Tag: Draft

The draft entrance survey makes an eagerly awaited, and mildly abridged, return for 2024. I asked all the GMs a few questions about the upcoming draft and, of those who bothered to answer, all but one trusted me not to look at those answers. However, the delay in getting this up and out to you all is only partially down the need to track down the elusive password.

First up, for the third time in a row, it’s the ‘Predict the First Round’ round, with 5 points for an exact match, 3 for a close(ish) match and a single point if the player at least went in the first round, but you weren’t that close. Kelkowski comes into the 2024 on the back of winning in 2022 and jointly winning in 2023. Will they make it a three-peat? There are two other pertinent records – only once before has someone got all ten players that were taken in the first round right, and the most points anyone has got is 33, by Kelkowski in 2022. Will those come into play, or does Checkhov’s meaningless draft survey gun mean nothing to me? Read on…

There we have it. Perhaps a measure of how locked in this draft was, with some clear talent at the top and then a whole load of shit no one wanted later on. Three GMs beat the old record, while the Bombermen named all 10 players to go in the first round. But our 2024 draft prediction champ is Chris of the Hard, narrowly pipping perennial draft prognosticator Ian, of Kelkowksi fame.

A handful of minor observations – Tamworth having 2 QBs in the first round, which I don’t think has ever happened; Losers had Corum as the first RB going, when he was actually the third at slot 2.05; everyone nailed the first overall pick, which weasn’t difficult, and all but one Nabers and Odunze in either second or third, with the Brees thinking Worthy would make it to third on the back of being drafted by the Chiefs; the Hurricanes were the only team to think a defensive player was going in the first round, and they doubled down on that; and finally, TT thought Troy Franklin was going 5th to the Brees, when actually he went 28th to Kelkowski. Would love to know where that came from.

2) If everything breaks right for you, who would you come away with with each of your first 5 picks? Be realistic, no picking the top 5 players in the draft.

Last year there was plenty of delusion – from the Bombermen thinking Anthony Richardson might fall to the top of the fifth round (actually 1.07), to other people thinking players would fall later in the draft too (but none were quite as optimistic as the Bombermen). Let’s see if anyone was more realistic this time?

Starting with the Tamworth Two…

Pretty reasonable, really. Except failing to nominate players for the later picks. And even managed to get Javon Baker a round later than hoped for. Not massively far out on the top two wide receivers – the exercise is about ‘if everything breaks right for you’ after all, rather than being 100% realistic.

Right, onto the Losers…

Again, a pretty reasonable set of hopes there – maybe even pessimistic given some of the desired players didn’t go until later. The Losers gave up Brandin Cooks to the Dungeoneers in order to take Kneeland at 5.01, but obviously that slot wasn’t on the prediction list.

Someone who definitely wasn’t pessimistic in their approach to this exercise was Neil of the Hurricanes. It’s possible to argue he was a little too optimistic, mind you.

I mean, there’s ‘everything breaking right for you’ and a near universal top 3 pick falling to 6th, the consensus top running back falling to the middle of the second, and possibly the two most desirable defensive players falling to the third and fourth rounds. But hey, we can all dream, I suppose.

Falling somewhere in between reasonable and in-what-world-was-that-going-to-happen is the Hard.

It might be interesting in the locker room for Odunze to find out Nabers was the desired pick, but calling the Bowers trade and pick was good. The delusion comes in when we look at that last pick – Byron Murphy. He turned out to be the first defensive player taken as 2.01 and I struggle to imagine a world where he made it out of round 2, let alone the end of the fourth.

The Brees! They clearly didn’t really know what they wanted beyond the first round, where they were just pipped…

Disappointing lack of thought when it came to the later picks, and disappointing they didn’t leap on Corley in the third, for reasons we’ll come to, when we talk about the Bombermen. But that will have to wait.

Why? Because now it’s time for the Bombermen.

Three of the four picks they missed out on were players taken only a few picks earlier, perhaps most notably Edgerin Cooper, being sniped at 3.05. Marshawn Lloyd is the only stretch there. In a better draft class for RBs I could see him falling further, but it was rather a weak one so it’s understandable he went where he did.

Finally it’s Kelkowski, who were probably just as frustrated as the Bombermen with the amount of sniping that went on…

Missed out on two players by one slot, though it’s possible they got the better fantasy QB in Daniels than the man they’d hoped for at 2.08.

Q3-5) Stuff ’bout tradin’, innit.

It’s at this point that we bid a fond farewell to Kelkowski, who declined to answer any further questions.

What we wanted to know was how many trades would take place, which pick would be the earliest traded, and any other comments. So here we go:

Very optimistic that there would be 10 trades. As it turned out, there were but 4. Chris was, perhaps unsurprisingly, most accurate in which pick would be the first to go, given he traded for 1.04 using 1.10. The Hurricanes got the number of trades right, while the Bombermen were kind of vaguely vindicated with the comments.

Q6) Which position are you most keen to pick up to be a contributor for this season?

Looks like the Losers and Tamworth did the best at fulfilling what they were hoping for, with everyone else getting a bit of it but perhaps not being fully satisfied with the hauls.

Q7) Which player are you most keen to get/most likely to reach for?

It’s not often I am filled with utter contempt for my fellow GMs – once or twice a week max (not Max), during the offseason is all, but I have been seething since I read some of these responses.

This question, on the questionnaire, has the following small print (now appearing as big print):

This is about the player your most likely to take too early just in case someone else gets in there before you. You shouldn’t name anyone you think will go in the first 2 rounds.

THE ONLY POSSIBLE WAY ODUNZE COULD REMOTELY HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED A REACH IS IF HE WENT 1 OVERALL, AND EVEN THEN THERE WOULD BE WAYS TO JUSTIFY IT.

I suppose another way might have been to spend a shit load of picks to move up and get him, but then that’s an overpay, not a reach. Ben, Stew and Neil need to look at the other players named, read that small print, and think long and hard about what they’ve done wrong.

Q8) Who will be the first QB taken, and with which pick?

Possibly the most boring question (hotly contested title) with the Bombermen and Brees being equally close and the Hurricanes being way off.

I’ve said Williams at 1.09 above, but I would not be surprised if Daniels was the one to go because of the running threat. I also don’t feel great about him going in the first round. I feel like I’m out of step with the league’s ratings of QBs. I don’t think there’s great value in taking one in the first, but it feels like someone always goes earlier than I expect.
Bombermen GM, Benjamin Hendy

Q9) Who will be the first defensive player taken and when will they go?

No one got the player, but no one was that far out slot-wise…

Probably Laiatu Latu, on the basis of him being the first defensive player taken in the actual draft. Probably 2.04?
Hard GM, Chris Braithwaite

Laiatu Latu – we quite often follow NFL draft order and he was the first one off the board landing in a spot where he’ll be able to rush the passer as a primary threat. Late in the second, I was going to say 19th, but that’s my pick and I won’t be taking him, so 18th.
Losers GM, David Slater

Q10-12) Winners, Losers and Self-Assessment

Some comments on winners:

Probably Adam, on the basis of having the #1 pick – Chris, Hard GM

Either Chris or Adam – two top 10 picks for Chris will give him a good chance to land two guys, and if Adam gets a good player who’s fallen at 11 (e.g. Jonathon Brooks) that’ll be a great looking opening – Dave, Losers GM

Adam makes a spectacular entrance by winning the draft, basically because he got Harrison jnr – Ben, Bombermen GM

Comments on losers (not Losers):

Goody. He doesn’t have a 1st round pick, has lots of holes and a tendency to reach – Chris, Hard GM

TT because they don’t have a first round pick and some of you don’t get that you should judge a team’s draft based on the capital they had coming in – Ben, Bombermen GM

And some self-assessment comments:

Near the bottom – always do due to fewer picks – James, Tamworth GM

Probably about 4th, unless I can swing a trade to get 2 of the top 4 – Chris, Hard GM

I’ve got the 9th pick, so I’m fighting an uphill battle – Slatz, Losers GM

Solidly mid-table – Ben, Bombermen GM

Q13) How long will the draft last?

The only question that matters, and it was closely fought this year with two GMs just 5 seconds apart, while the Bombermen did their best to elongate the draft as much as possible to almost twice as long as they had predicted.

So the Hard were closest by those extra five seconds.

It did not go unnoticed that the two closest guesses were basically 876 and 8765.

So there we have it. The entrance survey is over, and with no comments expressing frustration with any of the questions or the overall duration. Which was a pleasant surprise.

The 2023 Dynabowl Draft Exit Survey

July 30, 2023

Chris Braithwaite

Rating our own drafts

First up, lets do a quick summary of how everyone thought they did. Here’s how we each rated our own draft (except Pete and Max):

Team	Rating	Comments
Brees	6	It was fine. Always going to be tough at 10th pick and no 3rd round pick. Missed out on a few players we wanted, but also think we got some decent picks on off and def
T2	6	Very few picks, and the offensive targets taken off the board early. Saying that, I did get a couple of my targets for D. So 8/10 on that side but 4/10 on the Offence.
Sadness	4	I’m not excited by any of the players I’ve drafted
Losers	8	Went better than I expected
Hurricanes	4	Average
Bombermen	9	Beyond trading a handful of magic beans for Bijan, I don’t think it could have gone much better really. Sure, there were some long shot running backs I’d been keen on picking up later who went earlier than I expected/hoped, but I think my top 7 picks all stand a chance of being starters by the end of year two and then I like the wildcards I picked up. I don’t have expectations for any of them to be starters, really, but as lottery tickets, I think they’re decent.
Kelkowski	6	Tried to trade with Neil for Bijan. Should have pushed harder. Besides that got some of my main targets but missed out on a couple I really wanted that just didn’t fall to me
Dyna Hard	8	I got Bijan which starts me at a 10. But I reached on Richardson, Downs (I think, I had him as a late 1st talent, but thought I could have got him in the 3rd) and Musgrave, which knocks a couple of marks off for me.

So that’s only Neil and Mike who think they didn’t do at least above average. We’ll see how that chimes with what the rest of the league thought.

As to players people missed out on, only one player got two mentions: Chase Brown. Beyond that, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Anthony Richardson, Jalen Carter, Jalin Hyatt and Tyler Scott each got a nod.

I asked people about overall philosophy. A couple of people mentioned BPA, a couple mentioned focusing on need, and then we had a few people focusing on stocking up at different positions: QB (twice), RB (twice), WR (twice), TE, DE, DT and “all defenders”, so literally everything bar kicker and punter. Which is probably a) why everyone is relatively happy with their draft as we weren’t really competing with each other and b) why Pete ended up with a kicker and a punter.

Right, that’s enough for overview, let’s get on to where we slated each other’s picks. I’ve decided to do some tables even though LibreOffice is fucking useless with them.

Pete

As always, I’m starting with Pete because his team gets listed first and I don’t know why that is. I’m just bitter about always having to scroll right to the bottom of things to see my team.

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	1.02 Jaxon Smith-Njigba WR (7 votes)	2.02 Kendre Miller RB (1)
Best value	Kendre Miller (4)	3.02 Marvin Mims WR (3)
Worst value	4.02 Zach Evans RB Marvin Mims (2)	5.02 Israel Abanikanda RB 5.11 Siaki Ika DT 5.12 Mazi Smith DT Kendre Miller (1)
Likely bust	Marvin Mims (5)	Kendre Miller (2)
Sleeper	7.02 Jordan Battle S (7)	8.02 Ethan Evans P (2)

Always a good start when your first 2 picks split votes for best player, and then your 2^nd and 3^rd picks are hailed as good value (although possibly a warning sign that you didn’t really get a standout pick). With pretty much every pick getting a vote for worst value, either that means it was a tough call to find bad value or you screwed up the whole draft. Jordan Battle seems to be well liked as a potential sleeper. So all in all, it seems a solid draft but probably unspectacular draft. And that’s what our ratings said: an average of 6, with a low of 4 and high of 8.

