Well, Senior Bowl 2023 week is over. It felt like a super-long week of scouting practices, digesting all the tape and data, having some behind-the-scenes conversations, etc. -- but then it also felt like it was over in a blink. I’m still working on updating all scouting notes, re-grading all the prospects in attendance -- but also starting to get ready for the MAJOR scouting event: the 2023 NFL Combine.
The Senior Bowl event is changing in unique/strange ways each year for the past few years…this year was no exception.
The raw, physical talent of these college players is a sight to behold. They keep getting bigger, longer, quicker, more polished every year (remember how radical the 2022 NFL Combine times and measurements were across the board?). So much young, ready-to-go talent is flooding into the NFL…I don’t know where the NFL is going to put/fit it all.
This talent flood affects Dynasty/Fantasy Football management in various ways… Not only do we need to evaluate ‘how talented’, in order to consider drafting them onto our teams -- but we also need to know when this talent wave hits NFL teams (via the draft), how it is going to affect the current/existing players on the roster. Several existing NFL RBs and WRs are going to take a hit in valuation based upon their team drafting a talent, especially the growing values available mid-draft…value picks that are smart for NFL team management but causes chaos to our Dynasty/Fantasy roster management.
Staying up with the offseason scouting is critical…just ‘how good’ are these various 2023 prospects…just how deep is the talent running by position group this draft season? Based off of that -- should you be trading your high Dynasty Rookie Draft picks to move down a bit and acquire more assets to do so…or are the top guys so great this year, you want to hold your high picks and consider moving up? We’ve been advocates of trading down the last few Dynasty Rookie Drafts, and laid out our case and a road map of how to do so/what valuation exchange to consider.
Your league mates, your opposition is playing the game (Fantasy), managing their Dynasty teams the way the mainstream is telling them to…and they are not telling them much right now. Most draft analysts echo each other’s early sentiments, the universally accepted sentiments/scouting, the hive mind mentality based on how cool a highlight play or two of any particular player from their college days…or if they went to a big name school and thus they ‘know’ the name (but don’t ‘know’ the real scouting). This is a perfect time of year to try and take advantage of this lack of information…if you have alternative information.
We feel like we’re playing with a different deck of cards each year…and this year is no exception based on our first round of 2023 scouting reports. This early season scouting/awareness is to our advantage making deals in the offseason. It’s a year-round process. Prospect scouting and valuation setting is a full-time job in the offseason -- and that’s what we do everyday up to and into training camps and the preseason. The Senior Bowl week is a kind of ‘starter’s pistol’ to the offseason prospect scouting process.
This week we’re wrapping the 2023 Senior Bowl scouting with a daily published series of re-grading (from our preview scouting/grading) the prospect post-event. Our RB scouting grades and Senior Bowl notes are both free when you sign up for Weekly Report - Free! To access all our premium reports sign-up for our Total Football Advisor package.
We’re also loading rookies into our system with early projections on their Dynasty value, for the debut (every February, post-Super Bowl) of our top 600 Dynasty offensive player (rookie and existing) rankings/valuations, and our top 500 Dynasty IDP player (rookie and existing) rankings. Our first Dynasty rankings/valuation scores reports will be out after the Super Bowl/2nd-half of February…and then we update it weekly with the latest news, scouting, free agency, etc., all the way up to the 2023 season kickoff.
So much football scouting, so little time. It’s coming at us like proverbial water out of a fire hose. We invite you to drink from that hose with us throughout the offseason scouting and valuation setting process!
-- R.C. Fischer
