*The S21 London Royals where are they now

[2Burkeulosis]

With the NSFL draft concluded I thought I would go over where my fellow London Royals teammates ended up. I have no idea what if anything we will learn from this but I am excited to find out. First let’s start by breaking down where we all ended up. Special thanks to @lamboalfredo for gathering this information for me.

Arizona Outlaws 4 Royals
Rnd 3 Pck 4 28th OA Sandro Ryeu DE
Rnd 3 Pck 6 30th OA Quinn Hughes S
Rnd 5 Pck 4 52nd OA Claude Miller II DT
Rnd 8 Pck 3 87th OA Jacoby Batista RB

Austin Copperheads 0 Royals

Baltimore Hawks 10 Royals
Rnd 1 Pck 9 9th OA Derred de Ville LB
Rnd 3 Pck 3 27th OA Eldrick Avery CB
Rnd 4 Pck 9 45th OA Ben Stackinpaper CB
Rnd 5 Pck 9 57th OA Nick Kaepercolin WR
Rnd 13 Pck 9 153rd OA Winston Bragg RB
Rnd 15 Pck 9 177th OA Calvin McMann LB
Rnd 16 Pck 9 189th OA Henry Saxe-Coburg-Gotha WR
Rnd 17 Pck 9 201st OA Seth Lindsey K/P
Rnd 21 Pck 9 249th OA Seth Goepfrich TE
Rnd 22 Pck 9 261st OA Samuel Miller LB

Chicago Butchers 4 Royals
Rnd 7 Pck 9 81st OA Simeon Works DE
Rnd 14 Pck 6 162nd OA Xavier O’Doyle CB
Rnd 18 Pck 6 210th OA Steve Alverado WR
Rnd 22 Pck 3 255th OA A.J. Warren DE

Colorado Yeti 3 Royals
Rnd 14 Pck 8 164th OA Meep Meep DE
Rnd 19 Pck 8 224th OA Leland Breeland DT
Rnd 22 Pck 8 260th OA Willis Cannon K/P

Honolulu Hahalua 1 Royals
Rnd 22 Pck 1 265th OA Buster Holiday LB

New Orleans Secondline 2 Royals
Rnd 8 Pck 12 96th OA Blake Alexander WR
Rnd 15 Pck 12 180th OA Anthony De Luca RB

Orange County Otters 1 Royals
Pnd 23 Pck 10 274th OA Tyler Curtis WR

Philadelphia Liberty 2 Royals
Rnd 7 Pck 8 80th OA Donatello Arrabiata TE
Rnd 10 Pck 3 111th OA Tristan Gronlie DT

San Jose Sabercats 4 Royals
Rnd 4 Pck 5 41st OA Cadillac Harris CB
Rnd 12 Pck 5 137th OA Douglas MacArthur TE
Rnd 21 Pck 5 245th OA Elias Ziegler S
Rnd 24 Pck 5 281st OA Leo Browning LB

Sarasota Sailfish 3 Royals
Rnd 20 Pck 2 230th OA Dean Winchester S
Rnd 20 Pck 7 235th OA Raiden Briggs LB
Rnd 22 Pck 7 259th OA Perry King TE

Yellowknife Wraiths 6 Royals
Rnd 2 Pck 11 23rd OA Colby Jack QB
Rnd 4 Pck 11 47th OA Acura Skyline RB
Rnd 6 Pck 11 71st OA Susan Cash Jr. WR
Rnd 10 Pck 11 119th OA Ed Ball S
Rnd 11 Pck 11 131st OA Cadillac Mitchell CB
Rnd 12 Pck 11 143rd OA Clayton Jones DT

So the first thing we got to talk about is how absolutely massive this draft class is. With active users being selected as deep in as the 10th round or later. Mr. Irrelevant this year was pick number 284 Safety Dan Jackson for a comparison the NFL drafted only 256 players last year.

Now let’s talk about the Royals. Let’s start with the obvious who took the most Royals and who took the least. With 10 Royals selected the Baltimore Hawks easily drafted the most Royals Players. They were also the first team to draft a Royals player. Starting with defensive player of the year Derred de Ville in the first round they just started scooping us up and never stopped. While watching the draft several Royals players noticed that the Hawks seemed to be using London as a farm. The Baltimore GMs claimed that this was merely a coincidence.