That’s reflected in the comments. If there was a word cloud it would say “safe”, “solid”, “good”, “decent” in big letters and not much else. JSN seemed to be his most controversial pick based on the comments, as a couple of people questioned taking him over Gibbs or looking to trade down (or at least questioned whether we should question it, which is far too meta at this point of the analysis). Given the absolute lack of trades and the general consensus that Pete is rebuilding, taking a WR seems sensible to me.

Ben and Stew

Reigning champions, do we think they are building a dynasty or, like Brees himself, are they destined to pad their stats for the rest of their career?

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	2.10 Bryce Young QB(4)	1.10 Zach Charbonnet RB (3)
Best value	8.10 BJ Ojulari DE Zach Charbonnet (2)	4.10 Myles Murphy DE 6.18 AT Perry WR Bryce Young (1)
Worst value	Bryce Young (4)	Zach Charbonnet (2)
Likely bust	Zach Charbonnet Bryce Young Myles Murphy (3)	No one
Sleeper	BJ Ojulari (4)	7.10 Ji’Ayir Brown S (3)

The analysis here is very simple. We loved Bryce Young and Zach Charbonnet, we thought that Zach Charbonnet and to a lesser extent Bryce Young were good value, we though that Bryce Young and to a lesser extent Zach Charbonnet were bad value, and we think that Charbonnet and Young will be busts. Or good. BJ Ojulari got 2 votes for best player but only 4 people thought he’d be useful, so I guess there was a pretty wide divergence of opinion on him. The voting seems to back up our nonplussed opinion of this draft, with an average of 4.9, with a high of 7 and a low of 2, against his own rating of 6.

The comments seem to flag up that its tricky having the #10 pick: 6 comments, and 4 mentioned the challenge of picking at 10. Won’t someone think of the poor champions? And hey, two people did! Interestingly one person (I think it was Slatz, but I can’t be arsed actually checking) referred to Bryce Young as a “low-upside QB”, which I think is a bit harsh. I see him more as a high downside QB, with his tiny frame, but if he stays healthy he could be Burrow or Herbert level.

Tamworth Two

He came into the draft with the least amount of capital, what did we think?

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	3.07 Tyjae Spears RB 4.07 Calijah Kancey DT 6.07 Luke Schoonmaker TE (2)	5.07 Emmanuel Forbes CB (1)
Best value	Luke Schoonmaker (5)	6.06 Adetomiwa Adebawore DT Tyjae Spears (1)
Worst value	Emmanuel Forbes (6)	Tyjae Spears (1)
Likely bust	Tyjae Spears (4)	Emmanuel Forbes (3)
Sleeper	7.07 Sydney Brown S (5)	8.07 SirVocea Dennis LB 9.07 Ventrell Miller LB (2)

I feel like its not looking good for Goody here. When your 6^th round pick ties in the vote for best player, either you got the best steal since Tom Brady, or no one liked your early picks. Everyone agreed Schoonmaker was great value though. And everyone (bar one mad person who called him best player, but I thought Pete and his CB fetish didn’t vote?) thought Forbes was bad value. But Sydney Brown is another safety that we liked as a late pick.

Goody came out with an average of 4.5, with a high of 7 and a low of 1, against his own rating of 6. I think “divisive” is the best word for this one. One person called the draft “fucking amazing”, one person called it solid. But then three panned it, saying that it was “awful”, that there was a lack of contributors in the draft, and lots of contenders for worst value. But well done everyone for factoring in draft capital – pretty much everyone mentioned the lack thereof in their comment.

Mike

We’re four teams in and I’ve already run out of intro material. This is promising.

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	2.04 Dalton Kincaid TE (6)	3.04 Drew Sanders LB (2)
Best value	Dalton Kincaid Drew Sanders 7.04 Devon Witherspoon CB (2)	6.14 Keion White DT 5.04 Nolan Smith DE (1)
Worst value	Drew Sanders 4.04 Cedric Tillman WR 1.04 Zay Flowers WR (2)	6.04 Sean Tucker RB 8.04 Gervon Dexter DT (1)
Likely bust	None of the above (4)	Zay Flowers (2)
Sleeper	Devon Witherspoon (6)	9.04 Keaton Mitchell RB 10.04 Bryce Ford-Wheaton WR 12.04 Jammie Robinson S (1)

Kincaid seems pretty universally liked, while Sanders feels divisive – 2 calls for best player, 2 for best value, and 2 for worst value. The lack of mention of their 1^st round pick until worst value feels worrying, but at the same time Flowers only taking away two votes in that category makes it seem like its possible that pick was fine, its just that they picked up better players later on. And Devon Witherspoon seems to be adored. If you all like him so much, why didn’t you pick him?

The grading supports the general positive vibes: an average of 7.4, with a high of 9 and a low of 4, against his own rating of 4. Yes, we all like the players that Mike drafted far more than Mike, who drafted them, did. He was the only person to outperform his own rating by more than 0.1, and did it by 3.4 points. Cheer up mate. Maybe some of these comments will help: “Well done Mike, you bastard.” “I like a lot of this.” “Took a few from me when I was lining them up.” “Considered and strong.” “Really solid middle section.” (I think those last two are still about the draft, but they might be a personal reviews)

Slatz

Slatz thought he was a big winner in the draft. Did everyone else think he was a loser?

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	1.09 Jalen Carter DT (3)	2.01 Devon Achane RB (2)
Best value	3.09 Michael Mayer TE (5)	4.09 Daiyan Henley LB 7.09 Will Levis QB (1)
Worst value	Jalen Carter (3)	Devon Achane Will Levis (2)
Likely bust	Devon Achane (5)	Michael Mayer (3)
Sleeper	Will Levis (4)	10.09 Ivan Pace LB (2)

Another interestingly divisive one. Carter heads up the list for best player and worst value, with Achane just behind him in both. Mayer gets the nod for best value but also solid consideration for most likely to bust. Depending who you ask, Will Levis is good value, bad value, a sleeper, or a freak who puts mayo in his coffee.

That all led to a very wide range of scores. An average of 5.6, with a high of 9 and a low of 1, against his own score of 8. One person called it a disappointing first 3 rounds, but one person said great early picks and then tailed off. One person called Achane a great pick, one called him a waste of a pick. One loved him getting Carter, one said it was bad value. One called it a bumper crop, one said he was picking players they weren’t interested in. If his draft was an equation, it’d all cancel out and just leave an equals sign.

Neil

I think its fair to say that Neil’s trade of the #1 pick is going to be a defining factor in this section.

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	5.05 DeWayne McBride RB (3)	2.09 Rashee Rice WR (2)
Best value	DeWayne McBride (3)	3.06 Chase Brown RB (2)
Worst value	4.01 CJ Stroud QB Rashee Rice Chase Brown (2)	3.01 Tyree Wilson DE (1)
Likely bust	Rashee Rice Chase Brown (4)	Tyree Wilson (3)
Sleeper	9.01 Jatavius Martin S (4)	None of the above (2)

I think at this point I should say that I haven’t looked at the results before writing this up, and I write up this section first before looking at the overall scores and comments. But I get the feeling Neil is going to be in for a rough ride here. He came into the draft with the #1 pick and the consensus best player he drafted was at pick 45. Chase Brown is oddly divisive. Remember two people called him someone they wanted and didn’t get. Maybe those two people are the two who voted him best value, and everyone else called him either bad value or a likely bust (or both). Maybe it was the same two people who absolutely loved him? Tyree Wilson doesn’t seem to be as beloved by us as by the NFL though. But we all seem to like some DeWayne McBride, even if all he’s taught me is that I just cannot type DeWayne right at the first time of asking.

I’m not sure if Neil’s scores are divisive or just have one outlier. He got an average of 2.7, with a low of 1 and a high of 8 (the next highest was 3), against his own rating of 4. Trading away #1 seems to be the focus of the ire here: most people mentioned that trade as a negative (and one person basically just typed F over and over again, which I assume wasn’t a positive). People also didn’t like his trade in the 6^th round, but I think at least part of that is that people were allergic to trading in this draft. But three people said that they actually liked his picks. I think one person summed it up very nicely: “the picks he made were fine, the picks he didn’t make were awful.”

Benj

Benj gave himself the highest rating of anyone at 9, so lets see if we agree. He’s probably helped himself, because Benj is the first person so far to fail to skip the section marking his own draft. I can’t be bothered to try to take his ratings out of it though.

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	1.03 Jahmyr Gibbs RB (5)	3.03 Jalin Hyatt WR (2)
Best value	Jalin Hyatt (3)	4.03 Lukas Van Ness DE (2)
Worst value	Lukas Van Ness 6.12 Puka Nacua WR 2.03 Roschon Johnson RB (2)	6.03 Brian Branch S 5.03 Trenton Simpson LB (1)
Likely bust	None of the above (4)	Roschon Johnson (3)
Sleeper	8.03 Keeanu Benton DT (3)	7.03 Charlie Jones WR 11.03 Andrei Iosivas WR None of the above (2)

Gibbs seems to be very well liked – one person pegged him as a bust, but otherwise he dominated the best player stakes, and Hyatt seems to be a popular pick. But then there’s more negativity in the middle rounds, and not a huge amount of votes for his later picks. But also there’s nothing that people see as a particularly egregious error either – Roschon Johnson maybe, but even with him more people think he won’t be a bust than that he will.

That leads to a pretty strong consensus on Benj’s draft. An average of 7.1, with a high of 9 and a low of 6. It’s not the 9 that he predicted himself, but its good. Unfortunately that meant that the comments don’t have much unexpected. People liked Gibbs, people thought there was good depth throughout, although a couple of people commented that his later picks tailed off a bit. One person also pointed out that he managed a Jamie Oliver approved “Puka Tucker” combo.

Max

The best researched draft, so I’m expecting some very well thought out comments in response.

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	1.05 Jordan Addison WR (4)	2.05 Jack Campbell LB (2)
Best value	3.10 Sam Laporta TE (5)	Jack Campbell Jordan Addison 3.05 Jayden Reed WR (1)
Worst value	Jack Campbell (5)	4.05 Felix Anudike-Uzomah DE 6.05 DeMarvion Overshow LB 7.05 Deneric Prince RB(1)
Likely bust	Jack Campbell (3)	Jordan Addison Jayden Reed None of the above (2)
Sleeper	8.05 Byron Young DE (6)	10.05 Henry To’oto’o LB None of the above (1)

This feels like a tale of a draft that starts quite strongly and then goes downhill after Sam Laporta. We all hailed him as good value, and agreed that the first two guys he took were the best players (although Jack Campbell probably could have gone later). But apart from Byron Young no one seems to have liked his late picks at all.

That ends up giving an average of 6, with a high of 8 and a low of 4. In lieu of having Max’s own rating, I have a picture of the distribution of our ratings.

Our comments lauded Max’s humour, as well as all of his earlier picks. A couple of people complained about Campbell being a reach and lamented how long Max took to draft (can’t wait to see what people say about my drafting speed…). People also seem divided about whether Max really doesn’t know what’s going on, or whether he’s actually secretly well researched. Or maybe there’s just a strong correlation between funny names and successful NFL players?

Ian

Ian took the first defensive player, which is often divisive. Well, its divisive to me anyway, in that I usually disagree with it.

