Inside the NFL Draft: Rounds, Order and Trades
How the NFL draft works from the first pick to the last: seven rounds, how a pick is made, the clock, compensatory selections, the supplemental draft, and how traded picks move between teams.
For three days each spring, the NFL turns a roster-building exercise into a television event. A commissioner walks to a podium, a name is read, a young man hugs his family, and a team that has spent months studying him adds a new player. It looks simple. Behind the scenes, though, each pick is the end of a long chain of decisions about order, trades, timing and contract rights.
The draft is the league's main system for distributing new talent. Its core idea has been stable since the first draft in 1936: teams that did worse the previous year get the earliest chance to choose from the same pool of players. Nearly everything else, from the number of rounds to the clock and the trade rules, is a detail that has been adjusted over the years.
This guide covers who is eligible, how the rounds work, what happens when a team is on the clock, how trades change the board, and the less visible parts, including the compensatory picks and the supplemental draft. Where a detail varies from year to year, we say so. The current board and results are on our draft page.
Who can be drafted
To be drafted, a player generally must be at least three years removed from high school graduation, which in practice means most players come from college programs after their third season or later. A player who is still in college and meets that standard has to declare for the draft, and college players who have used up their eligibility are automatically eligible. The process for college players is covered in How NFL Draft Eligibility Works for College Players.
Players who are not selected are not out of luck. Once the draft ends, teams sign them as undrafted free agents, with no draft pick attached and an immediate chance to compete for a roster spot. Many players who make rosters each year came that way. To see where a drafted player began, the college section lists programs and the teams pages show who ended up on which roster, with live results on the scores page once the season starts.
The shape of the draft: seven rounds
The draft has seven rounds. In each round every team has one selection, so the base draft has 32 picks per round. The final total is larger, because the league adds compensatory picks at the end of rounds three through seven (more on those below), and some teams also hold extra picks that came from trades.
| Round | Pick time in recent drafts | Typical character |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Longest clock, about 10 minutes | Players expected to start; the best-known names |
| 2 | About 7 minutes | Potential starters and top prospects who fell |
| 3 | About 5 minutes | Starters and developmental talent; compensatory picks begin |
| 4 to 6 | About 5 minutes | Role players, specialists, developmental players |
| 7 | Shortest clock, about 4 minutes | Long shots and late bets; ends with the final pick |
The league sets the clocks each year and has changed them over time, so treat the numbers as an illustration of the pattern: the longer the round, the less time each team gets. The first round is long because the stakes are high and trades are common; late rounds are quick because teams have often decided long before.
The days and the venue
In recent drafts the three days run as a Thursday night first round, a Friday for the second and third rounds, and a Saturday for rounds four through seven. The draft is held in the spring, traditionally in late April. The league has moved the event around the country, with a host city chosen in advance, so the venue is not fixed. Which days contain which rounds is also something the league has changed before, so check the current announcement.
How the order is set
Within each round the order is the same. The team with the first overall pick goes first in every round, the second team goes second, and so on. The order itself is built from the previous season's results.
- Teams that missed the playoffs pick first, ordered from the worst record to the best.
- Playoff teams pick next, ordered by how far they advanced and then by record within each group.
- The Super Bowl winner picks last in each round, and the runner-up picks just ahead of it.
When teams have identical records, tiebreakers such as strength of schedule decide who goes earlier. The full set of rules and examples is in How the NFL Draft Order Is Set for Playoff and Non-Playoff Teams. Notably, the NFL has no lottery. The worst record gets the first pick without a draw, which is a deliberate difference from some other American leagues.
What happens when a team is on the clock
Each team's selection follows the same sequence.
- The clock starts. The league puts a timer on the board, with the length set by the round.
- The team decides. Its decision-makers, typically the general manager, head coach and scouting staff, agree on a name. They may also be negotiating a trade at the same moment.
- The pick is submitted. The team notifies the league office. In earlier eras this was done with a paper card; today it is done through electronic channels.
- The pick is announced. The commissioner or a guest announces the player's name, and the draft moves to the next team.
- The team makes contact. The team's staff phone the player, usually before the announcement, and it is the player's cue to appear on television in the early rounds.
If a team does not submit its pick before the clock expires, the next team in line is allowed to pick first, and the skipped team can still choose whenever it is ready. In practice teams almost always pick with time to spare, and the full clock tends to run down only when a team is trying to arrange a trade.
