A Decade Ago I Started Mocking “Devy” Drafts – Here’s How 2020 Went

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.

2020 was year 9 of the experiment. So the eligible players for the 2020 draft were any player:

1. With amateur status
2. That was not drafted in the 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
  Dylan Moses sets the record for most years on the holdover list, with 5! Though by this point it was pretty clear he was a LB and not an offensive player.

2016 Draft Holdovers

• Najee Harris, RB, Alabama
  Najee with a surprisingly long time on the list here. Since he was picked up we had Alabama take over from Georgia as RBU, IMO.
• DeAngelo Gibbs, ATH
  4 years on the holdover, without the magazine cover pedigree of Dylan Moses.

2018 Draft Holdovers

• Justin Herbert, QB, Oregon
• Justin Shorter, WR, Penn St.
• JD Spielman, WR, Nebraska
• Justin Fields, QB, Georgia
• Justin Trevor Lawrence, QB, Clemson

2019 Draft Holdovers

• Travis Etienne, RB, Clemson
• Julian Fleming, WR, Ohio St.
• Zachary Evans, RB
  Note to self: Zachary is long for Zach.
• Tarik Black, WR, Michigan
• Jordan Love, QB, Utah St.
• Camar Wheaton, RB
• Jadon Haselwood, WR, Oklahoma
• Terrace Marshall, Jr., WR, LSU
  Definitely one of the players that I had to correct my spelling on in compiling the columns. Had to make Terrance into Terrace, had to make…get this one…Breeze into Breece.
• Tylan Wallace, WR, Oklahoma St.
• KJ Costello, QB, Stanford

1. JA’MARR CHASE, LSU – WR – 854.7 FPts; 2021-Present

I maintain that Chase is the best WR prospect and has the highest upside of any prospect since Calvin Johnson. I got shellacked for making this claim last season – this year I need to crunch some numbers to either vindicate or incriminate myself.

2. PAT FREIERMUTH, PSU – TE – 380.7 FPts; 2021-Present

Subtract 10 picks from every Devy TE pick and you have where they should have been drafted.

3. RASHOD BATEMAN, MINN – WR – 240.5 FPts; 2021-Present

Turned out Rashod was to Batemen as Val Kilmer was to Batmen.

4. KYLE PITTS, FLA – TE – 398.5 FPts; 2021-Present

Barely outscored Freiermuth so far. Man. He’s about one more disappointing season from Josh Gordon territory on the disappointment scale.

5. TREY LANCE, NDSU – QB – 86.4 FPts; 2021-Present

I kind of wish Zach Wilson were more like Trey Lance if it would mean we had some other QB options for a while there.

6. DEVONTA SMITH, ALA – WR – 697.8 FPts; 2021-Present

Great pick. Alabama WRs were safe picks here.

7. SAM EHLINGER, TEX – QB – 43.5 FPts; 2021-Present

This was the beginning of a bunch of Texas QB picks. This one ended up evoking Garrett Gilbert more than Colt McCoy, though.

8. JAYLEN WADDLE, ALA – WR – 735.6 FPts; 2021-Present

Alabama WR, mark it down.

9. CHRIS EVANS, MICH – RB – 65.6 FPts; 2021-Present

Ten years from now I’ll be confusing him with Chris Perry.

10. CHRIS OLAVE, OSU – WR – 455.5 FPts; 2022-Present

Great pick. Sometimes we forget that Olave emerged as a top prospect before Garrett Wilson did.

11. JOURNEY BROWN, PSU – RB – 0 FPts;

Hopefully he was taken for some Devy NASCAR Pit Crew Fantasy Teams.

12. CHARLESTON RAMBO, OKLA – WR – 0 FPts; 2023-Present

Great name. Might be out of the league already, though.

13. NICO COLLINS, MICH – WR – 456.1 FPts; 2021-Present

Awesome pick. What a good receiver draft this turned out to be! At least at the top end.

14. SAGE SURRATT, WF – WR – 0 FPts; 2021-2022

Spoke too soon.

15. TREVEYON HENDERSON, OSU – RB – 0 FPts;

Still in college; could be a great pick when all is said and done.

16. BRYCE YOUNG, ALA – QB – 175.4 FPts; 2023-Present

Say what you will about what he showed as a rookie, but this was a great Devy pick at slot 16.

17. KENNETH GAINWELL, MEM – RB – 310.7 FPts; 2021-Present

I will always remember Gainwell as the one of the first RBs to where a number in the teens after the number restrictions loosened up.

18. RONDALE MOORE, PUR – WR – 306 FPts; 2021-Present

Another not-bad pick.

19. BREVIN JORDAN, MIAF – TE – 133.5 FPts; 2021-Present

This is an easy comment with Jordan, but Brevin Jordan sounds like a basketball player. Helps that Miami has a history of football players playing basketball (Jimmy Graham).

20. CHARLIE KOLAR, ISU – TE – 30.6 FPts; 2022-Present

21. CHUBA HUBBARD, OKST – RB – 418.8 FPts; 2021-Present

This is the year of the not-bad devy draft pick.

22. QUINN EWERS, TEX – QB – 0 FPts;

Is being on the cover of College Football 25 a good sign, or bad luck? I would be nervous if I took him.

23. NOAH GRAY, DUKE – TE – 157.2 FPts; 2021-Present

Given the low standards of TEs drafted here, also a not-bad pick.

24. MICHAEL CARTER, UNC – RB – 344.2 FPts; 2021-Present

Now I’m getting bored of all these not-bad picks. Can we get a major bust or a major breakout here?

25. BRANT KUITHE, UTAH – TE – 0 FPts;

26. TREY SERMON, OSU – RB – 50.5 FPts; 2021-Present

OK, this one is kind of a bust. I was surprised he’s still in the NFL.

27. ELIJAH MITCHELL, LOU – RB – 217.6 FPts; 2021-Present

Damnit, he’s good, too.

28. RAKEEM BOYD, ARK – RB – 0 FPts; 2021

OK, there’s the major bust. Well, at 28th pick, less so, but negative points would mean he had some playing time.

Sidebar on the Journey Brown career change – if you ever watch a NASCAR Race, they often will go through a pit crew or two during the race where all the tire changers/etc. will introduce themselves. Yeah, like that. I swear, like 50% of the pit crew members mention a D1 or brief pro football career. For example Josh Bush, tire changer for Daniel Suarez’s #99 team, is a former Jets safety.

It’s too bad there isn’t an obvious fallback career like Pit Crew Tire Changed that for sports bloggers.

Funny story: Back when I was getting my MBA having classes on Adobe Connect (pre-Zoom) was fairly common. I would often find myself with a class on one screen and non-class-appropriate content on another. My workflow on the inapproriate screen was to get a bunch of tabs queued up on things to…read…and I did this by doing a lot of ‘copy direct link to image’ and quickly pasting in a new tab. I don’t exactly remember why I had to split out into tabs, but I believe it had something to do with loading times for either Reddit or TheChive or whatever website I was pulling from.

Well…one day I was 0.5 inches away from my finger hitting “enter” after copying the image link into the class chat box, rather than a new tab. Another 0.5 inches and I probably would have retired from a normal career and picked up a jack and a gas can.

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