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	1.08 Will Anderson DE (5)	2.08 Jonathan Mingo WR (2)
Best value	Jonathan Mingo (2)	Will Anderson 8.08 Dontayvion Wicks WR 5.08 Michael Wilson WR 4.08 Bryan Bresee DT 3.08 Tank Bigsby RB (1)
Worst value	Jonathan Mingo Bryan Bresee Tank Bigsby (2)	Michael Wilson (1)
Likely bust	Tank Bigsby (5)	Jonathan Mingo (2)
Sleeper	None of the above (2)	7.08 Justin Shorter WR Dontayvion Wicks 8.12 YaYa Diaby DE 10.08 Parker Washington WR 12.08 Garrett Williams CB (1)

Once you get past Will Anderson, there’s not a lot of consensus here. Maybe that we didn’t like Tank Bigsby, with only one vote for him as best value and 7 combined votes for worst value and most likely to be a bust. Ian is the first to get “None of the above” for picking a sleeper, which is something?

It all adds up to a surprisingly (to me) high average of 5.8, with a high of 8 and low of 4, against his own rating of 6. I thought that the table above seemed to say that no one really thought too much of this draft, so I was expecting 4 to 6 as the range. The comments tend to call it unexciting: “nice and steady”, “middle of the road”, “not blown away”. Mingo got the most name checks amongst the comments, but they were a mixed bag (apart from the comment that pointed out “With Mingo and Dorian, we’ve almost got a misspelled tropical fruits theme going on”, which is genius).

Chris

With Neil getting panned primarily for the Bijan trade, I’m hoping that I get some rave reviews.

Category	Our pick	Runner up
Best player	1.01 Bijan Robinson RB (7)	None.
Best value	Bijan Robinson (6)	5.01 Will McDonald DE (1)
Worst value	4.06 Tank Dell WR 2.07 Luke Musgrave TE 1.07 Anthony Richardson QB (2)	1.06 Quentin Johnson WR (1)
Likely bust	2.06 Josh Downs WR (4)	Luke Musgrave None of the above (2)
Sleeper	8.11 Isaiah Foskey DE (3)	9.06 Marte Mapu LB (2)

Seems like people like Bijan, the only consensus pick in any category throughout the draft. I’m not surprised about the relatively wide spread of worst value, as I think I reached on a few players. If anything, I’m surprised that Josh Downs didn’t get any votes in that category.

That adds up to an average of 8.1, with a high of 10. The voting was two 10s, 4 9s and a 1, which is a very confusing spread and not explained by the comments. Maybe the rankings were confusing? A 10 was labelled as Die Hard 1, a 1 was labelled as Die Hard 5. Maybe someone misunderstood? Because I can’t imagine anyone thinking “oh yeah, Die Hard 5, that must be the highest rating.” Those were the only 10s given out in the draft. Thank you. My own rating was an 8, so not too bad. The comments seemed to be a mix of praise (“ridiculous”, “smashed the draft”, “nailed it” and “blistering”) and abuse “fuck this guy”. I still think its a bit generous – I reckon you lot are too low on Olave and I reached a bit too much on my other picks.

Overall

So how did we stack up overall then?

Team	Average rating	Own rating	Difference
Dyna Hard	8.1	8	-0.1
Sadness	7.4	4	-3.4
Bombermen	7.1	9	+1.9
Champions	6	N/A	N/A
Dungeoneers	6	N/A	N/A
Kelkowski	5.8	6	+0.2
Losers	5.6	8	+2.4
Brees	4.9	6	+1.1
T2	4.5	6	+1.5
Hurricanes	2.7	4	+1.3

Chris and Ian were closest to their own ratings, Mike was furthest away (and basically the only one who underrated his own draft), Slatz was most over-optimistic. And we managed to avoid voting for the teams with the least draft capital as worst drafts, but mainly thanks to everyone hating Neil’s trade.

I also took a look at who we think is most likely to be a bust or sleeper.

	1^st	2^nd	3^rd
Bust	Tank Bigbsy Devon Achane Marvin Mims (5)	Josh Downs Rashee Rice Tyjae Spears (4)	Too many people to list (3)
Sleeper	Jordan Battle (7)	Devon Witherspoon Byron Young (6)	Sydney Brown (5)

Technically there’s some bias towards Pete, Max and Benj’s players here as two didn’t complete the survey and Benj voted on his own draft, so they had a max of 8 possible votes compared to 7 for everyone else. I am mildly surprised that we had far more of a consensus on sleepers than busts. To get a sleeper, lots of people need to want the player but pass on them, but to get a bust only one person needs to like a player way more than consensus. Odd.

Trades

I have a feeling I know what the vote on one of these trades will be.

Bijan Robinson trade: 7 votes for Chris, 0 for Neil.
Pick 6.01 (Deuce Vaughn) for a 2024 6^th: 5 votes for Mike (Vaughn side), 1 for Neil, 2 for about even
Miles Sanders for 3.10 (Sam Laporta): 7 votes for about even, 1 for Max (Laporta side).
A couple of players on either side but mainly 2.01 for 2.09: 6 votes for Slatz (2.01 side), 2 votes for Neil.
Mark Ingram for 6.10 (Josh Whyle): 5 votes for about even, 2 votes for Pete (6.10 side), 1 vote for Brees.
Devin Duvernay for 5.05 (DeWayne McBride): 3 votes for about even, 3 votes for Neil (5.05 side), 2 votes for Max.

Not a huge amount to add here. The lack of trades was disappointing and surprising.

Other draft bits and pieces

For biggest surprise, trades got mentioned a lot. 6 people mentioned trades in the 8 comments. 5 people mentioned the Bijan trade as biggest surprise and 2 people mentioned lack of trades (and one person mentioned both). The only player pick that was a surprise was Richardson at 1.07.

SirVocea Dennis took away the coveted best name trophy with 3 votes. Zack Kuntz and Bumper Pool ran him close with 2 votes a piece, and Jammie Robinson got the bronze medal. I meant to leave an “other” here – I can’t remember if I did and they just got no votes, or whether I forgot. Let’s not worry about it. You’ve probably stopped reading by now.

One person thought the draft should have been in May, 7 people said the timing was just right. Same time next year then lads? And 6 of 8 people said they were happy with free agency running alongside the draft, with only 1 person outraged. So we could happily continue that next year too. And 4 people said the draft took about the right amount of time, 3 said too long and 1 said too short. So pencil in around 8 days next year too.

In terms of who has been best at picking rookies in Dbowl history, Chris got 5 votes, Benj got 2 and Goody got 1. That’s the second year in a row that Chris has led this category (3 votes last year), and Benj and Goody were also name checked last year, with 1 vote each. Max got 2 votes last year and none this year, despite outperforming Goody according to our ratings (6 v 4.5), so its a bit surprising that he’s fallen off the list. Maybe his “I know nothing” propoganda during the draft worked?

The worst drafter crown is shared by Neil and Pete, with 3 votes each. Benj and Slatz got a vote a piece. Yep, Benj got votes for best drafter and worst drafter. I could probably run back through the last 4 years of surveys and see how that lines up to the voting, but I won’t. Neil took the worst drafter crown last year too, with 3 votes, and Pete (1) and Slatz (2) each got votes. Ben and Stew got a vote last year but none this year despite what was seen as a poor draft.

In terms of overall thoughts, three people referenced the disappointing lack of trades, but I feel like fatigue set in at this point, so I won’t dwell on this question and will probably remove it next year.

2023 Dynabowl season

Buoyed by a strong draft, Chris took home 50% of the votes to win the Dbowl title in 2023. 2 people voted for Slatz, and one a piece for the Brees and Max. Only 1 person said they wanted to vote for themselves but thought it was arrogant.

Neil got 7 votes for picking first in 2024, with Pete getting the other vote. 1 person admitted to voting for themselves. I’m assuming that was Neil just by sheer weight of votes.

The offensive rookie of the year vote was a three-headed race. “Bijan Robinson” picked up 4 votes, “Bijan” picked up 3 votes, and “Robinson” picked up 1. Should be a tight race. Maybe I should create a shortlist in future… Defensive rookie of the year was similarly consensus-driven, with some variant of Will Anderson picking up 7 votes, with Drew Sanders the outlier with the other vote.

A couple of vaguely interesting rules changes were suggested: scrapping all the bonus picks, changing the order of the bonus picks, and a lottery for the first 6 picks. Plus someone formally submitted one during the draft but forgot what it was, so it must have been very well thought through.

2023 NFL season

Bijan Robinson again got the nod for our NFL offensive rookie of the year (4 votes), with Bryce Young (2) and CJ Stroud/Jahmyr Gibbs (1 each) following him. And Will Anderson kept up the “life imitates fantasy” vibe with 5 votes for NFL defensive rookie of the year with 5 votes. Calijah Kancey, Jalen Carter and Christian Gonzalez got 1 each.

Mahomes got 4 votes for our NFL MVP, with Jalen Hurts picking up 2 and Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson with 1 each. NFL Defensive Player of the Year was far less of a consensus, presumably because its not just limited to one position: Nick Bosa got 2 votes, then Sauce Gardner, Myles Garrett, TJ Watt, Quinnen Williams and Micah Parsons each got 1. The Chiefs and Eagles tied as our Super Bowl favourites with 3 votes each, followed by the Bengals and Bills with a vote each. The Bucs and Titans are our Neil and Pete, with 2 votes each to pick first in the 2024 NFL draft. The Cardinals, Bears, Rams and Texans each got 1 vote.

Errata

There was no consensus on which fictional character you’d pick to play for your team. Superheroes featured heavily (Superman, Incredible Hulk, The Flash and Iron Man), literature/film came in second (Fezzik, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Tickle) and actual fictional football came in third (Matt Saracen).

If anyone is interested in TV recommendations, there wasn’t one mentioned twice. Justified, Yellowjackets, The After Party, Colin From Accounts, The Rehearsal and Picard all got mentioned. In terms of book recommendations, 3 people said they didn’t read, and then the following were mentioned: Barca: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Superclub; The Devil in the White City; Jade City/Empire/Legacy; Murderbot; Shogun; Far From the Madding Crowd. Game recommendations didn’t get much interest: Clank in Space, Monopoly, Marvel Snap, Legacies, Unpacking, and Immortal. You can work out for yourself which are board games and which are video games.

And the question you’ve probably scrolled right to the end immediately to find the answer to: mightiest NFL dong. No consensus here: Bumper Pool, Hunter Renfrow, Nick Foles, Jalen Ramsey, Orlando Brown, Daniel Faalele and Dawand Jones each got a vote. As did Vietnam. The mystery continues.

The 2022 Dynabowl Draft Exit Survey

July 19, 2022

Commish

Rookie Draft Survey No Comments

This exit survey was run by Chris Braithwaite, GM of Dyna Hard. I am certain that everything shown in this report is exactly right and hasn’t been twisted in any way, shape or form. Anyway, onwards…

Welcome to the 100% accurate assessment of the Dynabowl draft. Why even bother playing the games after this when we know exactly how good all of these players are going to be, right?

We’ll start out simple: average scores per team. There were two teams way out in front, with an average of 7.3. Max takes it by a nose, 7.33 to 7.25, over Chris. That’s especially impressive given Max’s admission that “I genuinely don’t know who any of the players are.” Ignorance is evidently bliss. Max was the only person to garner a 10 (apart from Goody trying to sneak a 10 in for himself), but Chris was the only person where every vote was 6 or higher. So there’s that. It’s then a drop of 0.9 down to Pete in 3^rd at an average of 6.4. So lets just skip right to the bottom, where Benj is sitting with a score of 4.9, just behind Goody’s 5.0. And lets take a moment to give credit to Neil, who was the only person who managed to have his drafted rated as a 1 and yet had enough people who liked his draft to get him to a solid mid-table finish. Congrats?!

Team	Rank	Average	Max	Min
Max	1	7.3	10	5
Chris	2	7.3	9	6
Pete	3	6.4	7	5
Mike	4	6.1	7	5
Neil	5	5.8	8	1
Ian	6	5.5	8	3
Ben & Stew	7=	5.3	7	4
Slatz	7=	5.3	8	2
Goody	8	5.0	8	2
Benj	9	4.9	7	3

The overall average was 5.9, so if your score was below that, you did badly. But good work overall everyone on using a reasonable scoring scale, rather than the actual NFL draft grades which seem to have A- as a fail.

