What to know for the NFL draft

What will the draft look like? Who to watch?

Gabby Khodadad, Sports Broadcaster|April 16, 2020

via Creative Commons

With sports no longer taking place as of right now, one thing is for sure—the NFL draft will still happen on April 25th.

   With the NFL and college seasons still up in the air due to the current crisis, one thing is for sure—the NFL Draft will still happen. The NFL draft is an annual event that allows former college athletes to be recruited into the National Football League (NFL). This year’s event was supposed to take place in Las Vegas, Nevada starting on April 23, 2020, through April 25, 2020, and will now be held virtually with all 32 teams connected on one video call through Microsoft.

   Five things you should know about the Draft:

  1. The Cincinnati Bengals have the first pick, meaning they are the first out of 32 teams to make their selection of who they want for their team next year. 
  2. There are seven rounds of the draft and 255 total picks, each team on average (some have more and some have less) gets seven selections, one for each round.
  3. Each team gets 10 minutes to make a selection. After a team announces who they have selected, the next team on deck has ten minutes to decide who they want to choose. They call the player to let him know about the selection and then let the NFL know so that Roger Goodell (the NFL commissioner) can announce the decision.
  4. The event will be televised on five different channels: NFL Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, and ABC at eight o’clock p.m.
  5. Who you should look out for/ top prospects: 
  • Joe Burrow, the quarterback who transferred from Ohio State to LSU and won the 2019 Heisman trophy and National Championship. In addition, Burrow won the Maxwell Award (also known as the player of the year award) and the Davey O’Brien Award (which is given to the top quarterback of the league), all in one year.
  • Chase Young, also known as “The Predator”, was a defensive end for Ohio State. Young ranks second all-time at OSU in career sacks (30.5) and holds the single-season sack record with 16.5 sacks. Young also won the 2019 Chuck Bednarik award for the nation’s top defensive player and he was a Heisman Finalist.
  • Jeff Okudah was a cornerback for Ohio State. Okudah has played in 27 games and has had 53 tackles, nine passes defended, and two forced fumbles. He was nominated on the Unanimous All-American and First Team All-Big Ten in 2019.
  • Isaiah Simmons was a linebacker at Clemson, leading the team in tackles during the 2018 championship season. Simmons won the Butkus award, America’s top linebacker award and was a finalist for both the Chuck Bednarik and Bronko Nagurski awards. In addition, Simmons won the ACC player of the year.