NFL Draft

The NFL draft is an annual event in which National Football League franchises take turns selecting amateur football players and other first-time eligible players. Currently, the draft consists of seven rounds. Each team is assigned a selection in each round, with the teams with the worst record from the previous year being assigned the best picks in each round. This helps the league achieve a degree of parity.

Supplemental Draft

In late summer, the NFL also holds a Supplemental Draft to accomodate players who did not enter the regular draft because they thought they still had academic eligibility to play college football. The supplemental draft maintains the same team order from the regular draft, with the team with the worst record in the previous season picking first. However, in the supplemental draft, a team is not required to use any picks. Instead, if a team wants a player in the supplemental draft, they submit a "bid" to the Commissioner with the round they would pick that player. If no other team places a bid on that player at an earlier spot, the team is awarded the player and has to give up an equivocal pick in the following year's draft. (For example, RB Tony Hollings was taken by the Houston Texans in the 2nd round of the Supplemental Draft in 2003. Thus in the 2004 NFL Draft, the Texans forfeited a second round pick).

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The players who enter the Supplemental Draft are usually graded as players who should be drafted at a later round. Therefore, combining this trend with the strange proceedings of the supplemental draft and the high price a team must give up to take a player, it is easy to see why only 32 players have been taken in the past 26 Supplemental Drafts.

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