Comments

Enough with the numbers, lets get to the comments. We’ll go in the same order as the rankings for this draft, so the comments get progressively worse. Lets not make this thing too cheerful, right?

Max

Okay
I like quite a few if them. Good effort
Loved this draft. Burks and Williams were my top 2 WRs, Pickens could easily be in there to were it not for the character concerns. He could easily have got 3 WR1s here. Generally liked the value throughout and it was difficult to pick anyone as a bust.
Had the capital to get some high end talent and didn’t make any boneheaded picks with it. However, endorsed domestic abuse, so swings and roundabouts.
Good solid team bolstering
Really like most of this draft, hard to be critical. Jameson Williams might be the best receiver in the draft (Watson has a higher ceiling, but way more variability). If Burks is Brown 2.0 as suggested then that’s another win at 4.

Chris

Some good early picks but no one after that
Decent. I like most of them
I like the receivers drafted and could be shrewd value with Pickett
A lot of players I had on my list. He was picking after me so maybe this should have been my draft?
Solid as usual
I don’t like Olave because he doesn’t match up physically well against anyone and I’m not sure how often even a mediocre corner will give him a free release. In space he’s Edelman-esque though. I also am very down on the whole Saints offence. Wan’Dale Robinson I like there, White I’d hoped to get and Skyy Moore could be great, although I think he’s risen a bit too high in fantasy/NFL drafts to be the player I liked as a sleeper pre-draft.

And here’s what Chris thought: “I am still not super happy with picking Moore – my rankings loved him so I just decided to trust them. Was disappointed not to get more defensive players, but I liked the couple I got.”

Pete

Solid and predictable
Hall and Watson should be fine. The rest?
I feel like it’s a good mix of solid chalky players (Hall, Bell) who should have a good floor and then boom/bust guys like Watson and Andersen. I liked him double dipping at CB for 2 elite prospects – they still seemed like OK value, which isn’t usually the case with the 1st CB. His team is notably better after the draft than it was before.
Steady
Wadda lodda corners.
It hinges heavily on Watson – Hall will be what he’ll be. Either a solid committee back who ends up mid-tier, or a clear win, but he’s the #1 pick, generally you’re going to get something there barring unforeseen things like injuries. Watson’s ceiling is right up there. If you somehow hit on the best WR in this class and the best RB, then it’s a big win.

Here’s what Pete had to say for himself: “This wonderful human being deserves all the success that is undoubtedly coming his way.”

Mike

Started well and then tailed off with some average picks
Not normally a fan of so much d early but I like what boob has done
Good draft capital but not sure he got any stars out of it. The defensive players are all good, but I don’t think any are going to turn his team into a contender and Walker doesn’t feel like he has top 5 upside. Threw a lot of interesting darts in the middle rounds though.
Quay Walker will “bust” only in fantasy terms. He’ll likely work well at run stopping but I don’t see him getting the kind of plays you need at LB to be successful in our league. Volume drafting is probably sensible to try to turn the team around. The more darts the better.
Embrace the D
Austin is nice there as an upside guy, though he’s tiny. I think the Steelers might be a bit more creative in his use than the Seahawks with Eskridge. I love the Hamilton pick and Ebikete could be awesome, always bet on athleticism in that position. And Lloyd could be Isaiah Simmons or Micah Parsons… Walker, I get, and I wouldn’t have passed on him at 3 – it’s more about the shallowness of the draft in that position than talent. But not much else to get excited about.

Mike’s fairly tepid assessment was “Lot of mid round talent reflecting lots of mid round picks.”

Neil

First two picks great, not much to shout about after then
Awful. Don’t like any of these picks
Cook felt like a major reach. Hutchinson is good but propped up by his draft capital in a super weak class. Did good work in the middle rounds though – I feel like everyone from Hutchinson to Tindall has a legit shot to be their team’s #1 at their position. And Snoop Conner has a realistic path to relevance.
Good value later in the draft, although Cook felt like a bit of a reach at the top
Nothing silly. Some players who will contribute. But I’m hardly tumescent reviewing it.
Decent
I felt Cook was bad value at 8/9 – I understood why he was mocked there because of the RB class being shallow – but to take him at 5 with Williams and Wilson or even Moore, Watson and Olave still there feels like a massively wasted pick for a guy who seems like he’s probably somewhere between Cole Beasley and JD McKissick. Willis has a massive upside if he develops enough as a passer to start.

Ian

Not many high picks but some good quality lower down
Didn’t have too much capital in the end, but did ok with it. Spiller was great value, I thought he’d go a round earlier (and he would have if Goody hadn’t made a big offer). Taking 3 TEs feels a bit wasteful to me though, and I can’t see how Dulcich becomes fantasy relevant in that offense – it’s just so crowded.
Got some good late round value with players falling to them. Could make up for a lack of early picks
Literally no one I was thinking about taking.
Not a lot to work with, but flags fly forever! Oooo Rah!
He traded all his picks to win. And won. In that sense it’s a 10/10. If we’re purely judging on picks made… they’re pretty bad picks, but what do you expect with so few and so few early.

Neil took the Max approach here: “Who are these guys.”

Ben and Stew

Okay at first, but Karlaftis was a reach
Reasonable solid effort without being spectacular
I loved Wilson as a prospect, so they’ve done well there. I wasn’t a big fan of Davis-Price, but can’t argue with the upside and he was quite cheap. Hated the Karlaftis pick though, I think he’s going to be one of those decent NFL guys but who maxes out at about 8 sacks. So not a fan there. They tend to do well with defensive players though.
Boom-bust profile
Pretty by the book. Nothing to get wildly excited about but nothing which makes me want to vomit in my mouth. Which is a nice change.
Good competent draft in a tough spot (6)
This draft comes down to Wilson really. And it’s really hard to know how good he’ll be if Zach Wilson continues his trend of trying to make Nathan Peterman look good retrospectively. Karlaftis should be fine, if not special – maybe in a Spags defence with his ears pinned back he might be more, but I’m not sure how long Spags will be around there. Pierce is an X factor, ridiculous athletic talent with true #1 ceiling, but he’s so raw he’s basically unprepared sushi.

Slatz

Love the first 5 picks
Don’t like it at all. Lots of reaches
I was comparatively low on London and Thibodeaux so I expect to be an outlier here. And I love Davis, but don’t think a rookie DT who needs a tonne of projection to be relevant in the NFL is worth a 3rd. I feel like there’s a lot of guys who will stick around the roster, I don’t think there are many who will be stars. Honestly, Harris is the only guy I think he got who he didn’t overdraft.
Seemed to know the guys he wanted to draft and took them
It’s obviously the best draft. Obviously. Because everyone else took the wrong players, which means he must have got the right ones.
Reasonable draft for the awkward tweener drafting position

Here’s what Slatz had to say: “10/10 of course. Seriously though, passing on White to take Thibodeaux was a tough call, and needs to work out as RB was a real need. Davis is a gamble some will hate, but I love a guy like that and I had to hold myself back from taking him in the second, so for me I feel like that pick was value.”

Goody

Pretty rubbish
I didn’t like any of their picks bar Dotson (and didn’t really like the trade for him). Pierce and Allgeier feel like desperation picks for a win now team, and Asamoah isn’t going to contribute for at least a year, if not two. Otton might be decent, but that’s about it.
Decent value with limited picks
Lots of reaching. A number of players I wouldn’t have minded getting 2-5 rounds later. Not to my taste. But he’s happy and that’s nice.
The drive to succeed within the season leaves his drafts a bit threadbare.
Both Allgeier and Pierce represent the same thing – dice rolls on opportunity/volume with players of limited draft capital and questionable efficacy in bad situations. If both work out the value question goes out the window. If both fail then this looks pretty bleak. Both seem about as likely?

Here’s what Goody had to say: “The best draft ever.”

Benj

Average at best.
Too d heavy early on for me. Not many picks I liked
Didn’t have too much capital, but didn’t do much with it. I wasn’t a fan of Dean and most of the other players feel like they’ve got limited upside.
I like the mid round skill players. Be interested to see how the DTs turn out
Similar ignore-the-draft team building strategy to Goody. Comment withheld.
Hard to judge properly on someone who traded away high picks, without valuing in what was gained vs what could have been gained. Dean looks like a steal, but Philly have been a graveyard for LBs. If he balls out (and he has the talent to be Roquan Smith) that’s a really good spot to have grabbed him.

And here’s what Benj had to say: “Didn’t have a first, traded out of the second, didn’t stupidly reach for anyone, got some of the players I hoped for, but was patient and, again, didn’t stupidly reach for anyone I’d earmarked. I’m pretty happy that I got some contributors. I may not have a star in there but I think it gives me some solid depth.”

Trades

While we’re jumping all over the map, lets continue the trend and look at the trades that happened during the draft. This is what we thought, from least balanced trade to most balanced (and there’s a bit of judgement in this):

Goody gets 2022 pick 20 (Jahan Dotson). Ian gets Jalen Hurts, Allen Lazard. (6 favouring Ian, 3 saying even.).
Goody gets Tyler Lockett, 2022 pick 19 (Tyler Allgeier), 2023 Round 6 pick. Chris gets Mike Evans, Denzel Ward. (5 favouring Chris, 3 saying even, 1 favouring Goody)
Ben and Stew get picks 69 (Sam Howell) and 99 (Daniel Bellinger). Chris gets pick 66 (Tyler Badie). (4 favouring Chris, 4 saying even, 1 favouring Ben and Stew. And I think I was that one).
Slatz gets 2022 pick 25 (Jalen Tolbert). Neil gets Fred Warner. (4 favouring Neil, 3 saying even, 1 favouring Slatz.
Neil gets picks 93 (Myjai Sanders) and 113 (Jalen Nailor). Slatz gets pick 75 (Daxton Hill). (4 saying even, 3 favouring Slatz, 1 favouring Neil)
Goody gets picks 17 (Dameon Pierce) and 47 (Brian Asamoah). Benj gets pick 28 (Jermaine Johnson), 38 (Romeo Doubs) and 39 (Demarvin Leal). (5 saying even, 2 favouring Benj, 2 favouring Goody – perfectly balanced)

I’ll try something as a summary: a net positive rating for all these trades by team. So you get +1 for each vote saying you won a trade and -1 for each vote saying your lost a trade.

Chris: +7
Iran: +6
Neil: +1
Benj: 0
Slatz: -1
Ben and Stew: -3
Goody: -10

Max, Pete and Mike didn’t make any trades. Benj just made the one perfectly balanced trade. I guess there should be a way to get a bit more nuance here: Neil and Slatz only traded with each other, but I feel like Neil winning a trade involving a 3^rd round pick and then losing a trade for an 8^th round pick doesn’t really cancel out as much as this table says. And then, does Ben and Stew losing a trade for a 7^th round pick really matter? But I can’t be bothered trying to work that out – the data is above if anyone fancies it. But anyway, we all agreed: Goody’s trades were bad, Chris and Iran’s were good.

Individual drafts

I’ll just do these in the order I listed teams in the survey. I’ll say that is so this doesn’t spiral into relentless negativity, but really its just cos its easier for me. For all of these, I’ll just list any answer which got more than 1 vote.

Pete

Best player

Breece Hall (7)

Best value:

David Ojabo (4)
Troy Andersen (3)

Worst value:

Christian Watson (3)
David Bell (3)
Troy Andersen (2)

Bust:

Christian Watson (4)
David Bell (3)

Sleeper

Sauce Gardner (3)
Bryan Cook (3)
Terrel Bernard (2)

It seems we were content with Breece Hall as the consensus number 1, and not at all high on Christian Watson or David Bell. So I guess we’ll find out if Pete knows better than the rest of us. Andersen getting support as both best value and worst value is fun, I love a polarising prospect.

