Campus to Canton Series: Which Players Hit in the NFL?

Here at DLF, we strive to evolve and grow with the game of dynasty fantasy football. In that spirit, we have started a new article series, introducing the latest dynasty craze – Campus to Canton leagues. My goal is to start by focusing on the basics while establishing an understanding of how everything works. As we progress through the series, I aim to dive into strategies, player values, buys and sells, and more! If you’re new to C2C and missed the earlier parts of the series, make sure to go back and check them out, starting with part one.

Welcome back! If you’ve been keeping up with this series, you know that we’ve been focused on freshmen hit rates for the past couple of articles. Along the way, we’ve gained some insight into increasing our odds of hitting on a freshman player, but I felt like there’s still more to learn. While the previous articles focused on the recruits themselves, this time we’re turning our attention to the NFL. What better way to figure out who hits in the NFL, than by looking at who has hit in the NFL?

In order to do that, I utilized @FF_Spaceman’s NFL Database, which can be found on his Patreon account. I only took players who have had a top-24 fantasy football season in the past seven years. From that group of players, I narrowed it down to players who were drafted in or after the 2016 season, so we can look at the same time frame as the last article (2013 recruit class=2016 draft class). What we are left with is 128 players who have had at least a top-24 fantasy season, since being drafted. 77 of those 128 hit a top-12 and 42 hit a top-five season.