Intro
(Rampage) Before I start this article, a big thank you to TheCC for organizing the whole thing and doing the majority of the legwork, and to Beefstu409 for coming up with the formulas that helped us rank everybody.
(CC) After we saw his media on “draft pick value”, we knew we HAD to recruit him to the project to help us with this. Plus, our formula was god awful. Beefstu’s first response after seeing our formula was “Alright wtf am I looking at”. He was also quoted as saying “I thought you were a programmer, shouldn’t you be good at math?”, “wtf is this ‘* 10’ in here?”, and “Yeah I think I can unfuck this.” So yeah, thanks for helping.
I (Rampage) only did a small portion of the work here, this was quite the undertaking and I’m thrilled to finally be putting all of CC’s findings together into something readable. So, what we attempted to do was both quantify what makes a draft steal and rank those steals according to the formula created by Stu. I’ll let him explain how he does it now.
(Stu) Using the adjusted Draft Pick Value Score which Beefstu409 developed, the players’ highest TPE was compared against their adjusted draft value for their class. This data spanned S15-S23. From this point the calculation is relatively simple. It takes the highest TPE per player and divides it by their draft value. That score is multiplied by the percentile they are (according to TPE) for their draft class. So if a player has the highest TPE in their class, they will earn 100% of their TPE per draft value score. All other players are graded according to their finish based on their class. After this calculation is completed there are bonus points for accolades won. These accolades award points as follows:
Pro bowl: 5 points
Positional awards: 10 points
Rookie of the year: 15 points
Defensive/Offensive Player of the year: 15 points
Most Valuable Player: 25 points
The "points" here are somewhat arbitrary but were used against the values of their base Draft Pick Score as calculated above. Because we felt accolades were less important in this measure than total TPE, they ended up being weighted lower as a percentage of the draft class. Accolades ended up accounting for about 13% of the total value of the entire set of players Draft Pick Score.
(Rampage n CC) Thank you for writing that up, Stu. One more thing that we should add is that our data doesn’t include every player. We removed players under a certain TPE threshold, which changed depending on how old the class was. Removing someone at 300 TPE seems fair for S15, but not so fair for S23. We also removed players that looked to be inactive as of sometime in July (I can’t remember when we did that). We didn’t have a hard and fast rule, we just went with what felt right. So, starting off with some basic numbers, the average value for the Draft Pick Score is 0.57. That is across every player we looked at across all drafts we surveyed through. For individual class scores, S15 started incredibly strong at 1.78, S16 was strong at 1.07, S17 came in at 0.87, S18 was slightly lower with 0.79, S19 dropped to a 0.69 (nice), S20 scored lower at 0.59, S21 really dropped with 0.47, S22 sank harder with 0.3`, and finally, S23 scored a 0.16, though I don’t think this result is really fair yet, as S23 hasn’t had the time to separate itself and see who’s the max earners and who falls off early.
So what do these numbers actually mean? It’s hard to quantify across an entire class, but it means a couple things. For a class like S16, both the TPE peaks and low-ish class size means someone like Kortesi, who went 19th overall, is a massive steal when you’re looking at a class of only 33 players. For classes like S22, it means some picks got overvalued, which we’ll see later, while others slipped through the cracks and made a roaring comeback.
So, to start out the deep dive into our dataset, let’s take a look at the top 15 draft steals of all time, according to our data. This shows a slight weakness in our formula, at least I think it does, because this list is largely made up of S22 players. Which makes sense, it’s by far the largest class in league history and some people inevitably fell way down the board due to stuff like draft need, but I still think it’s interesting nonetheless to see the biggest steals of all the drafts.
Top 15 (TheCC)
We’re going to go over a few different things during this article, but the first thing that we will look at will be the top 15 overall steals. This is regardless of draft class, position, etc. It’s just the top 15 draft steals among active ISFL players, S15 through S23.