What a pick actually gives a team
Being drafted does not make a player an NFL player by itself. It gives the drafting club exclusive negotiating rights: no other team can sign the player, and the player cannot sign elsewhere. The drafted player then signs a rookie contract, whose size is set by a scale tied to the slot where he was picked. See NFL Rookie Contracts and the Rookie Wage Scale. That is why first-round picks are tied so closely to a team's cap planning: the earlier the slot, the larger the contract, and the less room the team has to negotiate over the price.
A team that cannot or does not reach terms with a drafted player keeps his rights for a limited period set by the league's rules; the player is not free to choose another team in the meantime.
Trading picks
Picks are assets and can be traded, usually by pairing them with other picks or players. Trades happen before the draft, during it and in the days after.
Why teams trade up and down
- Trading up means giving a pick (or several) to move earlier in the order, because a team is convinced a particular player will not be there at its original slot. Moving up usually costs more than a team gets back in the lower slot.
- Trading down means giving up an earlier pick for a later one plus an extra asset, because the team thinks there are several similar players available and prefers to collect more picks.
- Future picks can also be traded. A team can often trade a pick from the next draft or a draft after that, within the limits set by the league. A traded future pick is simply a claim on a spot that will not be known until that season ends.
How the values are compared
Each pick is worth something different, and the late-round picks are worth much less than first-rounders. Teams use charts that give each slot a numerical value so that two sides can see whether a trade is balanced. The best-known is the trade value chart that has circulated for decades, and teams also use their own versions. The details are in The Draft Trade Value Chart. More on the broader trade rules and deadlines is in NFL Trades: Rules, Deadlines and How Picks Are Valued.
A hypothetical example
Suppose a team holds the 20th pick and the 52nd pick (a second-rounder). Its scouts have a short list of four players at the same position and they expect three of them to be gone by pick 12. To move up from 20 to 12, the team is willing to include the 52nd pick as the sweetener. The other team at pick 12 compares the value of 12 with the value of 20 plus 52 using its chart and, if the numbers look balanced, agrees to the swap. After the trade, the two teams simply swap slots: the team at 12 now picks at 20 and also receives the 52nd pick. The order of the board is changed, and the number of players drafted by each team is changed, but the total number of picks in each round stays the same.
That example is hypothetical, but the mechanics are the same in every trade: it is a swap of positions plus compensation, not a purchase of a particular player. The pick holder can still choose anyone.
Compensatory picks and other extras
Beyond the base 32 in each round, the league awards a limited number of compensatory selections to teams that lost more or better free agents than they signed the year before. They are added at the end of rounds three through seven. The formula is explained in The Compensatory Pick Formula Explained. They can be used and, under current rules, traded like any other pick.
Some picks also vanish. If the league determines that a team violated a league rule, it can strip the team of a draft pick as a penalty, and the pick is simply skipped.
The supplemental draft
The supplemental draft is a separate, much smaller event held in the summer for players who were not eligible for the regular draft for a particular reason, such as a change in their eligibility status after the deadline. Teams submit bids by round, the team with the highest-rated bid wins the player, and it gives up a pick in the same round of the next regular draft. It is rare for more than a few players to be selected in a given year, and some years have none.
After the draft: the rest of the pipeline
When round seven finishes, the last pick is traditionally known as Mr. Irrelevant, a good-natured title that comes with a small celebration. The player is no less a professional than anyone else; he is simply last.
What follows is a sprint. Teams sign undrafted free agents within hours. Rookies attend a rookie minicamp, then spend the summer learning the playbook in organized team activities. Training camp opens in July and the roster cuts come in late August. The league calendar is described in The NFL Offseason Calendar, Month by Month.
Common misunderstandings
"The worst team always picks first." Usually, but not always. Picks can be traded, and the team at the top of the board may belong to a team that was not the worst the year before.
"A traded pick is traded for a player." A pick is a slot. The team that receives it can pick any eligible player, trade the slot again, or use it as a throw-in for another trade.
"Late-round picks never matter." They matter for roster depth, special teams and cap room. Late picks are cheap, which is exactly why a roster full of them can be useful under a salary cap.
"The draft is the only way to get talent." It is not even the most common way to fill a roster. Free agency, trades, waivers and undrafted signings all feed a team.
The short version
- The draft has seven rounds, with 32 base picks in each, plus compensatory picks at the ends of rounds three through seven.
- Order runs from the worst non-playoff record to the Super Bowl winner. There is no lottery.
- A draft pick gives a team exclusive negotiating rights, and a rookie contract follows a scale tied to the pick slot.
- Teams trade up and down using value charts; future picks can also be traded within the league's limits.
- The supplemental draft handles special eligibility cases in the summer, and undrafted free agents sign right after the final pick.
- Clock lengths, days and venues have changed over time, so check the current announcement for the year.