Ben and Stew

Best player

Garrett Wilson (7)

Best value:

Ty Davis-Price (3)
Garrett Wilson (2)
Alec Pierce (2)

Worst value:

George Karlafits (5)
Sam Howell (3)

Bust:

Ty Davis-Price (5)
George Karlaftis (3)

Sleeper

Velus Jones (5)
Daniel Bellinger (2)

So safe to say Ty Davis-Price is a polarising guy. 3 calling him best value, 5 calling him a bust. Same with Karlaftis – not too many calling him a bust, but general agreement that he was bad value.

Goody

Best player

Jahan Dotson (5)

Best value:

Cade Otton (3)
Brian Asamoah (2)
Jahan Dotson (2)

Worst value:

Tyler Allgeier (3)
Dameon Pierce (2)
Jordan Stout (2)

Bust:

Tyler Allgeier (4)
Dameon Pierce (3)
Jahan Dotson (2)

Sleeper

Cade Otton (7)

Its probably not a good sign when you trade up for 2 RBs, and both get support as worst value or a bust. But then Dotson was overwhelmingly seen as the best player and still also garnered support as worst value and a bust too. Basically, everyone liked Cade Otton and that’s about it.

Mike

Best player

Kenneth Walker (4)
Devin Lloyd (3)
Quay Walker (2)

Best value:

Trey McBride (3)
Calvin Austin (2)

Worst value:

Quay Walker (6)

Bust:

Kenneth Walker (4)
Quay Walker (3)
Kyle Hamilton (2)

Sleeper

Phidarian Mathis (3)
Damone Clark (2)
Trent McDuffie (2)

So people either loved or hated Kenneth Walker – he’s either the best player or he’s a bust. Similar for Quay Walker, except that everyone thought he was overvalued too.

Slatz

Best player

Drake London (6)
Kayvon Thibodeaux (2)

Best value:

Jalen Tolbert (4)
Jordan Davis (2)
Christian Harris (2)

Worst value:

Kayvon Thibodeaux (3)
Jordan Davis (2)
Jalen Tolbert (2)

Bust:

Jalen Tolbert (5)
Jordan Davis (3)

Sleeper

Daxton Hill (4)
Matt Corral (2)
Ty Chandler (2)

We generally seemed happy that Drake London was a perfectly fine pick in the 1^st, and then it got polarising: Thibodeaux got support as best player and worst value; Jordan Davis got support as best value, worst value and bust; Jalen Tolbert was either best value or a bust. Basically, we have no fucking clue what is going on here, which is no different from any other team’s draft.

Neil

Best player

James Cook (5)

Best value:

Malik Willis (3)
James Cook (2)
Channing Tindall (2)

Worst value:

James Cook (3)
Aidan Hutchinson (2)
John Metchie (2)

Bust:

Malik Willis (3)
Aidan Hutchinson (3)
John Metchie (2)

Sleeper

Jeremy Ruckert (3)
Snoop Cooner (3)

Neil’s draft was weirdly polarising. It had the biggest range of overall ratings, and it also had an unusual spread of best value, worst value and busts. Basically, most people found something to like about Neil’s draft and something to hate too. And no one liked or hated the same players. So this will be an interesting one to see how it plays out in future years.

Benj

Best player

Nakobe Dean (7)
Jermaine Johnson (2)

Best value:

Romeo Doubs (3)
Nakobe Dean (2)
Tyquan Thornton (2)

Worst value:

Nakobe Dean (2)
Jermaine Johnson (2)
Logan Hall (2)

Bust:

Logan Hall (4)
Nakobe Dean (2)
Jermaine Johnson (2)

Sleeper

Desmond Ridder (3)
Charlie Kolar (3)
Kingsley Enagbare (2)

I guess some of us really liked Nakobe Dean (best value) and some didn’t (Bust, worst value), but we generally thought he was the best of a bad bunch. And then we didn’t really like Logan Hall.

Max

Best player

Jameson Williams (5)
Treylon Burks (2)
George Pickens (2)

Best value:

Jameson Williams (3)
George Pickens (2)
Brian Robinson (2)

Worst value:

Travon Walker (2)
Brian Robinson (2)

Bust:

Travon Walker (5)
Treylon Burks (2)
George Pickens (2)

Sleeper

Isiah Pacheco (3)
Kyle Phillips (2)
Brandon Smith (2)

Max’s best player results are fun, especially combined with the bust results, and probably drove his high ratings. The fact that Williams was overwhelmingly more popular than Burks but was picked quite a lot later is interesting. The fact that some people still loved Pickens over both is also interesting. And then the fact that most people thought Travon Walker would be a bust over any of them is interesting too. Although that last bit might just be a bit of noise driven by people not liking Walker as a prospect.

We also seemed to love Jameson Williams – 5 people called him the best pick, 3 called him the best value (as pick 7) and no one called him most likely to bust. So that’s interesting.

Iran

Best player

Isaiah Spiller (6)

Best value:

Isaiah Spiller (6)

Worst value:

Hassan Haskins (3)
Isaiah Spiller (2)
Greg Dulcich (2)

Bust:

Danny Gray (3)
Isaiah Spiller (2)
Hassan Haskins (2)
Greg Dulcich (2)

Sleeper

Chad Muma (5)
Chigoziem Okonkwo (2)

I wasn’t sure whether to include 4 players in the bust rankings for Ian simply because the 4^th player was the 70^th pick. Spiller being the overwhelming favourite player from this class, and then no real consensus on worst value or bust, seems to say that we basically liked the Spiller pick but not much else. Except Chad Muma. We liked the value there. 2/9 rated Spiller’s lack of speed as the pre-draft story they actually factored in when picking.

Chris

Best player

Skyy Moore (4)
Chris Olave (3)

Best value:

Rachaad White (4)
Wan’Dale Robinson (2)

Worst value:

Wan’Dale Robinson (3)
Skyy Moore (2)
Rachaad White (2)

Bust:

Wan’Dale Robinson (6)

Sleeper

Kaiir Elam (4)
Malcolm Rodriguez (3)
Isaiah Likely (2)

Seems like a couple of people liked Wan’Dale Robinson as good value, but most people thought he was a big reach. Rachaad White feels like the interesting one here, getting votes at best value and worst value. Someone also voted for Isaiah Likely at pick 119 as my worst value, which feels like they either thought I had a hell of a draft or didn’t read the question.

The sleeper picks were mildly interesting: Pickett got a vote as best value, but no picks as a sleeper. People did care about Pickett’s tiny hands – 4/9 said that was the pre-draft storyline they actually considered when making picks.

Random draft bits and pieces

There wasn’t any consensus on the biggest surprise. And some disagreement, between “defensive reaches so early in the second” and “it being so offense heavy.” The other comments were:

How far veluss Jones fell. The slating did for him. Bargain
Cook going top 5
No QBs picked for ages
That I didn’t excessively reach for anyone.
Goody blowing up his team for two mediocre RBs

There also wasn’t consensus on the best name. Sauce Gardner got 1.5 votes, but other than that there was only one vote per player: Smoke Monday, C Otton, Tyler Baddie (sic), Romeo Doubs, Snoop Conner, Ty Fryfogle and ZaQuandre White. Lets hope next year is better. A quick skim of a consensus board seems to think it might be: Henry To’oto’o, Habakkuk Baldonado are both in the top 50.

The only pick comment that people actually liked was “I expect Hassan to be Haskins some questions pretty quickly.” Must do better next year folks.

In terms of getting sniped, Tyler Badie was the only person who was mentioned twice as someone you wanted but some fucker picked first (and you are welcome). Props to Slatz for saying that he got sniped on Kyle Hamilton and then still traded Fred Warner to get a 3^rd round pick where he couldn’t take Hamilton.

We’ve been arguing about how to quantify good or bad drafts, and it turns out we don’t really agree on who has been good or bad anyway.

Best drafter in Dbowl history

Chris (3)
Max (2)
Goody (1)
Benj (1)
Can’t remember this draft (2)

Worst drafter

Neil (3)
Slatz (2)
Pete, Mike and Ben & Stew (1)
Don’t want to say (1)

There was an odd consensus here. Simply because no one got votes as best draft and worst drafter. I didn’t check whether anyone voted for themselves. And no one seems to remember Iran drafting at all.

But as we’ve now got 3 years of post-draft surveys, I figured I’d take a look back and see how we rated each other over the last few years. There’s been some impressive consistency: Chris has been 2^nd every year, Mike has been 4^th every year, Iran has finished either 6^th or 7^th.. And some less impressive consistency, as Goody and Benj have each finished in the bottom 3 every year. Pete also has an excellent upwards trend.

Team	2022	2021	2020	Total	Rank
Chris	2	2	2	6	1
Ben & Stew	7=	1	1	9	2
Mike	4	4	4	12	3=
Max	1	6	5	12	3=
Neil	5	3	7	15	5
Pete	3	5	10	18	6
Slatz	7=	9	3	19	7=
Ian	6	7	6	19	7=
Benj	9	8	8	25	9
Goody	8	10	9	27	10

The average total is 16. So above that you’ve been good, below that you’ve been bad. It feels overall like vague tiers of Chris, Ben & Stew, Mike and Max; Neil, Pete, Slatz, Iran; Benj and Goody. You could probably put Neil in either the tier above or below, or just make him a tier of his own. Over the last few years anyway. With the depth of analysis you’d expect, I can’t be bothered to see how that correlates to draft capital. But from memory it has felt like Benj, Goody and Iran haven’t had too many picks and have been rated as drafting badly as a result.

It is amusing that based on our surveys, 2 of us think Benj or Goody are the best drafters, and they have been consistently seen as very bad the last 3 years. And 2 of us think Mike and Ben & Stew have been consistently good recently but are seen as bad. While there’s more agreement that midtable Neil and Slatz have been bad.

But I am the best. That’s the key.

With the sort of talent we have for drafting and also for evaluating the performance of everyone else, you definitely want to rely on our collective pearls of wisdom about it. The only consensus was in “do more research” and “do more prep”. And then we had:

“too much hope in the top 10”
“If you draft the best guys you can be really good”.

Helpful. You want the best players, but also the people you think are definitely good players probably aren’t. But what about this?

“Trade all your picks. Then you can’t fail”
“Do not, under any circumstances, get involved in a draft day trade with any of the followi…” (I have no idea what happened here).

So definitely trade all your picks no matter what, but also don’t trade. And then my favourite:

“It’s a crap shoot and only 2 or 3 of us are any good at shooting those craps. And none of them are Slatz”
“Bet on athleticism, because the misses don’t matter and the hits are massive. Take players you like, it’s not as much fun rooting for dickheads.”

Its a crap shoot, but its also very easy to game. I particularly love the shout-out to Slatz (based on the last 3 years he’s not been good, but he hasn’t been awful) and also that the certainty on display in the latter one seems to be from Slatz.

General Dbowl stuff

I asked who you thought would win the league this year. You picked two favourites: Chris (4) and Iran (3). And then threw in Goody and Benj with 1 vote each as contenders. Essentially, if you made the playoffs last year, you have a chance this year.

3 people said Iran would repeat at the top. 3 people also said Pete would repeat the bottom, following by 2 votes for Mike. Neil, Max, Slatz and Goody also got votes for this shame. So that means that everyone thought Ben and Stew would be solidly mid-table, getting votes in neither category.

7 out of 9 thought the draft was at about the right time, so pencil it in for this time next year folks. And there was equal disagreement about whether we should fucking pick already (4) or drag things out more (3), so you can pencil in next year’s to take around a week.

The most divisive question in the draft was how impressive Ian getting through the whole draft in 0 seconds. The average score was 2.4, but that was made up of 4 ratings of 1 and 4 ratings of 5. So maybe expect some people to prioritise time and some people to not. How insightful.

