How many rounds does the NFL Draft have? A brief history

The 2023 NFL Draft will be in Kansas City this year, an economic boom for the region and a lot of fun for Chiefs Kingdom.

The National Football League has, since 1936, insisted on some sort of first-year player draft as part of its overall plan and annual calendar for the sake of roster construction. The idea behind the draft and the positioning of those teams is to allow for maximum competitive balance, and like most team sports, lesser franchises are given privileged positions in the draft order to help those teams lay claim to the best talent.

Over the years, the draft has changed various parameters of the way the draft works, but the premise remains the same.

These days, such as the 2023 NFL Draft that will be held in Kansas City for the first time, the draft weekend will consist of seven rounds stretched out over three days. Round one takes place on a Thursday night every year at this point with Friday night hosting the second and third rounds and the final four rounds commencing on Saturday afternoon.

In its earliest form, the draft was 9 rounds and that went as high as 20. By the time the AFL and the NFL merged and became the modern version of the NFL as we know it today (1970), the draft was shrunk to 12 total rounds as more teams took part. The current seven-round model came into being in 1997, so this will be the 25th year of the current structure of the draft.

As for this year’s draft order, you can see it here.

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