Draft
The draft currently takes place over two days, with rounds one and two on Day 1 and
rounds three through seven on Day 2.

Eligibility: Players who have been out of high school for three years are eligible for
NFL contract negotiations. Most "drafted" players come from NCAA programs as
seniors or juniors. A player who is drafted but does not sign a contract, referred to as
a "hold out", can re-enter the draft the following year.

Draft order: The draft order is based generally on each team's regular season
record, with the exception of the two Super Bowl contestants, who are placed at the
end of the draft order. Here are some specifics:

Any expansion team automatically gets the first pick; if there are two expansion
teams, a coin toss determines who picks first; the other team will pick first in the
expansion draft.
The winners of the Super Bowl are given the last selection, and the losers the second
to last selection.
Teams that made the playoffs are then ordered by how they performed in the playoffs.
The conference championship losers receive the third and fourth to last selections.
Next are the four teams who lost in the divisional round, followed by the four teams
who lost in the wild card round. Each team is ordered within this primary order by
their regular-season record.
Teams that did not make the playoffs are ordered by their regular-season record.
Remaining ties are broken by strength of schedule. For draft order, a lower strength
of schedule results in an earlier pick. If strength of schedule does not resolve a tie,
division and/or conference tie breakers may be used. If the tie still cannot be broken,
a coin toss at the NFL Combine is used to determine draft order.

Each team has its representatives attend the draft. During the draft, one team is
always "on the clock." In Round 1, teams have 10 minutes to make their choice. The
decision time drops to 7 minutes in the second round and 5 minutes in Rounds 3-7. If
a team doesn't make a decision within its allotted time, the team still can submit its
selection at any time after its time is up, but the next team can pick before it, thus
possibly stealing a player the later team may have been eyeing.

Pick trades: Teams may negotiate with one another both before and during the draft
for the right to pick an additional player in a given round. For example, a team may
include draft picks in future drafts in order to acquire a player during a trading period.
Teams may also make negotiations during the draft relinquishing the right to pick in a
given round for the right to have an additional pick in a later round. Thus teams may
have no picks or multiple picks in a given round.

*Supplemental Draft: In late summer, the NFL also holds a Supplemental Draft to
accommodate players who did not enter the regular draft because they thought they
still had academic eligibility to play college football. Draft order is determined by a
weighted system that is divided into three groupings. First come the teams that had
six or fewer wins last season, followed by non-playoff teams that had more than six
wins, followed by the 12 playoff teams. 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 equivalent pick in the following year's draft.