#15: DT Daymond Brooks, Chicago Butchers, S22
User: ForSucksFake
ISFL Round 8, Pick 91
Peak TPE: 520
Draft Steal Score: 1.53
Our first draft steal of the list is an S22 draftee, and you had better get used to seeing the S22 people here. FSF was originally drafted as a wide receiver by the new at the time expansion team, the Honolulu Hahalua, but was traded to the Chicago Butchers this offseason, where he switched to defensive tackle. He is also possibly the greatest DSFL draft steal of all time, considering he was taken in the 26th round at pick 208. This is a great player, and an even better person. You should take the time to get to know FSF, he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. Just don’t take too much time from him, because I need my alone time with him. :eyes:
#14: RB Mathias Hanyadi, Yellowknife Wraiths, S18
User: CLG Rampage
ISFL Round 2, Pick 17
Peak TPE: 1133
Draft Steal Score: 1.55
Rampage might not want to talk about himself, but I do. He originally wanted to only do the top 10, to avoid putting himself here haha. One of only four players inside the top 15 that isn’t an S22 draftee, Mathias Hanyadi has quickly established himself as one of the greatest players of all time, in my opinion. He was a second round pick, which doesn’t scream “steal”. He has made it this high because of three things. One, the S18 class didn’t have a ton of picks. It’s not small, but there are several classes larger than it. Two, he has worked his ass off, max earning for several seasons to get to this point. And three, his MASSIVE trophy case doesn’t hurt at all, racking up 4 Pro Bowls, 3 Running Back of the Year awards, 2 Offensive Player of the Year awards, and most recently, he won 1 Most Valuable Player award en route to winning the Ultimus with his Yellowknife Wraiths in the most recent season. An absolute beast, not much of a surprise to see him here.
#13: TE Zee Rechs, Yellowknife Wraiths, S22
User: ZootTX
ISFL Round 9, Pick 107
Peak TPE: 383
Draft Steal Score: 1.60
The S22 draft class strikes again. I don’t know much about Zee Rechs, but having earned his way up to 383 TPE at pick 107 definitely warrants being called a steal.
#12: WR Sean Snyder, New Orleans Second Line, S22
User: DatSmolBoi
ISFL Round 9, Pick 108
Peak TPE: 387
Draft Steal Score: 1.67
Just two spots outside of the top ten is Sean Snyder with the user DatSmolBoi. I’ve seen DatSmolBoi around the league, but I don’t know much about him. Because of that, I was a little bit surprised to see him on here. I am pretty new to the league though, so it’s not too surprising to me that I don’t know everyone on this list.
#11: RB Jamar Lackson, San Jose Sabercats, S22
User: BenDover
ISFL Round 7, Pick 74
Peak TPE: 666
Draft Steal Score: 1.70
I’m not going to lie, I was expecting Jamar Lackson to end up higher on the list, if I’m being honest. When I started this project, I was definitely expecting him to be way up there, considering he is at or near the top of the S22 draft class in terms of TPE and earning. However, even if he isn’t near the very top, number 11 on our list is nothing to scoff at, considering there are 279 other players besides him in consideration. He also has some intangible things that aren’t really that easy to quantify, such as being the best sim tester in the league full stop. He is also one of the current General Managers of the Minnesota Grey Ducks, along with TheVoicelessCreator.
#10: QB Easton Cole, Austin Copperheads, S16
User: JKortesi81
ISFL Round 2, Pick 19
Peak TPE: 1358
Draft Steal Score: 1.79
Kicking off the top 10 is a quarterback that practically everybody knows about, Easton Cole. He comes in with the second most TPE in the top 15 players, and has had some decent success in the league with two pro bowl nods, even while playing at the same time as some of the other top quarterbacks in league history.
#9: RB Zed Keppler, Arizona Outlaws, S22
User: sayitundefined
ISFL Round 10, Pick 112
Peak TPE: 398
Draft Steal Score: 1.94
Zed Keppler was one of many S22 late bloomers. He didn’t do too well in terms of earning in his first season, but after being traded to the Minnesota Grey Ducks (from the Portland Pythons, I believe), he started earning like a madman. He became Minnesota’s lead back this season, and has just been called up to the big leagues, where he will join the Arizona Outlaws, who lost Baby Yoda to free agency.
#8: QB Franklin Armstrong, Orange County Otters, S15
User: moonlight
ISFL Round 3, Pick 28
Peak TPE: 1387
Draft Steal Score: 2.08
Arguably the greatest offensive player of the modern era, Armstrong also ranks extremely highly on our list, being one of only 8 players with a score above 2. Armstrong also has the most TPE among the players in the top 15. Orange County got very lucky by picking up Armstrong deep in the 3rd round in a fairly small draft class, and he’s paid off beyond their wildest imaginations. 3 MVPs, 3 Ultimus trophies and countless other awards skyrocket him up this list.
