Photo by Anders Krøgh Jørgensen on Unsplash
The NFL Draft is a very exciting event and many people look forward to seeing which young players their favorite NFL teams are going to pick up. The NFL Draft is designed to help the league stay competitive by allowing teams to draft players in a predetermined order based on how well they did in prior seasons. This has become a big event and many teams have had their fortunes changed by picking exceptionally well in the draft. Take a look at the following guide to the NFL draft so that you can understand it and appreciate it as much as possible.
Understanding the Draft Rounds
There are certain rounds for the NFL drafts and these rounds have time limits associated with them. A team will be given a certain amount of time to select the player that they wish to draft. When a team doesn’t make their pick in time, they will be passed in line by the next team up. Each round has a different time limit requirements.
During round one of the NFL draft, teams are given 10 minutes to make their selections. Round two sees that time limit decrease to only seven minutes. Round three sets the time limit at five minutes and it remains at five minutes for all remaining rounds. Teams are very careful about following the time limits so that they can get the players that they want to add to their rosters.
Salary Limits and Other Rules
There are other rules that you should be aware of when watching the draft, too. Firstly, it’s important to note that teams are allowed to negotiate with each other both before and during the draft. Deals can be made and teams can give up the right to pick in a certain round to receive a later pick. Many teams might have several choices per round due to draft pick trades and other teams might have zero picks in a given round.
Salary limits also need to be considered. Salary limits are placed on each NFL team and those with higher draft picks are given a higher salary limit. The team with the highest salary limit could have several times the amount of money to work with when compared to the lowest team. The idea is that this will help the league to stay more competitive by giving teams with worse records a chance to get better players and start to rebuild their teams.