The NFL Draft is officially called the Annual Player Selection Meeting, and it has been held every year since 1936, making it one of the oldest ongoing player recruitment events in professional sports.

Teams are awarded draft positions in reverse order of their previous season’s record, meaning the worst team picks first and the Super Bowl champion picks last.

If teams have the same record, their draft order rotates in later rounds to keep things fair and balanced.

Teams can trade their draft positions for players, other picks, or a combination of both, creating a strategic chess game that lasts for hours.

The NFL Draft started as a way to prevent bidding wars over top players, like what happened with University of Minnesota running back Stan Kostka in 1935, or how the New York Yankees bought the best players in Major League Baseball.

In 1936, the very first draft was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia, and it lasted nine rounds with zero media coverage.

The first player ever drafted was Jay Berwanger, but he never actually played in the NFL despite being the top pick.

Early drafts relied on hearsay, newspaper reports, and recommendations because teams had no scouting departments.

The 1940 NFL Draft famously bypassed Kenny Washington, one of the best college players of the time, because he was African American.

“Bullet Bill” Dudley, picked first overall in 1942, became the first number one draft pick to eventually enter the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The first full-time NFL scout was Eddie Kotal, hired in 1946 by the Los Angeles Rams.

From 1965 to 2015, New York City hosted the draft every year before it began rotating to different cities through a bidding process.

The term “Mr. Irrelevant” was coined in 1976 by Paul Salata to refer to the last player selected in the draft.

ESPN first televised the draft in 1980, thinking it might not be exciting, but it quickly grew into a major television event.

The draft was originally held on weekdays but moved to weekends in 1988, dramatically boosting ratings.

In 2010, the NFL expanded the draft into a three-day event, spreading the rounds across Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

ABC joined in 2019 to broadcast all three days of the draft, with celebrities joining NFL analysts as part of the coverage.

The 2020 draft went fully virtual because of COVID-19, with analysts broadcasting from home, marking a historic adaptation for the league.

Players must be at least three years removed from high school to be eligible for the NFL Draft, even if they did not attend college.

Almost all drafted players come from U.S. colleges, though a few are selected from Canadian universities, the Arena Football League, and even Germany.

Teams get 10 minutes for first-round picks, 7 minutes for the second round, 5 minutes for rounds three through six, and 4 minutes for the seventh round.

If a team does not pick in time, another team can jump in and draft their intended player, a situation that famously happened to the Vikings in 2003.

Teams can trade picks for future drafts, but only within the next three draft cycles once the draft officially begins.

The NFL awards compensatory picks to teams that lose more free agents than they sign, usually at the end of rounds three through seven.

The Patriots have been one of the most penalized teams in draft history, losing five selections for four different violations.

Draft picks can be forfeited for violations such as salary cap breaches, tampering, or deflating footballs. Since 1980, 28 picks have been lost.

Teams differ widely in their draft strategies. Some give coaches the final say, while others exclude them entirely, as happened with Ron Meyer and the Patriots in 1983.