*Antonio Summer - S10 DSFL Draft Steals

~~mckee29~~ · 08-28-2018, 02:45 AM

Last night's DSFL Entry Draft was awesome, and I want to give a huge props to the production team that put together that awesome presentation with the player graphics, information, big board and commentary. It goes a long way to making the league more fun to be in, and it has my interest super peaked. I'm really impressed by the user base that I've seen in my time here so far, and it makes me want to stick around and keep going when I see that people can directly find value in my player based upon how active I am and the impact I make across the forums. I want to volunteer to help next year with the draft presentation on the technical side with stuff like designing the power point if there is any need for it. Anyways, I wanted to take a quick look at some of the top prospects who managed to fall way out of their ranking in this class, because I think there was a lot. I want to focus on three players in particular, and they span a variety of positions. Two of them are pretty obvious, while one might take you by surprise.

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3rd Place || Antonio Summer || 143 TPE
Portland Pythons || 3rd Round, 9th Overall

I think it's to no one's surprise that I would rank myself on here. I really thought I would go higher then I did, but in the end draft position doesn't really matter and it's more about how I act as a player and how well I do during the season. Being a third round pick at ninth overall just means that I have plenty of room to grow into and that the expectations won't be set as high of me as if I was a first round pick. This means that when I surpass those expectations and go on to be one of the best running backs of all time in both the DSFL and NSFL, people will look back and wonder where the other three teams' heads were at when they decided to skip over me in light of some scrub no one remembers. I do have to admit, this is a very strong class and there's a lot of people earning a lot of TPE so it will be a hard battle, but I'm hoping to try and stay in at least the top five earners in this group.

Anyways, the case for myself. In the two (maybe three?) weeks that I have been here, I have already grabbed an updater role, been active in the Portland locker room and league discord, made a ton of media posts, had communication with general managers, made some relationships, and am currently sitting at the top of my class in TPE (as far as I know although Sunnycursed might have me beat soon). To me, that's the makings of a first round draft pick. But, as was mentioned in the draft live stream, positional scarcity came into play a lot. Last season there were a lot of great running backs, and a number of them will be returning to the DSFL for a second season this year, meaning there wasn't a huge need for a running back of any kind. Regardless, I'm happy to be headed to a team where I feel I will get ample playing time for my skill.

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2nd Place || Kwame Abayomi Mbanefo || 141 TPE
Portland Pythons || 4th Round, 15th Overall

While I cannot pronounce this player's name, what I can pronounce is that outstanding TPE total. Considering this is a user who was around the site prior to this (or a recreate as you guys call it), I find it insane that he was able to fall all the way into the end of the fourth round and almost out of the active half of the draft considering he is right behind me in TPE, and was super active with all of his prospect analysis posts. Mbanefo is a strong defensive end player who will be a key part of any team's defense and is an absolute master of making crucial plays, so expect him to show up big for the Pythons this season. I think he definitely has the potential to be one of our top draft picks, and considering we also added some either high TPE players, the race between me, Sunnycursed, and Mbanefo will have to be friendly as we're all team mates.

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1st Place || Ryan Cobalt || 57 TPE
San Antonio Marshals || 7th Round, 25th Overall

You would have no idea that Cobalt wasn't a great prospect if you didn't know him, and I happen to have that personal connection with him seeing as I live with him. Tristan is a great guy and is super interested in the league but because of work and preparing to go back to school hasn't been around much, but he's constantly checking in with me as to how things are going. He's developing what I assume will be an awesome safety, and he specifically went run support so that he could line up against me as a strong safety which will be a fun match up all year. I am almost certain that I can keep him active in the league, and without a shadow of a doubt will he be at least a mediocre TPE earner and an active player. Ranking in at first overall, Cobalt gets to come out with a ton of room to prove himself.

So there you have it folks, the top three steals of this draft class. I don't think it will come a surprise to anyone that there was bound to be some considering the size of this class, but I'm just surprised that teams managed to players like myself and Mbanefo slip into the middle rounds when we had the most usability to go. Guess it's all in the learning curve.