How NFL Draft Order Is Determined

Curious about how NFL draft order is determined? Every year, pro football sports fans eagerly await the NFL draft. This is because where their favorite team or teams fall in the draft order determines which players will have a shot at getting on those teams. And, as everyone knows, each team wants to get the best players. For those of you who might have heard of the NFL draft order, but never really knew how it worked, here are the guidelines by which the NFL draft order is determined.

The NFL draft order is determined by a team’s regular season wins and losses, how well they played, and their opposing teams. In addition, how they fared in the playoffs also determines where they will fall in the draft order.

Determining NFL draft order can be considered an ongoing process, as it is subject to change as each game is played. For this reason, the final draft order is not determined until after the Super Bowl has been played. On this same subject, one would think that the team that won the Super Bowl would have first pick in the draft order. This is not true; the Super Bowl winning team always selects last.

Expansion teams always get to select first in the NFL draft order. If there are no expansion teams, the draft order begins with whatever regular team has been chosen to make the first selections.

NFL Teams have the right to trade draft picks for existing players, or the right to make other draft selections. They can even pay for the right to trade draft order picks. Different commentators and sports article writers like to speculate on which teams will take advantage of draft pick trades each year. Some publications will post their predictions right before the draft officially begins, then will follow up with an article stating how accurate they were.

Resources:

NPR