#7: QB Suleiman Ramza, Philadelphia Liberty, S22
User: Blasoon
ISFL Round 8, Pick 94
Peak TPE: 607
Draft Steal Score: 2.19
Suleiman Ramza (Blasoon) comes in as our second player with over a 2.0 draft steal score. He hasn’t been called up to the ISFL yet, and we don’t count DSFL awards in these rankings, but he already has quite the trophy case filled up. He has been to one DSFL Pro Bowl. He’s been named as the DSFL MVP and DSFL Quarterback of the Year one time each. He was also the quarterback of the SeaWolves when they managed to win the S23 Ultimini. He also holds a couple of franchise records for the Norfolk SeaWolves.
#6: K/P Jacob Small, Sarasota Sailfish, S22
User: bjkman
ISFL Round 10, Pick 110
Peak TPE: 460
Draft Steal Score: 2.25
Kickers and punters are people too! The Brand would be proud of this one, being the only representative of the ISFL’s most endangered species: the K/P. There are only 12 starting spots available, so you have to be good to stick somewhere as a K/P. Jacob Small has been great, earning enough TPE (and a Pro Bowl nod) to land him just outside of the top five.
#5: S Jamie Nkiah, Sarasota Sailfish, S20
User: Drizzy
ISFL Round 4, Pick 33
Peak TPE: 804
Draft Steal Score: 2.60
The Draft Steal Score makes a jump here, going up by almost .4 points between Jacob Small and Jamie Nkiah. Nkiah is the only player in the top five that isn’t an S22 draftee, so he can be proud of that. He may not seem like a steal at first glance, considering he was drafted at pick 33. Once you notice that his class only had 40 players in it, it becomes more clear that he’s a top tier steal.
#4: TE Von Hayes, Chicago Butchers, S22
User: LimJahey
ISFL Round 10, Pick 114
Peak TPE: 526
Draft Steal Score: 3.00
I’m (TheCC) not trying to be a homer, but there are a lot of Chicago Butchers picks in the top 50. Muford and Bayley did a great job, especially seeing that they ended up drafting two of the top five greatest steals of all time...in the same draft class! Von Hayes doesn’t only bring it in the spreadsheet, where he is our first player in the top 15 with at least a 3.0 draft score, but he’s also one of the funniest guys in the locker room, and he’s just a lot of fun to be on a team with. He’s also a big “team first” player, proving that by switching to an offensive lineman position this offseason, making fellow Butchers tight end Tree Gelbman the lone player at the position. Von Hayes deserves this slot.
#3: CB Jim Waters, Honolulu Hahalua, S22
User: siddhus
ISFL Round 10, Pick 109
Peak TPE: 585
Draft Steal Score: 3.14
I (TheCC) haven’t met or talked to siddhus myself, but anytime I talked about this project with people, they would always assume that Jim Waters was the greatest steal of all time. He’s always being talked about in the upper echelon of steals, and that is definitely a fair assessment, considering he is tied for second place.
#2: TE Clark Boyd, Sarasota Sailfish, S22
User: Cheech65
ISFL Round 11, Pick 122
Peak TPE: 481
Draft Steal Score: 3.31
Clark Boyd is the other end of the tie for second place in our rankings. He is the second lowest drafted player on our list, and has earned very well. He actually comes in with a tie with the number one player on the list in terms of Peak TPE, with 481. I don’t know Clark Boyd, but I’m guessing he was in a similar situation as the number one player - pretty much inactive during his first DSFL season, causing him to fall to the inactives, and then started earning well after the draft.
