The NFL draft, officially known as the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the most common source of player recruitment in the National Football League (NFL). Since 2026, the event has been held on the fourth Thursday of April to the fourth Saturday of April. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order relative to its record in the previous year, which means that the team with the worst record is positioned first and the Super Bowl champion is last. For teams that had the same record, their position in the draft order for each round rotates in some way amongst the teams with tied records. From this position, the team can either select a player or trade its position to another team for other draft positions, a player, or players, or any combination thereof. The round is complete when each team has either selected a player or traded its position in the draft. The first draft was held in 1936 and has been held every year since.
Certain aspects of the draft, including team positioning and the number of rounds in the draft, have been revised since its creation, but the fundamental method has remained the same. Currently, the draft consists of seven rounds. The original rationale in creating the draft was to increase the competitive parity between the teams as the worst team would, ideally, be able to choose the best player available. In the early years of the draft, players were chosen based on hearsay, print media, or other rudimentary evidence of ability. In the 1940s, some franchises began employing full-time scouts. The ensuing success of these teams eventually forced the other franchises to also hire scouts.
Colloquially, the name of the draft each year takes on the form of the NFL season in which players picked could begin playing. For example, the 2010 NFL draft was for the 2010 NFL season. However, the NFL-defined name of the process has changed since its inception. The location of the draft has continually changed over the years to accommodate more fans, as the event has gained popularity. The draft's popularity now garners prime-time television coverage. In the league's early years, from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, the draft was held in various cities with NFL franchises until the league settled on New York City starting in 1965, where it remained for fifty years until 2015, when future draft locations started being determined through a yearly bidding process.
History
In the early 1930s, Stan Kostka had an excellent college career as a University of Minnesota running back, leading the Minnesota Gophers to an undefeated season in 1934. Every NFL team wanted to sign him. Kostka took advantage of the lack of a draft and held out for the highest possible offer. While a free agent, he even ran for Mayor of Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota. Although his political career did not take off, Kostka's nine-month NFL holdout succeeded and he became the league's highest-paid player, signing a $5,000 contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers on August 25, 1935. As a response to the bidding war for Stan Kostka, the NFL instituted the draft in 1936.
In late 1935, Art Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, gave the right of usage of two players to the New York Giants because Rooney's team had no chance to participate in the postseason. After the owner of the Boston Redskins, George Preston Marshall, protested the transaction, the president of the NFL, Joe F. Carr, disallowed the Giants the ability to employ the players.Coenen, 2005, pp. 92–93. At a league meeting in December 1934, the NFL introduced a waiver rule to prevent such transactions. Any player released by a team during the season would be able to be claimed by other teams. The selection order to claim the player would be in inverse order to the teams' standings at the time.
Throughout this time, Bert Bell, co-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, felt his team's lack of competitiveness on the field made it difficult for the Eagles to sell tickets and to be profitable.Lyons, 2010, p. 54. Compounding the Eagles' problems were players signed with teams that offered the most money,MacCambridge, 2005, p. 43. or if the money being equal, players chose to sign with the most prestigious teams at the time,The three most prestigious teams at the time were the Bears, Giants, and the Packers. Maule, 1964, p. 15. who had established a winning tradition.The players had an auxiliary financial incentive to play with the best teams because 60% of the profit for the NFL championship game went to the players on the winning team and 40% went to the players on the losing team. As a result, the NFL was dominated by the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, Giants, and Redskins.Lyons, 2010, p. 56.Ruck; Patterson and Weber, 2010, p. 108. Bell's inability to sign a desired prospect, Stan Kostka, in 1935,Lyons writes Bell tried to sign Kostka in 1933.Lyons, 2010, p. 56.Willis, 2010, p. 338. eventually led Bell to believe the only way for the NFL to have enduring success was for all teams to have an equal opportunity to sign eligible players.Peterson, 1997, p. 119.Williams, 2006, pp. 41–42. At a league meeting on May 18, 1935, Bell proposed a draft be instituted to enhance the possibility of competitive parity on the field in order to ensure the financial viability of all franchises. His proposal was adopted unanimously that day,Didinger writes the proposal was accepted the next day, on May 19, 1935. Didinger; Lyons, 2005, p. 256.Lyons, 2010, p. 57–58.Willis, 2010, p. 341–343.DeVito, 2006, p. 84. although the first draft would not occur until the next off-season.
