National Football League draft

Annual three-day event determining player selections for NFL teams

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.

Also known as...

NFL draft

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