#1: CB Tyron Shields, Chicago Butchers, S22
User: TheCC
ISFL Round 11, Pick 126
Peak TPE: 481
Draft Steal Score: 3.81
This was unexpected, to say the least. Beefstu can attest to the fact that he tried his hardest to knock me down from the #1 spot, but he couldn’t find a good way to do it. I had nothing to do with the formula here. I just had the idea, procured the data, and helped guide the project. This is a huge jump, with a difference of .5 Draft Steal Score points between #2 and #1. I’ll be honest, this is the whole reason I started this project. I deserved my draft position at Round 11 pick 126. I was pretty much inactive at the time of my draft. I had hoped that I’d go undrafted so that I wouldn’t waste some team’s draft pick, because I didn’t realize every player was drafted. After being drafted, I decided that I was going to make it my goal to become the greatest draft steal of all time. So I started earning. I don’t want to sit here and brag, but now I’m a bonafide tier 6 equipment buying, media writing, double war room member, max earner. Speaking of the war room thing, after being added to CHI’s war room, HEOB told me to search my name. It was hilarious, the day after my draft, Muford and Bayley said “holy shit, our 11th round pick just came online and did all the TPE opportunities.” haha. Anyway, I started this project a couple of months ago to see where the bar was. If I wanted to be the greatest draft steal of all time, I needed to see what I was up against. I wanted to see what I was shooting for. Now, this whole thing that we are doing is subjective, and you could probably come up with a solid formula that doesn’t have me at the top, but our formula says that I’ve already made it, even if we don’t count my Pro Bowl selection. I’m not planning on slowing down anytime soon though, so the rest of you better keep earning if you want to catch me!
Top Steals per Draft Class (TheCC)
As you probably noticed, the top 15 is mostly dominated by the S22 draft class. This is mostly due to the fact that the class is so big, therefore the S22 draft class just makes up a bigger percentage of the league than any other draft classes do. So let’s look at the top three steals from each of the nine draft classes that we took into consideration.S15
#3: TE Jammerson Irving, San Jose Sabercats, S15
User: contacts
ISFL Round 5, Pick 41
Peak TPE: 800
Draft Steal Score: 1.17
#2: LB Mo Berry, Colorado Yeti, S15
User: Frick_Nasty
ISFL Round 2, Pick 11
Peak TPE: 1344
Draft Steal Score: 1.50
#1: QB Franklin Armstrong, Orange County Otters, S15
User: moonlight
ISFL Round 3, Pick 28
Peak TPE: 1387
Draft Steal Score: 2.08
Some big names here. We already talked about Franklin Armstrong in the top 10, but Mo Berry barely missed the top 15 overall, coming in ranked at #16 in our overall draft steal rankings. Jammerson, a tight end with a trophy case that is overflowing, was the ranked #27 in the overall rankings, which isn’t bad at all.
S16
#3: WR Hugh Mongo, Orange County Otters, S16
User: speculadora
ISFL Round 2, Pick 18
Peak TPE: 1212
Draft Steal Score: 1.23
#2: QB Wolfie McDummy, Colorado Yeti, S16
User: infinitempg
ISFL Round 2, Pick 14
Peak TPE: 1404
Draft Steal Score: 1.41
#1: QB Easton Cole, Austin Copperheads, S16
User: JKortesi81
ISFL Round 2, Pick 19
Peak TPE: 1358
Draft Steal Score: 1.79
These are some highly touted players who have been at the top of their game for a long time. QB Easton Cole was in our top 15, but QB Wolfie McDummy and WR Hugh Mongo are sitting at #18 and #24, respectively, in the overall rankings.
S17
#3: CB Mervin Leonard, Yellowknife Wraiths, S17
User: hihihi_62
ISFL Round 1, Pick 6
Peak TPE: 1236
Draft Steal Score: 0.66
#2: DT Bubba Thumper, Colorado Yeti, S17
User: woelker11
ISFL Round 1, Pick 2
Peak TPE: 1352
Draft Steal Score: 0.74
#1: WR Saba Donut, Arizona Outlaws, S17
User: SabaDonutMan
ISFL Round 1, Pick 9
Peak TPE: 1178
Draft Steal Score: 0.88
This is a class that has pretty much nothing in the way of steals. This isn’t a knock on the class, necessarily, because CB Mervin Leonard, DT Bubba Thumper, and WR Saba Donut are all fantastic players and should all garner HoF consideration, I think. However, when your top 3 steals in the class are all 1st rounders drafted in the top 10, it shows that there weren’t too many steals. They are also a part of a very small class, with only 56 players total, which doesn’t help. Anyway, Mervin Leonard was #83, Bubba Thumper was #67, and Saba Donut was ranked #42 in the draft steal rankings.