There wasn’t much consensus on whether we need comp picks: 3 said good riddance to them, 5 said Benj should be ashamed for forgetting them, and one person said a 4^th round pick for whoever pisses off Slatz the most. Expect a rule change submission soon.

And speaking of rule changes: 7/9 said they were open to a rule about creating an exempt list to get rid of players we morally object to. And 4/9 said that they had a rule change to submit. So expect a couple of rule changes coming through soon.

Right, that was long. I should probably give this an edit. I’m not going to though.

The Dynabowl 2022 Draft Entrance Survey

June 26, 2022

Commish

Rookie Draft Uncategorized No Comments

Well, the 2022 Dynabowl Draft is in the books. Before it all went down, I asked the GMs to make some predictions about what might happen, and these are the results.

First up, I asked GMs to predict the first round. Some people had an advantage, as they were picking in the first round, sometimes more than once. It certainly made things easier for the Sadness, given their surprise pick of Quay Walker at 10, while the Hurricanes predicted 4 defensive players to go in the first round, which would have been a record, but failed to spot that Walker was the one who would actually. They also incorrectly predicted a trade for pick 8, but failed to nominate who the player taken there would be.

Here’s the full table, along with a score for how accurate people were at guessing. I put my inaccuracy down to not researching the round as I wasn’t going to pick there.

Fashionably late, I received the entrance survey from the Losers shortly after publication and can now add their predictions here, predictions which netted 30 points, leaving Kelkowski as the king predictors:

And after that, let us all salute The Champions for their predictions:

2. How many trades will there be during the draft?

The correct answer was 6. If you’d done your research you could have guessed it would be in this neighbourhood because a glimpse into the past shows that since 2018 there’s been 6, 6, 5 and 4 trades (though 2018 had two trades mid-draft for 2019 picks. However, going back further in time we see that 2017 had 13 trades, 2016 had 10 and 2015 – the first draft in the books, had a whopping 15 trades in during the draft. Insanity. There were only 7 rounds for each of those drafts too…

So what did we say? Well, living in the past we had the Sadness, who went for an astonishing 14 (!!!), while Hard and the Hurricanes both said 10. Some more sensible guesses were had from Tamworth (8), Kelkowski (7), Champions (7), and the Bombermen (8, though admitting “I am literally plucking a number out of the air there”), while the Brees (2) really low-balled it.

Late comer Losers topped everyone, suggesting a total of 15 trades, commenting “Stupid fucking question”, which I assume means that the answer was so obvious why even bother asking.

And at this point I would note that the commentary was pretty scant from most respondents so if this is a bit dry, you know who to blame. (Yourself and everyone but me).

3. Which pick will be the first pick traded?

The correct answer was 2.07, it belonged to the Bombermen, until it was sold to the Tamworth Two. But did anyone get it right?

We already know the Hurricanes guessed that 1.08 would be traded away.

Tamworth went for 2.04, perhaps indicating a desire to get up even higher than they managed.

Kelkwoski plumped for Chris selling 1.09, along the same lines as the Hurricanes guess.

The Bombermen stated “I think Chris will trade one of his first round picks. While I don’t really think that Dave will trade up, but he could be convinced because I fancy he wants Skyy Moore. But I don’t know, really.” So there definitely was something in the air about Chris making a move, and Moore did, indeed, go at 9 so if he had been sought after you’d have needed to make this leap.

The Brees thought pick 1.04 would have a buyer – a pick which the Champions spent on Treylon Burks.

The Sadness matched Tamworth in plumping for 2.04 while the Hard plumped for 1.06 and the Champions went high, suggesting 1.02 would be on the move.

The Losers were non-committal – “This is more a question of buyer than seller. I’d move 3, but I don’t think I’ll find a buyer”

That meant three people thought Chris was trading, 3 thought Max was, one vote for the Brees and one for the Sadness.

4. Will the first pick traded be for a player (or players), picks, or a combination?

The first trade that happened was 2.07 & 5.07 for 3.08, 4.08 and 4.09, so all picks.

The Brees, Hard and Champions (and the late-comer Losers) said it would be solely for picks, though the Sadness appears to have suggested 2.04 would be sold for 3.05 straight up. Everyone else said a player+pick deal which, based on history, was probably the right guess.

5. Who will be involved in the first trade?

The correct answer was Bombermen and Tamworth, which no one got right. Probably not a surprise.

We had a Hard/Brees trade (Hurricanes and Hard – though the Hard said that he could alternatively trade with the Hurricanes of Champions, so he was sold on himself trading, just like everyone else), Dungeoneers/Champions (Tamworth), Hard and apparently no one else (Kelkwoski), “I already said – Slatz and Chris. Definitely Chris. No real idea about Slatz. Maybe Ian?” (Bombermen), Champions/Hard (Brees), Sadness/Hurricanes (Champions) and Champions/Tamworth (Sadness). Oh, and “Chris” (Losers).

So out of all that there was one half of the trade was guessed correctly, once.

6. Which position are you most keen to pick up to be a contributor for this season?

The Hurricanes wanted a RB and got James Cook. He shoots, he scores.

Tamworth also wanted an RB, but didn’t have a pick until the third round. They traded up for Dameon Pierce and Tyler Allgeier in the second, and also picked up a “Treston Ebner”, whatever that is, in the 11th round. Mission accomplished perhaps as well as could be expected given the capital available at the start of the draft.

Kelkowski wanted a DT to contribute this season, which was probably a tough ask regardless. Even tougher when they don’t end up picking one the whole draft.

The Bombermen said “Running Back. It’s the position most likely to have an impact in the first season.” But they only took one in the 7th (Jerome Ford) and 9th (Jashaun Corbin), so that’s unlikely to have much impact. But the options were a bit thin on the ground this year.

The Brees wanted a wide receiver and got three of them – Garrett Wilson (1st), Alec Pierce (3rd) and Velus Jones (11th). Jones, in particular is a bit of a steal there given the opportunity in Chicago.

The Sadness wanted a linebacker and snaffled up Quay Walker in the first round along with Devin Lloyd in the 2nd and Damone Clark in the 11th. Got that one pretty well covered. Now to see if they contribute first up.

The Champions were after a wide receiver (“Shame about the players”) and came away with 5 of them – their top three picks – Burks (1.04), Williams (1.07) and Pickens (2.04), as well as guys in the 9th and 11th who you’ve never heard of and never will again.

The Hard took this question seriously and responded “I think it’s a really good and deep WR class, so will be upset if I don’t come away with 2 good WRs from the 1^st 3 rounds. I generally really like the talent in rounds 3-4. It feels like a draft lacking that top end talent (round 2 is a wasteland) but with great depth.” And on the back of that he has Olave and Moore (1.08 and 1.09) as well as Wan’Dale Robinson in the third. All in all, a good day at the office.

The Losers wanted an RB, and fulfilled that to some degree by taking one in the 7th, the 8th and 11th. It’s possible none of those players take any meaningful snaps.

7. Which player are you most keen to get/most likely to reach for?

I think most people took this as the player they most wanted, whereas I was hoping for the player who appealed to the GM more than the consensus, so they might get jittery and take early – ie I basically wanted to know who you would reach for. I’ll reword it next time.

This became obvious from the first answer I looked at, the Hurricanes proclaiming they were most keen to get Breece Hall, the consensus number 1 overall pick. Not really possible to reach for him, is it?

Tamworth were only mildly closer to the question I really wanted to ask, suggesting James Cook “but he will go too early”. Yes he will. He’ll go fifth when your first pick coming into the draft wasn’t until the third round.

A more sensible response came from Kelkowski: “Given my first pick is at 20, I’m hoping Spiller falls to me there”. Given they traded away pick number 20, they can be very pleased at nabbing Spiller at 3.10, thirtieth overall.

The Bombermen can be equally happy, stating “Doubs, the Green Bay wide receiver. But I’m not so excited that I’ll be grabbing him in the 2nd or anything.” Instead it was 4.08, 38th overall, that they picked up Doubs, right about where he should have been going.

The Brees went for Chris Olave who, unless they traded up to the top two, probably couldn’t have been considered a reach, but if he was the player the most wanted, they had the chance at 6 and declined the option.

The Sadness offered a window into their world by responding ‘Dunno’, which is either the least helpful response possible, or the name of a player so under the radar it could have succeeded in a mission against a nondescript enemy in Top Gun: Maverick.

The Hard said “Rachaad White. Great upside, plus he covers me for Fournette. I’d prefer to take him at about pick 15, but if I can’t get a better option I’m happy with him at #9.” and promptly took him at 18, so all in all, very happy with his work.

The Losers managed to fall on both sides of the coin, with the obvious desire and the one more in keeping with the aim of the question. He didn’t get either player though: “Well, Breece Hall would be nice. But failing him, I like Rachaad White as a good size-speed guy with pass catching skills in a good situation.”

And finally the Champions sums up what everyone is really thinking: “Whichever one Slatz tells me afterwards was my stupidest pick/biggest reach.”

8. Who will make the consensus biggest reach (Draft Exit Survey will be the judge)?

Hurricanes says Hard

Tamworth says Dungeoneers

Kelkowski says Tamworth

Bombermen says (incorrectly) “Everyone will say me. It won’t be me. I swear it. I’ll say…. (pulls name out of hat)… [Tamworth]. No, wait, it’ll be [the Hurricanes]. I won’t spoil the answers that are coming up by saying who….”

Brees appears to think that James Cook was also taking part in the draft and would make the biggest reach… Presumably this mean that he would be the biggest reach (not the question asked), but maybe the post-draft survey will confirm this as correct, seeing as he went fifth overall to the Hurricanes.

Hard says Hurricanes, in a nice bout of symmetry.

The Losers were perhaps a little down on themselves, stating the person most likely to make the consensus reach will be “Me – a lot will depend on if I can swing a deal, but I want Jordan Davis in the second”

And the Champions nominate the Champions.

9. Who will get the consensus biggest bargain?

The Champions says “The Hard – this is how he does well”, and, as recent analysis has shown, unless you don’t believe in all that analysis bollocks (I know I don’t), it is how he does well.

The Hard nominated the Bombermen. Which is very nice of them. I doubt that will hold up now.

The Sadness also believes in the Hard’s drafting ability.

As well as James Cook, Jameson Williams was also making picks in this draft, according to the Brees, and will end up with the biggest bargain… Again, if we change the question to the one they answered, maybe this could be right. He came off the board to the Champions at 1.07. Will that prove to be a bigger bargain that Velus Jones in the 11th round?

We thought the Champions had nailed it above, did the Bombermen nail it here: “Somebody will fall into the Losers’s lap that everyone thinks is great who will then get injured and his career will never really take off”?

Kelkowski and the Hurricanes both thought the Losers would get the biggest bargain, while Tamworth thought the Brees would. They offered no reasoning or colourful commentary on this.

The Losers made possibly the most prescient comment: “Whoever picks Tyler Algieier? Unless someone reaches for him in the 2nd or something mad. He’s probably a 4th round sort of pick, and with no other competition that’ll be a bargain for a potentially competent starting RB.”

Algieier was taken by Tamworth at 2.09 (19th overall).

10. When will the first QB go off the board (round and pick number)? & 11. Who will be the first QB taken?

The correct answer here was Malik Willis at 5.05. For me, he was top of my list at QB, but I had hoped that perhaps that wasn’t the thinking elsewhere in the league. Let’s find out.

The Hurricanes, who took Willis at 5.05, plumped for Howell at 4.08 (originally a Tamworth pick, but traded to the Bombermen in the draft), which would have been quite remarkable given he was the 6th QB taken in the draft and the Commanders also just traded a fair bit of capital for Wentz. But hey. The pick was pretty close.

Tamworth went for Pickett at 3.04, which would have been a Champions pick.

