The NFL draft which started in 1936 and has been held every year since is the most common source of player recruitment in the NFL. As of February 2025, 89 NFL drafts have taken place and the 2025 draft will be its 90th iteration. Each round of the NFL draft will feature all 32 teams making one selection based on the draft order and the spot they’re assigned. The city to host the most number of NFL Drafts is New York as of February 2025.
As for 2025, the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft will happen on Thursday, April 24. Rounds 2 and 3 will take place the following day, on Friday, April 25. The final rounds of the draft, i.e., from rounds 4 through round 7, will be taking place on Saturday, April 26 (via CBS Sports).
How many rounds are in the NFL Draft?
The NFL Draft consists of 7 rounds as of 2025.
Teams have 10 minutes to make a selection in Round 1. This is followed by seven minutes and five minutes for Rounds 2 and 3 respectively. The final four rounds, from 4 to 7, will have four minutes for each selection (via CBS Sports).
Related - How Many Rounds Are There in the NFL Draft?
Read More: Where is the 2025 NFL Draft taking place?
NFL Draft and rounds: A brief history
The first-ever NFL Draft took place in the year 1936. Before that, the process of players singing with the teams was that any player could choose any club. What happened as a result of this is that there was power parity, i.e. the strong teams became even stronger. And the bad teams got even worse.
So Bert Bell, the former commissioner of the NFL, proposed this plan where teams were picked based on the reverse order of their previous year’s standings.
Hence the first-ever NFL draft had a total of nine rounds. The one in 1937 had 10 rounds. A couple of years later, in 1939, the number of rounds increased to 20. The number of rounds in the NFL draft peaked at 32 rounds in the 1940s. The number of rounds in the NFL Draft reduced from 17 to 12 in the year 1977, years after both AFL and NFL merged. The present concept of a seven-round NFL Draft was adopted in 1994 after the league dabbled with an eight-round draft in 1993 (via ESPN).
Also Read: NFL Draft Picks: Number One Overall Draft Picks Over The Years
When did the NFL draft change to seven rounds?
1994 was the year when the seven draft rounds were finalized, as per ESPN.
Related:
FAQs on NFL
A. Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2025.
A. The first round of the 2025 NFL draft will take place on 24 April.
A. The first NFL Draft took place in 1936.
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