Quote:2. Tell us about your draft class. Is there anything that makes it special in comparison to other classes? Where did your fellow draftees land, how are they doing? Did anyone turn out to be an unexpected steal of that draft based on what you know today? Do you think anyone in your draft class will become a hall of famer? If you’re new to the league, how do you think your class will do? Where do you think people will get drafted to?
Walrus Jones was the fifth selection in the S38 ISFL draft, and it’s absolutely the draft class that I follow the closest. For this task I decided to dive into the S38 players, and revisit the draft itself to look for any surprises or inconsistencies worth noting.
Differentiation
I think one big differentiator was the large number of offensive linemen to create this season, there were 6 at the peak in the week 1 rookie DSFL season. It looks like 1 inactive fell off the TPE tracker, and Painted Penguin still shows as a lineman even though he swapped over to quarterback after the draft. If you look at the class today, you still see 3 active offensive linemen earning at a high level. If no one swaps out, it may be the strongest OL class since S31, and could have more high (>1000 TPE) earners when it’s all said and done. The young players should all be coming into major starting assignments this upcoming season, and should do well protecting the large S37 quarterback class.
Overall Activity
The draft had 47 picks among approximately 56 eligible players. Of that 33 players have updated in the last month. I don’t know the exact size of the pool because there were multiple players drafted that no longer show up on the tracker, as an example pick number 40 (Bastian Weichselbraun) and pick number 46 (Toby Knerr). There are likely other players that got wiped out for some reason (freak retirement, inactivity, high crimes against the league). But this should be a decent indicator overall. 33 players are now over the DSFL point cap of 250 TPE. I don’t have data on how that compares with other classes, but it feels pretty good to have more than 2 full rounds of active players. 3 players that were selected on draft day are no longer playing, the aforementioned Weichselbraun and Knerr, and Aiden Frost. Frost was the Mr. Irrelevant in the class, even while sporting a high 207 TPE at the time. But he retired near the end of the following season, recreating for Season 40’s Xavier Frost.
Best Undrafted Player
2 players were active and undrafted, Monty Cooper and Amani Barney. Barney had 57 TPE at draft time, got signed by the Silverbacks and they were able to push him to earn through the first half of the season, getting him to 164 TPE. But he’s been inactive the last 6 weeks. Monty Cooper was undrafted with 52 TPE, got picked up by the Philadelphia Liberty, and started cranking out update posts. He retired for a day, but then came back and should be sitting at 171 pending the latest update. I will be watching to see how well he continues.
Best Third Rounder
I like the 3rd round because it highlights the true steals. Really active players go in the first, and the second is hit or miss, but with some of the players automatic General Manager picks, it skews things because the second half of the second round will always have top earners. Teams that use their 3rd round picks well can make the difference between team success and failure. There are 5 players that are over the DSFL cap and were drafted in the third round, a good measuring stick for success. The top of that list is Booter McGavin, who I thought could actually be a first round pick in my initial mock draft. He had high TPE, but as a Kicker with not a lot of demand that year, he fell far in the draft until the Sabercats took him at pick 32. Other players that have beaten the odds include Jimmy Jeeta (Sabercats at pick 36), David Doug (Butchers at pick 38), Bong Stevens (Yeti at pick 30) and Zero Gibson (Otters at pick 34).
Conclusion
It was a great draft to track my first season, see where everyone went, and now follow in the offseason. Most of the class should be entering the ISFL next season, and it will be fun to see who stays active, who racks up stats, and who makes an overall impact to the league in general. But in the end it’s all about the offensive linemen, because who doesn’t love the big boys?
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