2022 RULES: Draft preferences

[Goodell]

There were some notes in off-season rules discussions regarding the draft, so getting a few of those things settled before we start to pencil in some things on the schedule. Some changes could impact how long the draft takes to complete and what days that might involve.

Currently the college draft takes 4 days. Day 1 is first round with 15 minutes per pick window. Day 2 is rounds 2-3 with 10 minutes per pick. Same time with Day 3 and 4 covering 4-5 and then finishing up 6-7. Some have suggested other ideas like extending the draft to give more time for trade responses and making it one round per day or other ideas.

Thursdays have been a popular date to start our college draft probably because the NFL starts their multi-day draft on Thursday also and finishes up over the weekend. A Saturday start with rounds 1-3 on the weekend and then finishing up Monday and Tuesday for the later rounds has also been popular with some. Since a lot of people in both those camps, a Friday start compromise could be another option.

But lets do a quick poll on that so we can start to set the calendars ahead.

[Aftermath2531]

Currently we do the 1st round in one day and then two rounds a day after. Why would you want to drag the draft out for 7 days? I mean does the 6th and 7th rounds really need there own day considering a lot of owners don't even show up for those late round picks. I would suggest having the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rounds with there own day since that's when most trade movement takes place. Then two rounds a day after which would extend the draft to 5 days.

How much time will there be in between picks if this current proposal passes?

[Goodell]

Currently we do the 1st round in one day and then two rounds a day after. Why would you want to drag the draft out for 7 days? I mean does the 6th and 7th rounds really need there own day considering a lot of owners don't even show up for those late round picks. I would suggest having the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rounds with there own day since that's when most trade movement takes place. Then two rounds a day after which would extend the draft to 5 days.

How much time will there be in between picks if this current proposal passes?

That may be a compromise kind of thing to try if the results were strongly mixed on both sides and no strong favorite emerged, to give each strong group with opposing views different parts of the draft. Then maybe have more information next year for keeping in that way ahead or maybe going more fully one direction or the other after going through it.

For one round a day, depends upon when you start/end and how many picks in a round (since compensatory picks make some rounds much longer and all a little different), but it would be more time between picks than the first round since that's usually just part of the day. Probably around 25 minutes between picks x 38 picks in a round (say for a round with compensatory picks) = 950 min / 60 = 15.8 hours (7am - 11pm-ish). For a regular 32 pick early round, 25 minutes between picks spans just over 13 hours (7am-8pm). Just 20 minutes between picks for 32 pick round gets done in 10.6 hours.

Unless I did the late night math wrong, not a ton of extra time per pick from our 15 or 10 minute windows currently to something around 20-30 minutes between picks for round per day. 2 or 3 times longer by math, but just 10 or 20 minutes more in real time. If someone's not online anyway around that time, don't know if extra 15 minutes will matter much or not, but maybe in some cases. Other factors might be how draft days change if less people actively here from pick to pick and just stay away until their window instead if they have to wait much longer for each pick.

[larry linke]

I see it the opposite way. Why rush through it ? Does it really hurt that people who enjoy the draft and want an opportunity to move up as their pick approaches ? It seems you may not like the draft as much as the majority of people here. Another point of contention is that with two rounds a day that it twice a day you have to be available. I am sure that people who have jobs without access to the internet all day would appreciate the extra time.

Plus it is a pretty substantial amount of voters want a round a day. Why would the league compromise a vote because of one complaint ?

Larry

[Knighty Knight]

This was not an option but I would propose to do one round a day but NOT extend the time per pick. I think condensing the time over the course of the day is better for activity. Each team should be given 10 minutes to make picks if we're doing one round per day.

[soonertf]

Never understood the rush either. We rush through the off-season and then just sit again waiting for season to start. I don't see a big deal between 7 days and 3-4 days personally. It's not like anyone is asking anyone to sit around online all 7 days.

[Ben C.]

I think it’s very possible that extending the time slots will increase activity in later rounds. Having more time to deal and research the names available at the time should help more people draft better in the later rounds. That’s a good thing for all.

I am VERY supportive of any idea extending the time slots. I might even go so far as to do a round every 2-3 days so there could be an hour per pick. It can sometimes take that long just for a notification email to arrive when someone sends a PM about a trade offer.

[Goodell]

If extending things to one round per day ended up being the most supported, as well as Saturday start being the most supported, any thoughts on the best way to implement that?

Just straight through like this with most of the rounds (other than 1 and 2 most important ones) during the week day?

Saturday - Round 1
Sunday - Round 2
Monday - Round 3
Tuesday - Round 4
Wednesday - Round 5
Thursday - Round 6
Friday - Round 7

...or take a couple days off mid-week and finish up rounds 6 and 7 on the following weekend or maybe only over multiple weekends two rounds at a time over 3 weekends mostly (although it'll be into summer and maybe people busier on the weekends or with vacation plans if stretched out too much hitting more conflicts)? Just getting some feedback into that for scheduling thoughts.

Lots of other possibilities in comments which are great, but I cannot add to the poll without resetting it all back to zero. But great to get as many ideas out as we have and see which have a good deal of support.

Further on scheduling, we'll probably turn trading on during or after this weekend ahead, and have another two weeks or so of that and making sure teams are back and made their tagging/LTC decisions prior to free agency. I suspect we'll kick that off around the NFL draft or weekend before, when lots of people will be having football thoughts and perhaps additionally triggered to check back in here. Our college draft might then be a couple weeks after the free agency start. I believe I only received one note about possible scheduling conflicts on May 24-26, and we'd want to avoid Memorial Day weekend. So we'd either get the draft going around mid-May or perhaps after the long holiday weekend largely depending upon possible new draft arrangements. Nothing quite official yet and may do some polls on that, but some of the scheduling depends upon some of these other possible changes and how to work everything in.

So if any thoughts on how a potential 1 day per round draft might ideally be scheduled differently than in the past for you, or on the tentative free agency and draft rough timeframes, feel free to comment or send PMs. Thanks!

[Goodell]

Further on scheduling, we'll probably turn trading on during or after this weekend ahead, and have another two weeks or so of that and making sure teams are back and made their tagging/LTC decisions prior to free agency. I suspect we'll kick that off around the NFL draft or weekend before, when lots of people will be having football thoughts and perhaps additionally triggered to check back in here. Our college draft might then be a couple weeks after the free agency start. I believe I only received one note about possible scheduling conflicts on May 24-26, and we'd want to avoid Memorial Day weekend. So we'd either get the draft going around mid-May or perhaps after the long holiday weekend largely depending upon possible new draft arrangements. Nothing quite official yet...

So looking at the calendar, Saturday April 23rd seems to make the most sense to me to start free agency. That's two and a half weeks from now to get everyone's franchise/ltc decisions set before then, five days before the draft so there'll be lots of NFL talk going on and draft lead up to remind people to jump back here, and gives us enough time to run a couple weeks of free agency before mid-May if we wanted to do our college draft then before some of the conflicts sent, Memorial Day weekend, the end of school and summer vacations after. That's just in pencil for now, pending any other thoughts or reactions there.

[Goodell]

CONCLUSION: Saturday start was the clear winner. Extending the draft to a round per day also had more votes than keeping it as it has been, but results more split there. But we'll try something different this year and extend the draft to a round per day or so, and probably get people's opinions after the draft if they like the new approach.

I'll start a new poll with some options for that as we look to set the draft date.