Kelkowski also thought Pickett would go, but seemed to think he would go in the first round, putting down pick 10 as the slot he’d go in. No QB has gone first round before. A remarkable suggestion. A reminder that Pickett when at 8.09 to the Hard.

The Bombermen suggested the first QB would go to the Hurricanes (bing bing bing), but went a round early at 4.05… “Pickett – [the Hurricanes] will take him because he’s a Steeler. It will be the consensus reach.”

The Brees went for the same player, but even higher, at 2.09, which would have been a Hard pick.

The Sadness also plumped for Pickett and also seemed to suggest Neil would take him by isolating pick 3.05 as the spot he’d come off the board.

The Hard has a bone to pick with lots of people after stating “Kenny Pickett. If it’s anyone else it’s a mad pick. I like Corral’s chances for this year too. I’m not sure I’d even bother with any of the others.” We’ve already mentioned they took Pickett themselves, and a long way below the 4.10 (Kelkowski) slot he thought he would go in.

The Losers also said Pickett. “Nobody should be picking Pickett before the 6th round. No other QB should be drafted in the first 7 or 8. He’ll probably go in the 4th though, pick 37”, with, for some reason, the Bombermen taking him (or trading out of the pick, I guess).

The Champions also went for the 4th round, suggesting “4.06, wait that’s me, 4.07”. As for who? “Slim Pickens”. Thanks. For. That.

12. When will the first defensive player go off the board (round and pick number)? & 13. Who will be the first defensive player taken?

Real answer: Quay Walker, 1.10.

Commentary from the Champions: “Honestly, it should probably be 1.01. Have [the Dungeoneers] got the balls for it? Given I’ve said [the Sadness] will trade down I’ll say [the Losers] will at 1.03. Maybe [they]’ll play it more traditional but [they’re] just crazy enough.” Nailed. It. And likewise nailed the who: “I’ve [said the Losers] will do it so I’ll say Aidan Hutchinson as [they] only [have] 3 DEs.” Given the Losers respect for his “T-Rex arms”, couldn’t have been more right.

The Hard were one place and one player out, opting for 2.01 and Devin Lloyd (second defensive player at 2.02). Perceptive. The Losers also went for 2.01, but said it would be Hutchison.

The Sadness nailed it. Because they knew they intended to take Walker at 1.10. I’m not giving points for predicting what you’re going to do. Sorry.

The Brees said Aidan Hutchison at 2.07. He was the 4th defensive player at 2.05, so not a million miles away for the draft spot at least.

Let’s see what the Bombermen have to offer… “2.07? I might take one. Though I could see one going earlier,” and “Hutchison? The Detroit DE taken with the second pick.” So cribbing notes from the Brees then.

2.07 is clearly in vogue as Kelkowski picked Devin Lloyd to be the first defensive player taken in that slot. Perhaps the Bombermen have developed a reputation for taking defensive players early? However, they’ve normally done it in the first round.

Tamworth were pretty close pick-wise, opting for 1.08 – the only one to suggest a defensive player would go in the first. They also managed to write this as a footer rather than in the body of the text. Just a bit of flavour of the kind of rubbish I have to put up with. Anyway, they correctly predicted the pick would be Walker. Bravo! That said, their predicted first round – the first question of this survey, said the Hard would take Skyy Moore at 1.08, so draw your own conclusions.

Finally the Hurricanes thought safety Kyle Hamilton would come off the board 4th, which must make him a steal for the Sadness at 3.02.

14. Who will take the most defensive players?

Volume or percentage, the answer is the same:

The Champions were close. Ish. “Probably [us]. [We] have a history of not taking offensive players after the first 3 rounds except for the odd TE.” Two odd WRs and an odd RB in the final 4 rounds put to rest any dreams in that direction.

The Hard sort of nailed this one, suggesting the Sadness, who were any acceptable right answer by volume.

The Sadness also knew their destiny and predicted they would top the list too.

The Brees also put themselves forward but were a little further from being accurate.

The Bombermen threw themselves and the Champions into the ring and get nothing in return.

The Losers pumped for themselves and weren’t a million miles out: “I’m hoping it’ll be me. I need to do some work.”

Kelkowski gets the dunces hat for nominating themselves, while Tamworth opted for the Brees and the Hurricanes opted for the Champions.

15. How long will the draft last (in days, hours and minutes)?

Actual answer – 6 days, 1 hour and 8 minutes. Well done to the Champions for just being closer than Tamworth:

The latecomer Losers said 3 days, 4 hours, 11 minutes, putting them as the second most inaccurate. Again, it’s a “stupid fucking question”, but if they think it’s so obvious, they were an awfully long way out…

Your Draft Survey Results

June 17, 2021

Commish

League Business Rookie Draft No Comments

It’s time to review the draft with Chris’s extra-special post-draft survey, one that we all really enjoyed. Chris didn’t enjoy it that much though as he’s not done the hard work part of typing these words out. I guess he just doesn’t really love the Dynabowl.

Anyway, first up we’ll have the average scores that people got for their drafts, then the comments, and finally we’ll have the details of the answers to the actual questions, featuring the only question you all really want to know the answer to – who has the best name…

Also, there will be a poll on MFL for the best player out of all those players voted best value.

One note, Max may or may not have responded. One respondent put their name down as “I might be Max” and in pretty much every textual question answered “I don’t know what happened in the draft.” I feel this is accurate so maybe it’s him, but I’m going to remove his ratings from everyone’s score for the draft.

So, who do we think had the best draft? Well, the raw points are worthless because we have a different amount of ratings for different people – a couple of people neglected to score a couple of other people, so it’s the average points that really count. So how did we stack up?

Well, Ben & Stew had the best draft, with a healthy gap back to Chris. There’s then a big drop off to Neil in third. I’m sure that this won’t be another false dawn.

Bringing up the rear are Benj in 8th, Slatz in 9th and James back in 10th. I’m sure James wasn’t penalised for flouting regulations during the season and this is a true view of the quality of his draft.

So here’s the table:

		Total Points	Scorers	Average Points	Max Score	Min Score
1	Ben & Stew	59	8	7.38	8	6
2	Chris	50	7	7.14	9	5
3	Neil	49	8	6.13	9	3
4	Geoff	48	8	6.00	7	1
5	Pete	47	8	5.88	9	3
6	Max	52	9	5.78	7	3
7	Ian	42	8	5.25	8	1
8	Benj	36	8	4.50	6	2
9	Slatz	35	8	4.38	8	2
10	James	27	7	3.86	5	2

Now, onto what you thought. Let’s start at the top of the list.

1. Ben & Stew

Solid

I liked a lot of their early picks. There may be the beginnings of a decent offense there? I didn’t recognise any of their later picks so they’re probably really good

Decent job with a lot of picks, and early picks

A few of my guys picked up but all around when I had them valued. Nice draft but not too many steals

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

A solid effort, 7 on 10

Solid use of plenty of early round picks

I could genuinely see pretty much every player being useful. Not sure you ever need to draft 3 safeties in one year though.

Stew’s influence is obvious as this looks like a decent class.

2. Chris

Not bad

Not much here to not like. I don’t love trading away so much for an old TE though, especially the Derwin James piece.

I’m unfamiliar with any of those players so probably very canny on Chris’s part

What’s the phrase I’ve continually heard this draft cycle? This was all “chalk”, which I think (based on context) means he basically did everything he should with each pick – he was very much aligned with consensus. I like the first few picks but wasn’t interested in anyone he took late really.

I have completed your blood survey. I don’t know what happened in the draft.

I really liked my draft. I got guys I liked at good value throughout, and managed to trade for an elite

TE at a price that wasn’t totally eye-watering. Would have liked a starting LB out of it, but otherwise I’m happy with it.

Main positives are the value with the first 2 picks and the trades where he ripped off Max

Solid but unspectacular

3. Neil

Some okay picks around where I valued then

No real surprises, I think Neil picked the guys he was supposed to pick, when they were supposed to be picked

Can’t complain much about the first 3 picks but feels like he lost his way after that

I really hated the Jaycee Horn pick, but otherwise I think this is a pretty good draft. Most of them have starting potential, and even Horn could be vaguely worth it.

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

One of the best drafts, if we look past Neil’s CB obsession. I do not understand a) taking more when several are on the roster already or b) taking one as early as he took Horn.

I normally like Neil’s drafts. But Smith aside there’s a lot of guys who are just taken about where they should be who have question marks. I think that’s probably a reflection of a poor draft class.

A bit overdrafted across the board imo

Holy Moses, I’m Surtain we will Jaycee this team go Long

4. Geoff

A cornucopia of sadness

Solid early picks which given Mike picked them means they’re definitely going to break or be bad people

The draft rating is bearing in mind the draft capital he had. Wise to take Pitts first because at least half the league wanted him. Sermon is poor value but Lance is a good pick – arguably the best fantasy QB to go for in a 10 team league – QBs are plentiful so you want to draft one with the highest ceiling.

He must love to stay in Double-Trey Hotels. I like the Pitts and Waddle picks, two exciting prospects

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

A lot of reaches imo – Pitts, Lance, Waddle, Sermon, Collins. Mike usually is pretty active trading back, but he seems to have decided this year is the one he wouldn’t and just taken his guys where they came to him. But in reality he’s just taking everyone early.

I’m not a fan of Pitts at 1, but he was going in the top 3, so I guess if you want him you get him. I’d just rather have had Chase or Harris. I also think Sermon was a big reach at 11. But both guys have good upside and there’s a bunch of guys here that are similar. Feels like a lot of swings for the fences on boom/bust guys, but they seem like good swings.

A TE at one was a big shock to me but I know some others called it

Bog standard draft. Not too much ‘wow’ factor here

5. Pete

Efficient

Very few of my guys picked so this was a middling draft

Over half his draft picks I didn’t have ranked in my top 100

Some good value in the early rounds then went all d with exception of a random Shi Smith

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

An LB with the 13th pick takes some cahones

Getting Harris at 3 was very good for Pete. I think he was a bit early on Davis and Oweh, but they should be decent players. I feel like he took too many DEs, but don’t hate the players he took.

Pete: Strangely optimistic about this year’s picks.

Too many picks for not enough cap room.

6. Max

Let’s go Jags!

Some relatively solid picks and an amazing trade combined with an awful one

Hopefully set himself up at qb but has so many holes didn’t really fill them

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

This commenting stuff gets tricky after a few. Meh.

Pretty solid!

I liked his first 3 picks, although I think it ended up being that you could get a good DE way later, so Paye wasn’t great value. I know nothing about the two mid-round WRs.

I think Lawrence was taken too early and isn’t the best QB to go for in this draft. It’s a bit of a meh draft for me – fine, nothing special, not a disaster.

I think he did too much prep for this one

7. Ian

OMG

Very little value here

Made the most out of limited capital

He didn’t have a lot to work with, but I liked most of the picks. Picking a “worst value” was really difficult – even if Atwell is a bust, it’s not that much of a waste given where he was drafted. Most of the late round guys have a vague path towards being useful, so all in all a decent draft given the lack of picks.

He had nothing to work with and got very little for it.

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

For having limited early picks, there is a lot to like

Seems fine

8. Benj

Fall in love with guys and massively overdraft them. Check.

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

Could have just drafted 12 Mr Irrelevants

Another middling draft. Not much to get excited about but I like the Turner pick

Very different to my rankings, but being contrarian could work out well

I think I did ok. I got players I wanted and spammed the RB position in the hope that someone steps up. I was surprised that Brown was seen as such a reach – I’d seen plenty of mock drafts putting him around that area or within the next 4 or 5 picks (so not making it to me by my next pick) and of course we get no insight into who values which players where so I only really have a bunch of mocks to go on as to where he might fall to. Anyway, we’ll see.

