The 2020 NFL Draft is over. However, another selection process could take a major turn come July due to COVID-19.
Players who decided to return to school and pass on the 2020 NFL Draft had no idea the coronavirus could impact the upcoming college football season. If it is delayed due to the impact of the pandemic, the NFL could see a large number of eligible players opt for the Supplemental Draft.
While it is the end of April, decisions are going to be made sooner than later as to how to handle college football 2020. A delay of months or until early next year would have a gigantic impact on players. The only thing certain now is how uncertain everything is.
Who would be eligible for this process? To be declared eligible for the supplemental draft, a player must file a petition, which is reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Normally, it relates to people who lose eligibility after the NFL Draft. However, any delay in the college football season due to the pandemic would have an instant impact on players who would have been eligible for the NFL.
Teams are divided into three groups based on their performance during the previous season. Teams that won six or fewer games form one group, non-playoff teams that won more than six games form a second, and playoff teams third. A lottery determines the draft order within each group and teams with worse records have a greater chance of drawing a higher pick.
Unlike the regular draft, during which teams announce their picks, teams submit blind bids to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell indicating what players they are interested in drafting in the supplemental draft. In addition, a team must indicate what round in the draft it would like to select a given player. The team that submits the highest bid is awarded the rights to the player and forfeits its pick in that round in the following season’s regular draft. If two teams submit a bid for the same player in the same round, the team with the higher pick in that round, as determined by the semi-lottery system described above, is awarded the player.
There have been eight players chosen as first-rounders via the Supplemental Draft. The most recent was Duke’s Dave Brown by the Giants in 1992.
To see a complete list of players who took this route to the NFL, click here.