Now that our readers have been introduced to different platforms for fantasy football Devy leagues, it is time for a deeper dive into the world of Devy.
When I did my first fantasy football Devy draft in Spring, I was unfamiliar with both the draft classes of 2021, and 2022. As we discussed at the very beginning of this series, I have been doing redraft for 27 years and DFS for ten. Before joining that first Devy draft, I had done a couple of Dynasty league drafts, starting as early as February. Obviously, I was a little more versed in the 2021 class (Please remember that Devy is simply an extension to Dynasty.)
In Dynasty, your roster would include players from the 2021 draft class that you picked up in a “rookie dispersal draft”. These players can be utilized in your active NFL rosters in 2021. Devy would include adding players that will be in college in 2021, and the fantasy football manager can maintain these players through the 2022 NFL Draft and throughout the rest of their professional careers.
In a ‘startup league’, the rookie draft is usually four rounds on average – while the Devy draft is commonly three rounds. Every year, a fantasy football owner will be involved with doing both a rookie draft and a Devy draft. The Devy players that are drafted one year are not included in the following year’s rookie draft, and that cycle continues year after year. Since the pool of eligible rookie selections has decreased, the number of rounds for the rookie draft also typically decreases from four, to three for example.
As one can tell, the fantasy football owner needs to be familiar with at least two draft classes each year. As mentioned, the 2021 and 2022 classes would be centric this year, while the 2022 and 2023 classes would be the focus next year. That being said, the slightly more advanced Devy player has a firm grasp of all classes, starting with this fall’s incoming freshman class (class of 2025). In the Devy leagues that I play in, your Devy players can include players as young as incoming freshman, while a smaller percentage of leagues also include high school players in the Devy pool.
Sites to Help You Scout
So now that one understands that the knowledge of college players is important, how does one go about building that knowledge base?
With my first year in Devy, my goal was to consult databases of content providers who had been analyzing college players for quite some time. With this year’s freshman class, I will have watched their games for three (if an early entrant into the NFL draft) or four years and will be able to build a deep database of knowledge on these players; much like the websites I will recommend who have done this for the current class.
Unlike redraft fantasy football, there are not many websites providing Devy content. I will provide a link below for a few of the websites that I used when preparing for my first draft. The League Winners are in our first year, but have developed a very knowledgeable staff and will be providing in-depth content on a weekly basis. In addition, we will be your direct contact for any questions that may arise while you continue to build your skills.
The websites that I used for my draft provide deep enough rankings to give a broad landscape of each draft class. I would always consult a few websites to build more of a consensus ranking. These websites included:
1) DevyWatch – Greg Brandt does four mock drafts a month to provide this information. Greg uses both fans and contributors and, per the website, is open to Tweets if anyone wants to help do one of these mocks.
2) The Undroppables – Kyle Larson offers one of the deeper set of rankings that I have seen. Needless to say, the deeper the draft, the more college players that the Devy owner would want to know.
3) Referred to me by another owner in my-12 team redraft league of record, ActionNetwork has become one of my favorite websites for all things best ball and now college rankings.
Needless to say, there are several other good websites, both free and paid, that can be accessed. Being new to Devy, I wanted to use the free resources and free leagues to get my feet wet.
Watching the Film
Once you are up to speed on the top players at each skill position for the upcoming draft classes, there are a couple of things you can do to hone your skills. The first is simply to watch more college football. While there will always be exceptions to every rule, many of the top players came from schools that are part of Power Five Conferences. The Power Five includes:
- Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)
- Big 10 Conference
- Big 12 Conference
- PAC 12 Conference
- Southeastern Conference (SEC)
In addition to watching live games, the Devy player can always watch film on players whose games they may not have seen live. A few players who have played in more remote locations but wound up being high NFL draft picks would include:
- Carson Wentz (2nd overall pick – 2016) and Trey Lance (2021-3rd pick) both from North Dakota State
- Corey Davis (5th overall – 2017) from Western Michigan
- Josh Allen (7th pick – 2018) from Wyoming
- Jordan Love (26th pick – 2020) from Utah State
- Zach Wilson (2nd overall – 2021) from BYU
As you can tell, all of these draft picks except for Davis have been quarterbacks. Watching film is a more advanced and judgmental tool for Devy owners, and only a small number of these owners are really good at what they do. As is often said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
There are several different ways to familiarize oneself with the college game. In all fairness, how much time you decide to spend on this pursuit of knowledge is a personal decision. Before entering a rookie and/or Devy draft, I would at least recommend putting together a consensus rankings list of players from the websites that I have included, as well as others if you so choose. Playing against league mates with various levels of knowledge of the college game in my first Devy draft, I realized that this would be a continual quest to improve my skill set.
