NFL Draft Weekend

The NFL season starts on the first Thursday of September and lasts through the fall till January. The patch between January to August is used by teams to pick up fresh talent from among amateur college players. The NFL draft usually takes place through a weekend in April. The first NFL draft took place in 1936.

The NFL draft is preceded by the NFL scouting combine where amateur players display their physical and mental strength in front of NFL coaches and talent scouts. Only amateurs who are invited can attend this event. The performance at the combine affects the ratings and perceptions of a player for the NFL draft and also has impacts subsequent salaries and performance of the player.

The NFL draft is a highly formalized process in which the weakest team of the last season gets to pick the first player. The assumption being that in this manner weaker teams can become stronger over a period of time. The teams pick players moving from the weakest to the strongest team. Once all teams have picked one player the process starts again from the weakest team. The amount of time teams can take to make a pick keeps going down in subsequent rounds. Draft picks are frequently traded among teams. Some teams may make their first round selections well before the NFL Draft weekend. If terms have already been discussed with a player, the draft becomes a formality.

Over the years the NFL draft has gone from a low-key affair to a keenly followed well publicized event. Teams too have increased the amount of effort they put into drafting the right candidate. The NFL draft weekend is keenly followed on TV by fans of the NFL. Long before the actual NFL draft weekend many predictions are made and mock drafts are played out. However the NFL draft can be a tricky one, even though players are drafted high doesn’t necessarily mean they will work out for the team that picks them or will even play for that team. For some reason, a number of players don’t fit into the team’s format or goals or the new player doesn’t live up to all the hype associated with the NFL draft. Just look at Ricky Williams.

But, despite all that, the NFL draft is a tradition embedded deep into the hearts of fans and the NFL. And will continue to showcase some of the best talent that reached the NFL promiseland.

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