Frisco Fighters of the Indoor Football League signed him in 2021? - Malcolm Brown, RB, Texas
Active 2015-Present; 323 Pts
The other highly recruited RB from Texas first looked like he was going to miss out on NFL success, but turned out to just be a bit of a late bloomer. - Jake Stoneburner, TE, Ohio St.
Active 2013-2015; 22 Pts
Not to be confused with the Jace Sternberger, who would follow a few years later. Seriously, different person. Not a Leon Sandcastle situation.
There you have it – the 2012 Devy League draft. I’ll pick up with 2013 in a later installment. In the meantime, I leave you with this memory of the 2013 draft:
Continue with 2013 HERE.
Byron Cobalt's Lazy Analysis 
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