Devy Fantasy Football 101
Dynasty leagues are the most engaging formats of fantasy football you can play. For football fans who love year-round fantasy football, dynasty fantasy football leagues are the best way to play. However, despite how engaging it is, it’s super fun to play with different formats and rules. Many formats that are becoming popular are Superflex, TE-Premium, and Devy leagues.
Since most dynasty fantasy leagues aim to emulate a real-life franchise, these formats are instrumental in keeping the value of fantasy and real-life similar. For instance, the quarterback is the most important position in the NFL, so making your league a Superflex (the ability to start two quarterbacks) makes the quarterback value realistic to the NFL. So if you love dynasty leagues and playing fantasy similar to an NFL GM, you’ll love Devy fantasy football leagues.
What is a Devy league?
While dynasty is very popular for avid fantasy fans, many don’t know what a Devy league is. It sounds complicated, but a Devy league is a type of dynasty league where you have a draft of college players on top of your rookie drafts. When a player is drafted, a Devy player stays on your roster until they enter the NFL and will not be part of the upcoming rookie draft.
Devy leagues will make watching the NFL Draft and NFL Combine just that much more fun as well. You’ll be invested all year long and if you’re a college football fan, you’ll like it even more.
You will draft a college player or players depending on how deep your Devy draft is before the college football season starts. This slightly decreases the value of your rookie picks but adds an extra level of strategy. Alternatively, some players break out in their final college season and are eligible to be chosen in your rookie draft. There are many different ways to create your settings, but most leagues have a one-round Devy draft, allowing one Devy player a year on your team.
Basics
Your Devy player or players will not affect how your team’s points are scored; they are just a layer of depth in how you acquire future assets. Your players will be held on your Devy taxi spot until they enter the NFL. Once they do, you can use these players on your starting lineup.
You are allowed to trade Devy players just like any other asset. However, they are tremendously valuable if you can only draft one per year.
Where to Play
A Devy League is a form of a dynasty league and can be played on many different dynasty platforms. Some of the most popular ones are Sleeper and MyFantasyLeague. MFL is a popular website because you can create these Devy players and put your whole roster in one place. Alternatively, the site is not free, which is inconvenient for most fantasy managers. Sleeper is my favorite site for dynasty because of the layout, ability to use dynasty settings, and trade draft picks.
Above all, Sleeper is free, which is essential to draw in a large number of users. While Devy leagues aren’t quite as popular, you can join a league on Reddit and other forums. Dynasty League Football also has a forum where you can chat with other users looking for a Devy league. Devy leagues can be hard to form and startup, but if you take the time to gather a good group of owners, it’ll make for one of your most competitive and enjoyable leagues.
Transitioning to Sleeper, MFL, or Fantrax
Coming from a league like ESPN, Yahoo, or wherever you previously played your dynasty football leagues. Sleeper, My Fantasy League, and Fantrax are the best sites to play dynasty. You’ll be moving from a site that caters to redraft fantasy football onto a site built for dynasty fantasy football leagues. As I said before, you’ll be moving to a site that allows you to use dynasty settings and trade draft picks.
It will, without a doubt, take some time to adjust as the ESPN app or others are very classic and straightforward. On the other hand, when you spend some time on these new sites and understand all the features they offer, you’ll love them and never want to switch back.
Fantrax has made some massive improvements over the last few years. If you haven’t tried them out in a while, learn all about them here.
Best Startup Time and League Settings
If you’ve decided Devy sounds like a format you’d be interested in trying, you should create or join a league this summer. The best time would be after the NFL draft so that you can draft rookies coming into the NFL in the same pool as your startup players. After your startup draft, you should create your Devy draft, where you draft your players with 2024 eligibility. You will then put these players on a spreadsheet or create a player depending on your platform.
Best Roster Settings
There are many different ways to construct your roster, but when looking for the most realistic and in-depth roster construction and settings, using Superflex, TE-Premium, and Devy is the way to go.
Startup Draft: 26 Rounds
- QB
- RB
- RB
- WR
- WR
- WR
- TE
- Flex (RB/WR/TE)
- Flex (RB/WR/TE)
- Superflex (QB/RB/WR/TE)
- Tight End Premium: 1.5 points per reception.
- Bench: 16 Spots
- Rookie Draft: 4 Rounds
- Taxi Squad: 4 Spots
- Devy Draft: 1 Round
Rookie Draft Vs. Devy Draft
What is the difference between a rookie versus a Devy draft? To simplify, a rookie draft consists of college players that declared for the NFL Draft. A Devy draft is a draft with players already in college. Below is an example of a rookie draft for 2023 versus a Devy draft for 2024.
Rookie Draft Sample (2023 prospects/players that declared for the NFL Draft)
1.01 Bijan Robinson
1.05 Jaxon Smith-Njigba
1.06 Quentin Johnston
1.12 Anthony Richardson
Devy Draft Sample (2024 Prospects / Anyone who didn’t declare for 2023)
1.01: Caleb Williams
1.02: TreVeyon Henderson
1.03: Marvin Harrison Jr.
1.04 Quinn Ewers
Starting Your League
After your Devy draft, your next draft will be your 2024 rookie draft, allowing owners to add players not picked in last year’s Devy draft. Most leagues only allow one Devy player per year to keep the rookie draft meaningful. The most common and one of the best setups for dynasty and Devy is a Superflex tight-end premium league. Using this, along with a very deep bench, gives you a very realistic feel about the value of every single position.
When you create your startup, it should be after the NFL draft so you can draft rookies within the same pool as everyone else. However, if you do it before, one suggestion is to use kickers as placeholders for rookie picks. For example, the first kicker is the 1.01, the second the 1.02, etc. You will need to take a few extra steps to keep everything organized, but this is essential if you have your startup before the NFL Draft.
I recommend creating the order of your Devy draft based on the opposite order of your startup to compensate the owners at the end of turns not being able to grab these elite assets even if overall the order should balance out. Conversely, you could do both randomly, which would be fair as well. Congrats, you’re ready to make trades, scout prospects, and enjoy the fun of your Devy dynasty league!
Dynasty Content
- ADP (1QB)
- ADP (SF/2QB)
- Rankings
- 2023 Class Preview
- Top 10 Quarterbacks
- Running Backs
- Wide Receivers
- Way Too Early Mock Draft
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