S18
#3: OL Givussafare Rubbe, New Orleans Second Line, S18
User: caltroit_red_flames
ISFL Round 4, Pick 34
Peak TPE: 1208
Draft Steal Score: 1.25
#2: QB Jay Cue, Arizona Outlaws, S18
User: Opera_Phantom
ISFL Round 2, Pick 18
Peak TPE: 1339
Draft Steal Score: 1.23
#1: RB Mathias Hanyadi, Yellowknife Wraiths, S18
User: CLG Rampage
ISFL Round 2, Pick 17
Peak TPE: 1133
Draft Steal Score: 1.55
These are some of the current game’s biggest superstars. OL Givussafare Rubbe is one of the greatest offensive linemen in ISFL history, and is ranked at #25. QB Jay Cue is in the conversation for the best player in the league currently, and sits at #23. All time great RB Mathias Hanyadi was in the top 15, so we already talked about him. I’d also like to give a shout out to one of my best friends that I’ve made in the league, Baltimore Hawks Co-GM and former Minnesota Grey Ducks GM Dewalt27 (WR Asher Quinn), who was #4 in the rankings of S18. He actually would have made the top 3, had Mathias Hanyadi not racked up so many awards in his career.
S19
#T2: TE Austin McCormick, New Orleans Second Line, S19
User: Nokazoa
ISFL Round 1, Pick 3
Peak TPE: 986
Draft Steal Score: 0.78
#T2: TE Avon Blocksdale Jr., Philadelphia Liberty, S19
User: iamslm22
ISFL Round 2, Pick 17
Peak TPE: 724
Draft Steal Score: 0.78
#1: QB Brock Phoenix, Philadelphia Liberty, S19
User: Leafs4ever
ISFL Round 2, Pick 20
Peak TPE: 1018
Draft Steal Score: .83
This class has two players from the Philadelphia Liberty, which is pretty impressive. Two of the players are tight ends as well, which is kind of cool to see. TE Austin McCormick was ranked at #60. TE Avon Blocksdale Jr. was ranked at #51 overall. Lastly, but not leastly, Liberty QB Brock Phoenix sits in the rankings at #19.
S20
#3: LB Galf Wilf, Arizona Outlaws, S20
User: Moosecop
ISFL Round 2, Pick 17
Peak TPE: 777
Draft Steal Score: 0.83
#2: K/P Venus Powers, Honolulu Hahalua
User: Baron1898
ISFL Round 2, Pick 17
Peak TPE: 947
Draft Steal Score: 0.91
#1: S Jamie Nkiah, Sarasota Sailfish, S20
User: Drizzy
ISFL Round 4, Pick 33
Peak TPE: 804
Draft Steal Score: 2.60
S20 has one of the best steals of all time in it. Other than that, these are some solid players, but not super late picks, so I wouldn’t call S20 a great steal class. LB Galf Wilf is ranked at #52. K/P Venus Powers is sitting at #40. S Jamie Nkiah is an all time great steal that is ranked in the top 5, so he was talked about earlier.
S21
#3: DE Logan Noble Jr, Honolulu Hahalua, S21
User: ItsJustBarry
ISFL Round 6, Pick 52
Peak TPE: 594
Draft Steal Score: 0.73
#2: QB George O’Donnell, Chicago Butchers, S21
User: Leafer
ISFL Round 5, Pick 47
Peak TPE: 747
Draft Steal Score: 0.80
#1: TE James Lewandowski, Baltimore Hawks, S21
User: 3lewsers
ISFL Round 7, Pick 65
Peak TPE: 518
Draft Steal Score: 0.88
S21 wasn’t a great year for steals, which is strange since it was a fairly large class. Still some good players, though. DE Logan Noble Jr is ranked at #71. My Chicago Butchers (and fantasy football) QB George O’Donnell is sitting pretty at rank #59 in the steal rankings. And TE James Lewandowski is #41.
