Swimming with Sharks

Brian Bulmer Posted On April 24, 2015

scoutsdraft

Editor’s Note: This is a Dynasty Scouts exclusive article. Our Dynasty Scouts section focuses on the stars of tomorrow, with a laser focus on High School recruits and College players who look to have the talent to be future assets in dynasty leagues and have value today in devy leagues. Dynasty Scouts articles are found in our Premium Content.

I am not much of a swimmer – I am sure that’s what drove everyone to this article. Everyone wants to know about my personal weaknesses, right? Typically I feel more confident when my feet are on solid ground and not amongst the rocky tumultuous waves of the ocean. Outside of water, I usually try anything by jumping in feet first. Recently, DLF’s own Ryan McDowell asked me to be part of a deep devy draft (16 rounds) simply called “Delayed Dynasty” (Featured in Ryan McDowell’s “Keeping Dynasty Weird” series). The layout for this league and how it transitions to a dynasty league is outlined in the article. This devy draft would include all college players who will be 2015 college freshman through current college seniors not being drafted into the NFL for the 2015 season.

I have dipped my toes into devy drafts before, but not much more than three rounds or 36 players max in each league. Just thinking about a 12-team, 16 round devy draft made me very nervous. I have often called on the DLF scouts for help in the past, specifically Scott Fish, to help me in addressing the talent in the college player pool. I do some player evaluation, but I do not spend countless hours on college scouting like many of our Dynasty Scouts do at DLF. I am, in fact, a devy guppy and likely a charity case in this league of sharks. I did learn a lot throughout the process and will give you many nuggets from my point of view.

First let me introduce the roster of talented Dynasty Scouts that I was up against in this draft. Here is the draft order:

Matt Caraccio – Triple Take and Others
Rob Leath – Devy 100 and Others
Russell Clay – Small Sample RB’s and Others
George Kritikos – College AIR and Others
TheFFGhost – The Orange Report 2015 and Rookie Draft Board
Kyle Pollack – JUCO RB’s and Others
Dan Meylor – Most Significant ACL injury and Others
Nathan Tish/Scott Fish – ADP Data & ScottFishBowl
Brian Bulmer – Dynasty Debate and Others
Ryan McDowell – Keeping Dynasty Weird and Others
Nick Whalen – The Devy Report
Nathan Powell – Best Ball Strategy and Others

I have always had a solid grasp on incoming NFL talent, but reaching back deep into the college ranks was a bit out of my reach. When looking at future talent, I often start by looking at future NFL mocks to give me a pulse of where college players are being valued. I also utilize the Dynasty Scouts ranks and ADP to give me some idea of consensus ranks. The rankings of our Dynasty Scouts and dynasty community ADP obtained by Scott Fish is second to none. I started the mock by combining overall rankings and ADP. I had each of the positions broken down by position and year. I also started watching some film and tried to identify elite transferrable skills that could separate players from one another. I think my evaluation of a player is important in the process in breaking ties and helps me to attain a sense of ownership in my team. I maintained a folder to help me early in the draft and allowed me to mark players and try to calculate my next move. It was easy to see early on that many DLF writers have “their guys” and I was simply utilizing their rankings and my evaluations to determine what I wanted to do next.

[am4show have=’g1;’ guest_error=’sub_message’ user_error=’sub_message’ ]

Here are the results of my draft:

After the draft was complete, I was a bit uneasy. I felt good about the research and “eyeball test” I used on some of these football players. I think I was most uneasy because of my limited knowledge of most of these players. The true value of most of these picks will not be known for years. It is exciting to think about, but also a bit scary because of my lack of knowledge and devy experience. I likely overdrafted players like Thomas Tyner, George Campbell and Keith Marshall. Marshall and Tyner are former devy darlings that may have been passed over on their own team’s depth charts. I can only hope that they return to form and provide decent production to their respective teams in the upcoming season. It was also fun to follow the interaction of our Dynasty Scouts via Voxer. These guys are a tight knit group and they do a great job of sharing their views on players and how they evaluate players. The idea of unearthing the next great NFL prospect is exciting and it also gives way to me following a few more guys on Saturday.

My Reach

George Campbell was a player who I found in my research that I really liked (although I may have overdrafted). He was a highly regarded recruit coming out of high school, an early college enrollee and had solid measurables (6’4”, 190 lbs., 4.36 forty). On tape I like his physical style of play on offense. He is not afraid to initiate contact after the catch and has great vision in the open field. His ability to return kicks may allow him to get on the field sooner rather than later in a clouded wide receiver situation at Florida State. I was also excited to see Campbell have success in the Florida St. Spring game. He showed off many of his skills on one play (start video at 0:43).

“I’m in a glass case of emotion”

I wasn’t sure who would fall to me in round one, but I felt great about getting De’Runnya Wilson out of Mississippi St. The former Alabama Mr. Basketball turned football prospect had a phenomenal sophomore campaign at Mississippi St accruing 47 catches for 680 yards and nine touchdowns. He has some raw athletic ability that translates well to the football field. Shortly after drafting him he was picked up on marijuana possession charges in Alabama. Darn!

In the seventh round, I took Bo Scarborough. Scarborough is an explosive athlete who enrolled early at Alabama. It appeared he was to have a great spring, measuring in at 6’2”, 240 lbs., running a 4.5 forty, posting a team best 10’6” broad jump, and bench pressing 405 lbs. He was showing potential to earn snaps in the upcoming season, but a week after I drafted Scarborough he tore his ACL in a spring practice, likely ending his 2015 season. Ugh!

Interesting emotional swings took place throughout the process as well. I felt like I got a steal on Cody Kessler and Demarcus Robinson. Both players had solid 2014 campaigns and I hope to see them back it up with another season of solid production. Kessler is not the size of a protypical quarterback (6’1, 210), but he has a decent arm, makes solid decisions and had solid accuracy in 2014. I was surprised to see Robinson still on the board in round 13 – he may have flew under the radar due to a poor Florida Gators offense in 2014. Robinson was one of the lone bright spots and I look for him to take another step in 2015.

What I learned

I have played in many different dynasty formats over the last few years (many thanks to @RyanMc23), but this is by far the most overwhelmed I have felt during a draft. I spend most of my time watching the NFL and the incoming rookies. My immediate source of information came from the Dynasty Scouts, transferred to the The Devy Report (Thanks Nick Whalen!) and included some high school highlight tapes along with SPARQ scores and JUCO transfers.

Although I felt overwhelmed, I loved the process and was a bit upset when the draft was over. Learning some names of upcoming prospects gives me an idea of the value of some of my 2016 and 2017 draft picks in other leagues. The most exciting part of this process is what happens next. The development of these players over the next few years at the collegiate level will be fun to watch. Some will crash and burn while others (hopefully many of my players) rise to the top. Based on my current knowledge, I would not expect immediate success, but I learned a lot about deep devy leagues in this process and it is now a format I prefer over other dynasty leagues. Thanks to Scott Fish and Ryan McDowell I have expanded my home dynasty drafts to include devy players and the feedback from my league mates has been very positive. Developmental leagues adds a new twist to leagues and gives you more assets to trade and monitor keeping the league fresh and allowing members to develop multiple strategies over the course of many years.

Here are the results of the 16 round devy draft.

[/am4show]