Devy League: A Fantasy League Where You Draft "Developmental/Devy" Players, i.e. players that are not yet declared for the NFL Draft
If you want to go back to beyond “a decade ago” – see here for the 2012 opening piece. Picking up the pace here as I only published the most recent one last week!
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.
2019 was year 8 of the experiment. So the eligible players for the 2019 draft were any player:
- With amateur status
- That was not drafted in previous Devy mock drafts
I’ll start with the players drafted in previous seasons that were not in the NFL yet, and get into the year’s picks.
2015 Draft Holdovers
- Dylan Moses, ATH
4 years on the holdover list, ties the record of Ricky Seals-Jones from 2013-2016.
2016 Draft Holdovers
- Najee Harris, RB, Alabama
- DeAngelo Gibbs, ATH
3 years on the holdover list.
2018 Draft Holdovers
- Justin Herbert, QB, Oregon
- Justin Shorter, WR, Penn St.
Just In College for a very long time. - Harrison Bryant, TE, Florida Atlantic
- JD Spielman, WR, Nebraska
One of the best football names to not actually break through to the NFL. - Justin Fields, QB, Georgia
- Trevor Lawrence, QB, Clemson
Yeah, 2018 was quite the year for future QB prospects to get picked up in Devy. - Albert Okwuegbunam, TE, Missouri
2019 Draft
| 1. TRAVIS ETIENNE, CLEM – RB – 511.5 FPts; 2021-Present |
| Remember that whole storyline about ETN “not being a natural receiver”? So much for that, right? |
| 2. JERRY JEUDY, ALA – WR – 603.6 FPts; 2020-Present |
| Jeudy still has my favorite “route-running” highlight videos. So strange to me that he can’t just get it to work, it seems. |
| 3. CEEDEE LAMB, OKLA – WR – 1212.3 FPts; 2020-Present |
| Whelp, that career fantasy points number just took a big leap in 2023. |
| 4. JARED PINKNEY, VAND – TE – 0 FPts; 2021-2022 |
| Who? Imagine drafting Pinkney right after Ceedee Lamb in a devy draft. |
| 5. COLLIN JOHNSON, TEX – WR – 86.7 FPts; 2020-Present |
| I think Collin Johnson was an example of a receiver that was great on paper at this point in his career. Extra props for being 6’6″ and having a name that’s not too far from Calvin Johnson. Too bad he’s a JAG in reality. |
| 6. JK DOBBINS, OSU – RB – 273.4 FPts; 2020-Present |
| I hope his knee doesn’t look like this anymore. |
| 7. JONATHAN TAYLOR, WISC – RB – 985.7 FPts; 2020-Present |
| NGL I see some Saquon parellels with JT’s career trajectory. Still, good pick for #7. |
| 8. TUA TAGOVAILOA, ALA – QB – 898.7 FPts; 2020-Present |
| Trying to make a similar statement for Tua, trying to think of an older QB that is way more of a numbers guy than a winning guy, which is how I view Tua right now…crap, is he Kirk Cousins? |
| 9. LAVISKA SHENAULT, JR, COLO – WR – 379.3 FPts; 2020-Present |
| So much for all that athleticism. |
| 10. HENRY RUGGS III, ALA – WR – 176.6 FPts; 2020-2021 |
| There were devy teams out there that drafted Derrius Guice and Henry Ruggs only a few years apart. |
| 11. TEE HIGGINS, CLEM – WR – 810.2 FPts; 2020-Present |
| Compared to previous devy draft years, not a lot of busts in 2019. Higgins would be a great late-first-round pick. |
| 12. JAKE FROMM, GEO – QB – 14.9 FPts; 2021 |
| Neeeeeevermind. Though finding out Jake Fromm was a person is still one of my favorite sports memories. |
| 13. D’ANDRE SWIFT, GEO – RB – 811.1 FPts; 2020-Present |
| Not sure why I didn’t have someone take a Georgia RB automatically in the top 5 picks at the point I ran this draft. |
| 14. JULIAN FLEMING, OSU – WR – 0 FPts; TBD |
| This was also a bit before the same rule had to be applied for Ohio State WRs. |
| 15. ZACHARY EVANS – RB – 1.9 FPts; 2023-Present |
| Which player was the bigger disappointment: Evans, or Michael Dyer? At least Evans has 1.9 fantasy points to his name. |
| 16. JALEN REAGOR, TCU – WR – 220.7 FPts; 2020-Present |
| Forever the guy taken before Justin Jefferson. |
| 17. COLBY PARKINSON, STAN – TE – 142.8 FPts; 2020-Present |
| A year ago I would have made another comment on the paltry nature of Devy TEs again. Actually did something in 2023. |
| 18. TARIK BLACK, MICH – WR – 2 FPts; 2021 |
| 19. JORDAN LOVE, UTST – QB – 375.9 FPts; 2021-Present |
| This wa a steal. Tough to beat as far as Devy steals go. |
| 20. CAMAR WHEATON – RB – 0 FPts; TBD |
| 21. DONOVAN PEOPLES-JONES, MICH – WR – 371.7 FPts; 2020-Present |
| I just hope he holds on because of his name. I believe I snuck him into the draft here less because of his prospect quality and more because of how cool “Peoples-Jones” sounded on college football broadcasts. |
| 22. JADON HASELWOOD, OKLA – WR – 0 FPts; TBD |
| 23. TERRACE MARSHALL, JR, LSU – WR – 148.7 FPts; 2021-Present |
| We’re done pumping up Terrace Marshall at this point, right? |
| 24. JOE BURROW, LSU – QB – 1089.8 FPts; 2020-Present |
| And this beats the Jordan Love steal. Devy is an interesting game. |
| 25. ENO BENJAMIN, ASU – RB – 126.6 FPts; 2021-2022 |
| I don’t envy the Devy owners that had to figure out why Eno was released by the Cards. |
| 26. TYLAN WALLACE, OKST – WR – 19.7 FPts; 2021-Present |
| I AM Tylan Wallace. And I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of fantasy football relevance. |
| 27. JACOB EASON, WASH – QB – 1.4 FPts; 2021-2022 |
| You gotta get your preseason 4th QB somewhere, right? |
| 28. KJ COSTELLO, STAN – QB – 0 FPts; 2021-2022 |
| Nothing to talk about here, so going to rank my favorite two-letter nicknames: 1. T.J. 2. H.G. (as in Wells, The War of the Worlds author) 3. J.T. 4. B.J. (for all the reasons you can think of) 5. J.R. … 10. J.K. … 14. K.C. (The “Casey” confusion is a contentious positive) … 76. K.J. Bonus points whenever someone drops the periods a’la CC Sabathia. |
That wraps up 2019! Beore we get to 2020, I wanted to share a life-size model of JK Dobbins and I think I don’t think I glued everything together properly…
If you’re gearing up for the Olympics, but you’re missing out on football, check out this deep dive where I imagined Football had its own event: The Alumni-Olympics.
Contiue with 2020 HERE.
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