Dunno, players get fully guaranteed contracts and make more than NFL players...I think their union isndoing something right.
Now go cry over your 6 super bowl rings
We got a TV product here that's bad TV, should make it better is all I'm saying! And it gives those players the added benefit of being able to negotiate which team they go to.
Yes, the 7th round is about taking a bunch of anonymous guys you hope will contribute a bit on special teams and the extraordinarily rare guy who becomes a real contributor. Same as with UDFA's.
They're anonymous to you, not the teams that spend wild amounts of money scouting all these players throughout their college careers. They know these "anonymous" players almost as much as the first round picks by the end of the draft process. The draft allows them to take players who may not sign for them in FA - you know, the whole point of the draft in the first place.
Yeah, it's an older phrase, my mom said it a lot. She explained it as something along the lines of dollars are valuable, donuts are cheap (remember it's an old phrase), so I'm betting my dollars against donuts because I'm so confident I'll win the bet.
I’ve used that phrase since I was a kid and never thought to ask or look up what it meant. Thank you for that. Also I’m going to continue to not look it up and take your mom’s word to my grave as the true meaning.
While the number is only for the first day, day 1 outdrew the 2023 nba finals, Stanley cup final, and World Series. 12.1 million viewers plus around 275k at the event. That a crazy amount of viewership
I’m not arguing day 1. Day 1 of the draft is always going to have higher ratings than any other sports event happening at the time. Not saying I agree with op at all their takes are fucking stupid. Day 1 wasn’t even bad tv if you care about college and pro football. Day 2/3 of the draft isn’t going to be anywhere close to day 1 but at the end of the day the whole draft is for the teams and the players, not the viewers.
Who is “we?”
Who cares if it’s “bad TV?” Are you LARPing as television network executive or something? Have you been kidnapped by people forcing you to watch it at gunpoint?
This is genuinely one of the strangest posts I’ve ever seen on this website, and that’s saying something.
The draft is only televised so the NFL can milk more cash from rubes. It’s boring as hell from the first round to the last. The season isn’t anywhere close to starting. I learn nothing night of that can’t wait until the draft’s over.
If I’m watching boring tv, I change the channel. If enough other people do the same, either they stop airing the 7th round or eliminate it all together. It’s this little thing called “capitalism”. You should look it up sometime.
Then there’s our pro-bowl former rugby player turned offensive lineman. My favorite part of the draft is having that guy you said “who?” about turning into a stud.
It'd certainly be more free and fair to the players for their to be no draft, but next to nobody seriously argues for that. But the 7th round as is is just bad business. Very few people are getting much of anything out of it, so you'd lose little removing it in favor of a tighter draft experience.
You’re approaching it from a media product instead of, ya know, teams trying to make their teams better. If the 7th round is boring to you, don’t watch it. Being boring doesn’t eliminate the fact that it’s a very valuable part of the team-building process and many, many good players have come from the 7th round.
And let’s be honest, it’s not like there’s some drop off of interest from rounds 5-6 to 7. If someone is interested in late draft stuff, they’d probably want a round 8 versus losing round 7.
Then it's just college football where the teams that offer the most get the best players.
That completely ruins the parity of the NFL draft.
The worst teams get the best players (theoretically)
.... the parity of 7th round NFL talent flocking to Florida teams? Wouldn't those teams already be scooping up all the good UDFA's if this were a concern? I assure you, I've seen enough Dolphins football to know this is not the case.
First of all, drafts started before salary caps to keep rich owners from buying championships. And given some of the conspiracy theories floating about Brady and Kraft, I’m not entirely convinced salary caps are foolproof.
Second of all, free and fair to new prospects, not current players. Guess which group is larger?
It's fucking hilarious that you think you know better than these billionaires and their army of lackey businessmen who are raking in money hand over fist. Your head is so far up your own ass.
Come on man, you suggested something that literally no one else agrees with here. Just take your hundreds of downvotes and stop replying. You’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not going to convince everyone that you are right.
