Devy League: A Fantasy League Where You Draft "Developmental/Devy" Players, i.e. players that are not yet declared for the NFL Draft
I started this series up 3 months ago – see here for the 2012 opening piece. Now here we are, 3 months later, with nary a week until the 2023 NFL Draft. Let’s get back on track!
To bring everyone up to speed…
I started a Devy League mock draft series back in 2012. I didn’t know that Devy Leagues were a thing at the time (were they?). Nonetheless it was something to look forward too as I would get a head start on the future year’s draft class, and start to imagine what it would be like to draft future fantasy football stars when whey were in high school and watch them rise through the ranks.
2013 was year 2 of the experiment. So the eligible players for the 2013 draft were any player:
- Any amateur football player as of August 2013
- That was not drafted in the previous season
I’ll start with the players drafted in 2012 that were not in the NFL yet, and get into the year’s picks.
2012 Draft Holdovers
- Logan Thomas, QB, VT
Still a QB at this point, but wasn’t a high prospect anymore. - Marqise Lee, WR, USC
At this point, he was a highly touted prospect (#3 on Kiper’s big board), while USC teammate Robert Woods slipped to round 2 by draft day. - Dorial Green-Beckham, WR, Missouri
Not yet transferred to Oklahoma. - Jeff Driskel, QB, Florida
Driskel would hang out on this “holdover” list for a while. - Isaiah Crowell, RB,
GeorgiaAlabama State
Obligatory. - Ricky Seals-Jones, WR, Texas A&M
- Silas Redd, RB, USC
- Johnathan Gray, RB, Texas
- Malcolm Brown, RB, Texas
2013
- Teddy Bridgewater, QB, Louisville
Active 2014-Present; 1043 Career Fantasy Pts
Teddy B was a future #1 overall pick at this point. I always liked Teddy, partly because Bridgewater is a baller-ass last name for a quarterback. It’s like something you’d come up with in a movie. I’ll also add that for Devy leagues, even non-flex leagues like this draft is hypothetically for, the QBs are the most identifiable/longest-careered prospects, so they tend to rise to the top of the draft board. - Sammy Watkins, WR, Clemson
Active 2014-Present; 1158 Pts
It’s super interesting to look back at some of these WR corps and QB combinations. Not sure it was clear that Hopkins would be Watkins’ superior in the NFL at this point, especially given how high Sammy’s prospect status rose. - De’Anthony Thomas, WR, Oregon
Active 2014-2019; 176 Pts
He’s actually playing for the BC Lions now! He came up on my Facebook “Watch” feed, which is impossible to search so I will never see that video again. - Johnny Manziel, QB, Texas A&M
Active 2014-2015; 123 Pts
As much as I dislike Manziel as a person, he did win me a bet. Around this time, I bet a friend that Marcus Mariota would win more games as a starter in the NFL than Johnny Football. The loser of the bet had to open the drinks of the winner, whenever asked, for 5 years after the bet was declared. - Tajh Boyd, QB, Clemson
Active 2014-2015, 0 Pts
3 busts in a row! It’s clear in retrospect that Tajh Boyd had a ton of help from having D-Hop, Watkins, and Martavis Bryant at the same time. It was less clear that RG3 was getting help from the Josh Gordon/Kendall Wright/Terrance Williams trio, but I think he was. Also apparently Rex Ryan would pound the table for certain players, notably some of his son’s Clemson teammates like Tajh Boyd and Martavis Bryant. The Jets clearly drafted the wrong one here. - Austin Seferian-Jenkins, TE, Washington
Active 2014-2018; 299 Pts
I’ll say it again, Tight Ends are very tough to draft in these. - Ka’Deem Carey, RB, Arizona
Active 2014-2016; 87 Pts
I was very invested in this particular JAG-backup-RB for a few years there, and this draft was the reason. - Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon
Active 2015-Present; 1283 Pts
Thanks to winning the Manziel bet, I named a certain fantasy football team “Wingardium Mariota” for 5 seasons in his honor. It’s too bad he’s basically Tim Tebow now. - Lache Seastrunk, RB, Baylor