S22
#3: CB Jim Waters, Honolulu Hahalua, S22
User: siddhus
ISFL Round 10, Pick 109
Peak TPE: 585
Draft Steal Score: 3.14
#2: TE Clark Boyd, Sarasota Sailfish, S22
User: Cheech65
ISFL Round 11, Pick 122
Peak TPE: 481
Draft Steal Score: 3.31
#1: CB Tyron Shields, Chicago Butchers, S22
User: TheCC
ISFL Round 11, Pick 126
Peak TPE: 481
Draft Steal Score: 3.81
S22, the year of the steal. My draft class lit up the board, with 11 players in the top 15 rankings earlier. This means we talked about these three players already, because coincidentally, they are also the top 3 steals among active players.
S23
#3: WR Videl-San
User: ValorX77
ISFL Round 3, Pick 36
Peak TPE: 482
Draft Steal Score: 0.42
#2: S Philip Stein, San Jose Sabercats, S23
User: IHateBobNutting
ISFL Round 4, Pick 42
Peak TPE: 440
Draft Steal Score: 0.44
#1: RB Danny King, London Royals, S23
User: DanE got dis
ISFL Round 5, Pick 59
Peak TPE: 482
Draft Steal Score: 0.52
By the numbers, S23 was a horrid year for steals. It wasn’t a small draft class, so that wasn’t the problem. I do believe that the only reason that these scores are so low is because they are such new players. These scores will increase with time, because Peak TPE plays a role in the formula. Maybe we should have left this class out, but we wanted to include everybody that we could, especially because I have some S23 friends that really wanted to see where they ended up. This also gives us an idea of who the biggest steals may be down the line, as well. WR Videl-San is ranked #134. An ex teammate of mine on the Minnesota Grey Ducks, S Philip Stein is ranked #126. One of the DSFL’s best RBs, Danny King, is ranked #106.
Draft Steals Per Position (TheCC)
In this small section, I just wanted to quickly break down the number of players at each position inside the top 50, because why not and also a few more words.QB - 7
RB - 9
WR - 10
TE - 5
OL - 2
DE - 2
DT - 1
LB - 3
CB - 4
S - 3
K/P - 3
Wow, a fairly overwhelming amount of the top 50 players play offensive positions. I’m guessing that this is just because offensive positions are more popular for users to choose to play, meaning that there are more active players at offensive positions rather than defense. I unfortunately don’t have any data to back this up. I wasn’t surprised to see the defensive tackles only have 1 player, and that player actually just switched from wide receiver to defensive tackle last week. I was slightly more surprised to see defensive ends and linebackers only have 2 and 3 players, respectively. They seem to get the most stats on defense, so I expected them to have more players. We can speculate, but we don’t actually know why these numbers are what they are. They are kind of interesting to see though.
Outro (Rampage)
And that’s all, folks! There was more that I wanted to do with this data, including a draft busts section. The biggest issue with that would be that picks that objectively are not busts, such as Mo Magic and Magnus Rikiya ended up on the list, due to low-ish peaks while also being top 5 draft picks. Maybe in the future we can create a dedicated formula for draft busts, but what we have right now just doesn’t take enough into consideration for me to put that list together. I also wanted to do the top steals from each team, but the issue with that is a lot of players have shifted teams, and with how late I’m trying to finish this document to get in under the draft media bonus, cross referencing would take too much time with CC being out mountain biking most of the day and me doing kayaking for most of the day. We will, however, be releasing a copy of our spreadsheet for everyone to look at, and maybe our work will spawn some side projects like that draft bust thing I was talking about.And one more thing. If you don’t like your score, just remember that this is a numerical formula, not a true ranking of the best draft steals in the ISFL. While I like to think our formula is pretty sound, there are some cases where it isn’t the best, but this is what we were able to come up with in a short period of time. There are things to take into account when talking about draft steals like position, the user behind the player, whether or not they became a GM, whether they sim test, so many things to take into account that are pretty much impossible to both know and represent numerically. This is just cold, hard math, looking purely at TPE, draft position, the value of the pick in question and a handful of other things.
I do hope you enjoy everything we’ve written out here today! This was a truly massive undertaking, big thank you to Beefstu again for creating a much better formula than what we had before. And thank you to CC for letting me onto this project and for doing the bulk of the data collection, this was his project first and foremost so he deserves a lot of props for making it happen.
The spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing
Please split this 40% for me, 30% for CLG Rampage, and 30% for Beefstu409.