Three a lot of darts at RB’s but no bullseye’s for me

I really liked Bolton, Bateman should be good, and Mitchell at his price was very good value. Brown was a bit of a reach but should be good. Of the picks after Mitchell though, I only liked Turner.

Steady away with limited early round picks

9. Slatz

Yes please

I don’t know anything about rhamondre Stevenson, so that colours this grade a bit. In a sense, I am grading my own ignorance.

I only value Nico Collins as a great pick here so that balances out some other poorer picks

I don’t like it at all. Lots of reaches for guys he obviously liked

Not my favourite draft, but too hard to say at this point if its good or bad

I like Collins, Hubbard and Hawkins but I don’t really fancy that this draft will off much long term. I’d be surprised if any get extended, punter aside of course.

I’m not a fan. Stevenson was a big reach, the WRs and RBs are all major dart throws on guys who mostly didn’t show much actual talent in college. He could easily have cut the entire class in 2 years.

I hate the Stevenson pick. I don’t understand taking him so early. Sure, the draft wasn’t great in depth but he’ll likely have 3 fantasy relevant games a year and you will never know which ones they will be.

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

10. James

Amazing

Huge focus on d but probably reached for a lot of guys. Still he’s got who he wanted I imagine

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

I like the Micah pick, but too WR light to get a top rating

He didn’t have much to work with, and Parsons was a good pick. Basham could be decent. I didn’t like Grant, and everyone else could easily be off rosters within a couple of years.

I don’t really like any of these players. Would be interesting to be able to rate what he traded the first for as well though, to see if he got good value for picks not used

Tough sledding with no early picks. Draft could only be defensive in nature, and we all hate defensive players

Mainly late round picks so hard to really assess their long term value

I don’t think he picked a single player I was remotely considering. A waste of a draft. Also, the trade would have scored much higher if he’d used the pick on someone worthwhile.

Onwards to the data!

Now then, rather than in ranked order, just normal league order, starting with Pete, here are the answers to each of the questions. I’m not listing every answer, anyone with only one vote is omitted for at least some semblance of brevity. Oh, and there were 10 voters on every question. Well done everyone.

Pete’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

RB Najee Harris (3) – 6

LB Jamin Davis (13) – 2

Who represents the best value?

WR Kadarius Toney (29) – 4

DE Gregory Rousseau (43) – 3

RB Najee Harris (3) – 2

Who was the worst value pick?

LB Jamin Davis (13) – 2

DE Jayson Oweh (23) – 2

WR D’Wayne Eskridge (33) – 2

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

WR Kadarius Toney (29) – 5

RB Najee Harris (3) – 2

None of them – 2

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

CB Greg Newsome (118) – 6

WR Shi Smith (78) – 2

Ben & Stew’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

WR Ja’Marr Chase (2) – 9

QB Justin Fields (25) – 1 (alright, I said I wouldn’t do the single votes thing, but here, because there was only one, I thought you might like to see who checked in above Chase)

Who represents the best value?

WR Amon-Ra St Brown (32) – 2

WR Ja’Marr Chase (2) – 2

Who was the worst value pick?

WR Rondale Moore (12) – 4

DE Jaelan Phillips (22) – 3

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

WR Rondale Moore (12) – 5

RB Travis Etiene (5) – 2

QB Justin Fields (25) – 2

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

S Trevon Moehrig (77) – 5

None of them – 2

James’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

LB Micah Parsons (15) – 7

Who represents the best value?

DE Carlos Basham (53) – 3

LB Derrick barnes (68) – 2

LB Micah Parsons (15) – 2

RB Chris Evans (49) – 2

Who was the worst value pick?

S Richie Grant (30) – 8

LB Micah Parsons (15) – 2

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

S Richie Grant (30) – 5

Neither of them – 3

LB Micah Parsons (15) – 2

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

RB Jermar Jefferson (84) – 4

None of them – 3

The score for the following trade:

GIVE Jonnu Smith, GET Pick 3.10 (used for Richie Grant) was… 4.375/10, after I removed the 10 that James gave himself. Someone else gave it a 10 though. Crazy.

Is it weird that Chris called Goody ‘James’ throughout?

Yes – 8

No – 2

Geoff’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

TE Kyle Pitts (1) – 7

WR Jaylen Waddle (6) – 3

Who represents the best value?

LB Zaven Collins (21) – 2

RB Trey Surman (11) – 2

WR Jaylen Waddle (6) – 2

Who was the worst value pick?

TE Kyle Pitts (1) – 3

RB Trey Surmon (11) – 3

QB Trey Lance (19) – 2

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

RB Trey Surman (11) – 5

None of them – 2

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

S Divine Deablo (116) – 4

CB Caleb Farley (86) – 2

WR Cornell Powell (76) – 2

None of them – 2

Slatz’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

WR Nico Collins (26) – 5

RB Rhamondre Stevenson (18) – 2

WR Anthony Schwartz (38) – 2

Who represents the best value?

WR Nico Collins (26) – 3

WR Anthony Schwartz (38) – 2

RB Rhamondre Stevenson (18) – 2

QB Davis Mills (111) – 2

Who was the worst value pick?

RB Rhamondre Stevenson (18) – 8

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

RB Rhamondre Stevenson (18) – 9

WR Nico Collins (26) – 1

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

QB Davis Mills (111) – 3

P Pressley Harvin (121) – 2

WR Ihmir Smith-Marsette (81) – 2

None of them – 2

Neil’s Draft

(Neil didn’t provide ratings for any of his picks so there are only 9 votes in play)

Who will be the best player?

WR Devonta Smith (4) – 6

LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (24) – 2

Who represents the best value?

DE Joseph Ossai (56) – 3

LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (24) – 2

Who was the worst value pick?

CB Jaycee Horn (37) – 5

DT Christian Barmore (28) – 2

WR Devonta Smith (4) – 2

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

DT Christian Barmore (28) – 4

RB Michael Carter (14) – 4

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

CB Patrick Surtain (79) – 5

WR Simi Fehoko (109) – 3

Benj’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

WR Rashod Bateman (7) – 6

LB Nick Bolton (27) – 2

Who represents the best value?

RB Kylin Hill (59) – 2

RB Elijah Mitchell (57) – 2

DE Payton Turner (70) – 2

(As an aside, it’s quite nice to see 7 different players get picked here)

Who was the worst value pick?

WR Dyami Brown (17) – 5

WR Rashod Bateman (7) – 3

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

WR Rashod Bateman (7) – 4

WR Dyami Brown (17) – 3

None of them – 3

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

RB Jake Funk (82) – 5

None of them – 4

Max’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

QB Trevor Lawrence (10) – 7

Who represents the best value?

DE Kwity Paye (20) – 2

WR Terrace Marshall (9) – 2

S Andre Cisco (105) – 2

Who was the worst value pick?

DE Kwity Paye (20) – 3

WR Terrace Marshall (9) – 2

QB Trevor Lawrence (10) – 2

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

None of them – 5

WR Terrace Marshall (9) – 4

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

S Andre Cisco (105) – 4

LB Baron Browning (95) – 3

The score for the following trade:

GIVE: Travis Kelce, Pick 4.10; GET: Henry Ruggs, Derwin James, Pick 1.09 (used on Terrace Marshall) was… 4.67/10

The score for the following trade:

GIVE: Pick 3.10; GET: Jonnu Smith was… 6.56/10

Ian’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

LB Pete Werner (35) – 4

TE Pat Friermuth (45) – 3

WR Tutu Atwell (39) – 2 (so someone other than Chris voted for him)

Who represents the best value?

LB Pete Werner (35) – 3

TE Pat Friermuth (45) – 3

RB Kenneth Gainwell (47) – 3

Who was the worst value pick?

WR Tutu Atwell (39) – 5

LB Pete Werner (35) – 3

TE Pat Friermuth (45) – 2

Ian had no picks in the first 3 rounds. He traded a 1st and 3rd (and potentially another 2nd or 3rd) for Allen Robinson. He also traded a 2nd for Zach Ertz. Which of these trades was horrifically bad?

TE Zach Ertz for a 2nd – 10

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

WR Dez Fitzpatrick (80) – 3

TE Brevin Jordan (90) – 2

Chris’s Draft

Who will be the best player?

RB Javonte Williams (8) – 5

WR Elijah Moore (16) – 4

Who represents the best value?

WR Elijah Moore (16) – 5

RB Javonte Williams (8) – 2

Who was the worst value pick?

RB Javonte Williams (8) – 2

LB Chazz Surratt (60) – 2

DT Milton Williams (75) – 2

Which top 30 pick is most likely to bust?

None of them – 7

RB Javonte Williams (8) – 3

Which pick in the 8th round or later is most likely to be useful?

TE Tommy Tremble (83) – 3

S Jevon Holland (93) – 3

WR Seth Williams (113) – 3

Who has the best name in the draft?

Racey McMath – 4

Divine Deablo – 4

Chuba Hubbard – 1

Amon-Ra St Brown – 1 (Maybe Max?)

Who gave the best pick comment?

“All aboard the Toney Train! Fat Controller: Dave Gettleman. Conductor: Jason Garrett. DRIVER: the Young Joka himself, Two Shoes Toney. Choo Choo!” (Pete on Kadarius Toney) – 5 votes

“Don’t Look Back in Hufanga.” (Ben and Stew on Hufanga Talanoa) – 2 votes

“Now I can cut Andy Dalton to make sure both my QBs have first names for last names.” (Max on Trevor Lawrence) – 2 votes (one of these votes was maybe from Max though)

“In the 2nd round, if you’re not hitting Paye-dirt, you may as well Kwity.” (Max on Kwity Paye) – 1 vote

Pete picked fastest, at 17 minutes per pick. What should his reward be?

200$ extra cap room

A weekend away at Neil’s for him to take over Neil’s 2022 draft

The nickname “Pistol Pete” for the season

He should be punished for not writing pick comments.

Slow clap

To work out if he was really fastest if auto picks are included

He gets the only playoff spot for Peter each season.

Something nice, like a better team

Bonus pick next year

A turducken

Neil picked slowest, at 6 hours per pick. What should his punishment be?

A chiduckey

He gets moved to Peter.

Bonus pick next year

Punishment? Should get an award for having to listen to the moaning!

He should have a baby to keep him awake all night

Not allowed to watch any Chiefs games this year; only Steelers

Being forced to have a really busy job and a new-born child. Oh, wait.

Banned from all future drafts

A weekend with Pete to help him with the 2022 draft

The nickname “Andrew Neil” for the season

The draft took 10 days. Is that…?

Too long – 6

About right – 3

Too short – 1 (this may have been Max)

Any last words?

Thoroughly enjoyable

Great draft, very enjoyable. Now that I’ve stopped watching the actual football, definitely the highlight of the year. Wait, did I say that out loud?

It feels like the worst draft class we’ve had so not many picks felt like good value

Really enjoyed my first rookie draft!

Nope

I don’t know what happened in the draft.

THE 2024 DYNABOWL DRAFT ENTRANCE SURVEY

The 2023 Dynabowl Draft Exit Survey

The 2022 Dynabowl Draft Exit Survey

The Dynabowl 2022 Draft Entrance Survey

Your Draft Survey Results

1. Ben & Stew

2. Chris

3. Neil

4. Geoff

5. Pete

6. Max

7. Ian

9. Slatz

10. James

Onwards to the data!

Pete’s Draft

Ben & Stew’s Draft

James’s Draft

Geoff’s Draft

Slatz’s Draft

Neil’s Draft

Benj’s Draft

Max’s Draft

Ian’s Draft

Chris’s Draft

Who has the best name in the draft?

Who gave the best pick comment?

Pete picked fastest, at 17 minutes per pick. What should his reward be?

Neil picked slowest, at 6 hours per pick. What should his punishment be?

The draft took 10 days. Is that…?

Any last words?

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