What Order Is The NFL Draft?

The National Football League Draft is an annual event in which the NFL teams select eligible college football players. It is the culmination of a process that starts with the NFL Scouting Combine, followed by a series of college football bowl games and then the Senior Bowl.

Introduction

Football fans wait all year for the NFL Draft. It’s one of the most talked-about events in sports, and it gives hope to fans of teams that might not be competitive. But what order is the NFL Draft?

The draft order is determined by a few different factors. First, there are the end-of-season standings. The teams with the worst records get the earliest picks, and the teams with the best records get the later picks. This is designed to give the worst teams a chance to improve their rosters and make them more competitive.

However, there are also some other factors that come into play. For example, teams who lose key players in free agency often get earlier picks as “compensation” for losing those players. Additionally, there are some “trade-backs” that occur, where teams will trade their pick to another team in exchange for multiple picks further down in the draft.

The NFL Draft typically lasts seven rounds, but it can be longer or shorter depending on how many “compensatory” picks are awarded. These are typically given to teams who have lost key players in free agency without receiving any players in return (via trade or otherwise).

So, while there is no set order for the NFL Draft, there are some factors that go into determining which team will pick first. And, of course, every fan will be hoping their team ends up with one of the top picks!

The NFL Draft Order

The NFL Draft will take place on Thursday, April 25th through Saturday, April 27th. The first round will begin on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. ET, and the subsequent rounds will begin at 7:00 p.m. ET on Friday and Saturday. The draft order is as follows:

The First Round

1. Cleveland Browns
2. San Francisco 49ers
3. Chicago Bears
4. Arizona Cardinals
5. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
6. New York Jets
7. Los Angeles Rams
8. Carolina Panthers
9. Cincinnati Bengals
10. Buffalo Bills
11. New Orleans Saints
12. Miami Dolphins (from Houston Texans)

The Second Round

After the first round of the NFL draft, the draft order flips and the team with the second-worst record gets the first pick of the second round. The rest of the teams will pick in reverse order of their records from 2018, which means that the Super Bowl champion Patriots will have the 32nd pick in Round 2.

The Third Round

The third round of the NFL Draft usually features some of the best talent remaining in the draft. This is the round where teams really start to fill needs on their roster with impactful players. Some of the best NFL players have been drafted in the third round, including Terrell Owens, Barry Sanders, Brett Favre, and Jerry Rice.

In recent years, the third round has been a hotbed for quarterbacks. In 2018, five quarterbacks were drafted in the third round, including Lamar Jackson (32nd overall), Josh Allen (7th overall), and Baker Mayfield (1st overall). In 2019, three quarterbacks were drafted in the third round, including Daniel Jones (6th overall), Drew Lock (42nd overall), and Will Grier (100th overall).

The third round of the NFL Draft usually starts on Day 2 of the draft (usually a Friday), after the first two rounds have been completed on Day 1 (usually a Thursday).

The Fourth Round

The fourth round of the NFL Draft is where teams start to focus on specific needs. While there are still players with first-round talent available, many of them have fallen this far due to injury concerns or off-field issues. As a result, the fourth round can be something of a gamble for teams.

That said, there are still plenty of talented players to be found in the fourth round. In recent years, impact players like Dak Prescott, Deandre Hopkins, and Marcus Peters have all been drafted in the fourth round. With that in mind, here is the full NFL Draft order for the fourth round:

The Fifth Round

The Fifth Round of the NFL Draft will consist of the teams with the best records that did not make the playoffs, followed by the teams that lost in the Wild Card round, and so on.

The Sixth Round

In the sixth round, the draft order reverses and is based on the inverse order of standings from the previous season. The team with the worst record gets the first pick and the Super Bowl champion gets the 32nd pick. This order is used for all seven rounds of the draft.

The Seventh Round

The seventh round of the NFL Draft is where teams start to take players who they hope can develop into role players or even starters down the line. While there aren’t many superstars that come out of the seventh round, there are some players who have had good careers. Some notable seventh-round picks include Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon and Super Bowl-winning coach Tom Coughlin.

Conclusion

If you are confused about what order the NFL Draft is, don’t worry, you are not alone. The draft order is often a source of confusion for fans and even some media members. While the NFL does its best to simplify the draft order, there are still a few different ways that the picks can be determined.

To start, the team with the worst record from the previous season will always pick first. This is known as the “reverse standings” method and it has been used since the 1950 NFL Draft. From there, the rest of the teams will pick in order of their won-loss record from the previous season, with ties broken by strength of schedule.

However, there are two additional factors that can come into play when determining draft order. The first is if a team wins a coin flip against another team with an identical record. In this case, the team that wins the coin flip would pick ahead of the other team in that specific round.

The second factor is compensatory draft picks, which are awarded to teams that have lost more free agents than they have signed in the previous offseason. These picks are tacked on to the end of each round and they cannot be traded.

So, while it may seem like there could be a lot of variables when it comes to deciding draft order, it really comes down to two things: reverse standings and strength of schedule (with a few coin flips thrown in for good measure).