Active 2014; 0 Pts
Such a good name to be nothing in the NFL, ’tis a shame. - AJ McCarron, QB, Alabama
Active 2014-Present; 79 Pts
Remember when the Browns thought they had traded for their QB of the future in McCarron, but didn’t get the paperwork submitted to the NFL in time? - Mike Evans, WR, Texas A&M
Active 2014-Present; 2279 Pts
The highest scoring player of anyone drafted in this entire series! Too bad he was drafted after Sammy Watkins in real life. What’s also interesting looking back on these rosters is how stacked the A&M offensive line was: Luke Joeckel, Jake Matthews, Germain Ifedi, Cedric Ogbuehi…we should have known what allowed Manziel to run around back there. Evans was legit, tho. - Eric Ebron, TE, UNC
Active 2014-2021; 958 Pts
Ebron actually worked out about as well as any of the TE prospects drafted in these Devy boards could have. I do wish I had run this league when Butch Davis was in his prime, as I believe a disproportionate rate of his UNC and Miami prospects went nuts in the NFL. - Brett Hundley, QB, UCLA
Active 2015-2017; 138 Pts
His name comes up on a Sporcle quiz once in a while. I often confuse him with Brian Brohm. - Colt Lyerla, TE, Oregon
Never made NFL; 0 Pts
Yeah, TE is tough. Lyerla was #28 on the McShay mock draft around this time. - Brandon Coleman, WR, Rutgers
Active 2014-2017; 234 Pts
Remember that random splash Coleman made with the Saints? Devy managers saw it coming! - Leonard Fournette, RB, LSU (undeclared at this time)
Active 2017-Present; 1270 Pts
Fournette was the #1 recruit coming out of High School for the 2014 class. He was an absolute stud. I was on the Fournette > Derrick Henry train for as long as I could be, but Fournette just started showing age before Henry did. - Jordan Matthews, WR, Vanderbilt
Active 2014-2021; 759 Pts
A lot of players actually show this weird decline where they clearly peaked their rookie year in the league, or near it, then just drift away over time. Once I named a sim-generated rookie in Madden “Byron Cobalt” and he was a Pro Bowl receiver for Philly as a rookie, then sucked for the rest of his simulated career. I should have called him Jordan Matthews. - Kelvin Taylor, RB, Florida
Active 2016; 0 Pts - Braxton Miller, WR, Ohio St.
Active 2016-2017; 72 Pts
He should have just stayed at QB and been a 2022 Marcus Mariota clone. - Dri Archer, RB, Kent State
Active 2014-2015; 13 Pts
The only thing faster than Dri Archer on the track was his career in the NFL. - Damien Williams, RB, Oklahoma
Active 2014-Present; 578 Pts
There are a handful of running backs that are seen in the NFL as “talented” even though they were not drafted very high. Well, they were drafted high in the Devy drafts! And they just fell apart as prospects before reviving their NFL careers later on. - Stephen Morris, QB, Miami FL
Active 2014-2016; 0 Pts
He hung around longer than you’d think. - Donte Moncrief, WR, Mississippi
Active 2014-2020; 605 Pts
Was good enough to take the #2 spot in the Moncrief Power Rankins after Sidney. - Derrick Henry, ATH (will be RB), Alabama
Active 2016-Present; 1641 Pts
No kidding, he wasn’t fully declared as a Running Back yet – he was the 9th recruit on the ESPNU 2013 list as an “Athlete”. So, he was worth a shot. Clearly. - Keith Marshall, RB, Georgie
Active 2016-2017; 0 Pts - CJ Fiedorowicz, TE, Iowa
Active 2014-2017; 212 Pts
Does anyone remember him that isn’t a Texans fan? He was average as f*ck. - Michael Dyer, RB,
AuburnArkansas St.
Never made NFL; 0 Pts
Dyer was a very good RB at Auburn. He didn’t take the Cowell route, though, and probably missed an NFL career as a result. - David Fales, QB, San Jose St.
Active 2014-2019; 21 Pts
Let’s wrap it up with the classic David Fales “Holy crap Mom and Dad never fought like THIS before!” face:
I can promise that it won’t take another 90 days to get the 2014 installment together. It will be AT MOST 89 days.
Continue with 2014 HERE.
Byron Cobalt's Lazy Analysis 
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