On the other hand the Austin Copperheads drafted a whopping zero Royals players. Now I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.When I first saw this I thought that I had made some kind of mistake. When I realized I hadn’t my thoughts turned towards conspiracy theories, but then I decided to take a closer look at the draft. Looking back at it the Austin Copperheads only had five picks in the first six rounds of the draft. In fact they only had ten draft picks in the entire draft. With those kinds of numbers even if they drafted one player from every DSFL team not every team would be equally represented. With limited resources the Copperheads we’re probably forced to be extra careful with who they drafted and I guess the Remaining Royal players we’re just too big of a risk for them to take.

With the two extremes established let’s look at how the teams in the middle did. Starting with the Butchers who drafted four Royals. While they scored a definite keeper with Simeon Works the other 3 players all went inactive before earning a single point of TPE. In fact the Yetis, Hahalaus, Otters, and Sailfish all failed to draft a single active player/potentially active player from the Royals. I’m tempted to include the Second Line in this list but considering that WR Blake Alexander was seen on this site as recently as earlier this week I’m going to give them a pass in the hopes that they can convince Blake to be more active in this league.

The Philadelphia Liberty drafted two active Royals players who have the potential to be really great at their respective positions. In my opinion Philly did just good enough this year. They didn’t overachieve but by no means did they screw up either. I’m actually kind of curious to see how well this team does next year.

At first glance it looks like the San Jose Sabercats drafted only one active player from the Royals this year. While Cadillac Harris is one of the best corners in the DSFL it does seem kind of disappointing that they missed out on some other great talent. Until you look at the list again and see the player drafted in the 12th round. Now the 12th round is what I like to think of as the point of no return for a DSFL player. The players drafted in the 12th are usually folks who stuck around the league long enough to build up at least some TPE before going inactive and their players are usually good enough to stick around in the DSFL for at least another season. If there is any hope of a player coming back from inactivity and picking up where they left off it’s going to come from the players drafted in the 12th round.

Now we move on to my new favorite team the Yellowknife Wraiths. They drafted six players from London, good for 2nd most. All of them within the first 12 rounds. Important fact Wraiths GM FlyEaglesFly29 was embedded within this team as a recreate. How much of an advantage did this give the Wraiths when it came time to draft. At first glance not much Their first three picks are Fly’s player Colby Jack and two players who quite frankly shouldn’t have fallen as far as they did. Acura Skyline who was the DSFL offensive player of the year and myself. (still salty that I fell all the way down to 71st OA. Y'all will regret letting that happen) Looking at their final 3 draft picks. You got Ed Ball and Cadillac Mitchell who are two players that haven’t done much yet but are still somewhat active in the league and Clayton Jones who is probably permanently inactive but you never know. So did Colby Jack have an unfair advantage when it came to drafting Royals? No at worst you could say that his access to the Royals locker room gave him the insight to find a couple of potential sleepers but all in all his best picks were himself and two guys that fell way further than they probably should have.

Finally we have the Arizona Outlaws. Like the Philadelphia Liberty all the players they drafted are active and consistent TPE earners. Unlike Philly they managed to grab four Royals. Sandro Ryeu and Quinn Hughes are two A+ defensive players who have already been added to the Outlaws starting line up. Then they swooped in on Claude Miller II who joined the Royals less than a month ago and already has over 100 TPE. Finally they grabbed RB Jacoby Batista who is another person that I would say fell a little further down the draft than they probably should have. In terms of quality I would say that the Outlaws probably drafted the best over all when it came to Royals players.

In conclusion it probably doesn’t matter if you drafted ten players from the Royals or zero. While we have some of the best players in the DSFL. We are only one team out of a dozen. The Baltimore Hawks drafted Nick Kaepercolin in the 5th round. Then they don’t pick up another Royals player until the 13th round nearly 100 picks later. The Hawks drafted seven other players in between rounds five and thirteen. Those seven players matter just as much to their organizations long term success as anyone else. We won’t know for sure who was a bust and who was a steal until the season gets underway. Something to keep in mind for next week's NFL draft.

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