The rules for the selection of the players in the first draft were, first, that a list of college seniorsBaldwin, 2000, p. 192. would be assembled by each franchise and submitted into a pool. From this pool, each franchise would select, in inverse order to their team's record in the previous year, a player. With this selection, the franchise had the unilateral right to negotiate a contract with that player,Lyons, 2010, pp. 58–59Willis, 2010, p. 342. or the ability to trade that player to another team for a player, or players. If, for any reason, the franchise was unsuccessful in negotiating a contract with the player and was unable to trade the player, the president of the NFL could attempt to arbitrate a settlement between the player and the franchise. If the president was unable to settle the dispute, then the player would be placed in the reserve list of the franchise and would be unavailable to play for any team in the NFL that year. In the 1935 NFL season, the Eagles finished in last place at 2–9, thus securing themselves the first pick in the draft.MacCambridge, 2005, p. 44.Didinger; Lyons, 2005, p. 256.Willis, 2010, p. 337.
The first draft (1936) The first NFL draft began at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia on February 8, 1936. Ninety names were written on a blackboard in the meeting room from which the teams would choose.Lyons, 2010, p. 60.Willis, 2010, p. 350. As no team had a scouting department, the list was created from either print media sources, visits to local colleges by team executives, or by recommendations to team executives.Davis, 2005, p. 131. The draft would last for nine rounds,Lyons and Willis write the draft was originally set up to have only five rounds, but it was changed to nine rounds during the selection meeting. Lyons, 2010, p. 350. and it had no media coverage. The first player selected in the draft was Jay Berwanger. Bell, prior to the draft, was not successfully able to negotiate a contract with Berwanger so Bell traded him to the Bears. The Milwaukee Journal implies the Eagles never attempted to negotiate with Berwanger.Lyons writes Bell offer of $150 per game was declined by Berwanger. Lyons, 2010, p. 60.Willis, 2010, p. 351. George Halas, owner of the Bears, was also unsuccessful in signing Berwanger.Davis writes Berwanger requested a two-year no cut contract for $12,500 per year which George Halas declined to meet. Davis, 2005, pp. 131–132. Berwanger's decision to not play in the NFL was not unusual, as only twenty-four of the eighty-one players selected chose to play in the NFL that year.Willis writes four players chosen in the draft eventually changed their minds and entered into the NFL in 1937. Willis, 2010, p. 351. The draft was recessed on the first day and it was continued and finished on the next day.Lyons, 2010, p. 59.
This draft saw the emergence of Wellington Mara as a savant, as he had been subscribing to magazines and local and out-of-town papers to build up dossiers of college players across the country, which resulted in the Giants' drafting of Tuffy Leemans.Devito, 2006, p. 85. As a result of the institution of the draft, Tim Mara, owner of the Giants, reduced Ken Strong's salary offer to $3,200 from $6,000 a year for 1936 because Mara felt the draft would alter the salary structure of the NFL.Coenen, 2005, pp. 96–97. Generally, the franchises' exclusivity in negotiating with draft picks produced the immediate effect of, depending on sources, stopping the escalating salaries of new players, or reducing their salaries.Coenen, 2005, p. 90."The players coming out of college were not happy, as salaries dropped by almost half." Devito, 2006, pp. 84. Consequently, contemporary critics charged it was anti-labor.Peterson, 1997, pp. 119–120.
Early drafts (1937–1946) Art Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, chose Byron "Whizzer" White in the first round of the 1938 draft despite White's known public declaration that he would not play professional football and would instead begin work on his Rhodes scholarship. White did, however, agree to play for the 1938 season after Rooney publicly gave him a guaranteed contract of $15,000, double what any other player had made in the NFL.Ruck; Patterson and Weber, 2010, pp. 138–140. The size of the dollar amount brought condemnation from other owners because it altered the pay expectations of college draftees.Ruck; Patterson and Weber, 2010, pp. 143, 148. For the 1939 draft Wellington, for the first time, was put in charge of drafting players for the Giants. He submitted the list of players into the pool that the Giants—or other franchises—could choose players from. However, in the first round he selected a player, Walt Nielsen, not on the list of players that the Giants or any other franchise had submitted. With a grin Wellington stated, "I didn't think I said I put every name on that list."Devito, 2006, pp. 95–96.
In 1939, Kenny Washington was, to no small extent, viewed as one of the greatest college football players of all time. After information was made available to at least one owner of a franchise that Washington was African-American, he was not drafted by any team for the 1940 NFL draft.Pervin writes that "Some NFL owners, including Tim Mara, were encouraged to draft Washington but none chose to break the racial barrier." Pervin, 2009, p. 16.
The draft would be eventually codified into the NFL Constitution,. Password protected except at participating U.S. Library. although no information is available on when that originally occurred.
"Bullet Bill" Dudley was the first overall pick in the 1942 draft and he would eventually become the first player picked first overall in the draft to enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Scouting era begins (1946–1959) Eddie Kotal became the first player scout in 1946 when he was hired by Dan Reeves of the Los Angeles Rams.MacCambridge, 2005, pp. 55–57.