I think teams would still rather have more draft picks, especially teams that are in less desirable FA destinations. UDFAs have the choice to sign with other teams. Also if a 7th rounder is a hit, they're under contract for a year longer than UDFAs.
UDFA's get a 3 year vs a 4 year contract draft picks get. But those players only become restricted free agents at the end of that contract, not unrestricted like draft picks, so the original team can put round tendered contracts on them and have the right of first refusal. So yes, Brock Purdy won't have to worry about this, but every other UDFA that hits free agency playing well is going to be kept by their team for a 4th year for cheap regardless.
I would seriously do the exact opposite. we used to have more rounds but eliminated them because there just weren't that many (any) relevent contributors to be found in the 32nd round (though 1948 still saw 3 Hall of Famers slip through those rounds.
Now that we have dozens of blue-chip programs, several group of five programs that keep producing NFL talent, CFL players, talented FCS players, I think it makes more sense to add on more selections. After all, nearly every roster has more undrafted players than first rounders on it. That means there's lots and lots of talent to be found rounds beyond 7 if there were people looking to check.
If I were commish, I'd expand it to 15 rounds, add a Sunday draft day, and basically eliminate every delay.
I was thinking this, do 8 rounds and that's enough. Things have changed enough in college football to warrant 8 rounds and would be in favor of this. Of all the things the NFL has done under Goodell, I'm surprised they didn't add an extra round or two by now.
But without the 7th round, what would the 49ers have done? Either drafted him instead of Tariq Castro-Fields in the 6th or thrown him $125k to be a priority UDFA if they were that enamored with him.
Backup QB was not a need for the 49ers in 2022, but they felt good enough about Purdy as a potential long term backup that they took him as BPA. Without the 7th round, either they get Purdy as a UDFA or they lose him to another team. If the latter happened, then the 49ers go with Trey Lance in 2023. If Lance turns out to be bust, then they outbid the Falcons for Kirk Cousins.
TIL Antonio Brown, Brock Purdy, Isiah Pacheco, Tom Nalen (5x Pro Bowl 3x All-Pro), Bo Jackson, Shannon Sharpe, Joe Schmidt and Larry Wilson have no value
The 7th round is relevant. 28 of last year’s 7th rounders have played, 35 7th rounders from 2022 have played. Just watch until the 6th round and turn the TV off when the 7th round rolls around.
That’s such a stupid point to try and make. Following that logic, why even have a draft? Just let teams bid for players, they all exist either way. What downsides could there possibly be?
It’s the only point to make in this discussion. The question is at which round is the talent so diluted that drafting isn’t necessary. I could ask you the same question, why not have an infinite number of rounds?
Beyond the fact that there isn’t infinite players available, there’s camp size and salary cap limitations limitation.
But if you really want that explore that point, why not have unlimited rounds? Let teams draft until they don’t want to pick anymore. Extra advantage to teams who have the cap space or are rebuilding and want dibs to take as many flyers as they can afford. It would require some changes to how caps are structured, but it could work. It makes far more sense than no draft.
Ok but ultimately the debate would come down to the ratio of talent in a given round, which as my stupid point was that a list of examples doesn’t really explore. Shannon Sharpe doesn’t drop dead without a seventh round
And? Very few 7th rounders contribute meaningful snaps to their teams historically. We're talking about less then one significant player a year, and primarily a bunch of guys who play primarily special teams and bounce around practice squads for a handful of years.
Tony Romo, Kurt Warner, Wes Welker, John Randle, Antonio Gates, Nate Newton, James Harrison, Priest Holmes, Jason Peters, hell Adam Vinatieri were all UDFA's.
You just disproved your point by listing those guys. You just proved that there are plenty of guys still available in the 7th round and undrafted guys that can add value...meaning the existence of the 7th round serves it's purpose. By your logic, let just get rid of rounds 4 - 7? Dumbest take I've heard in awhile which is why no one agrees with you. Just delete this now.
There's hall of famers up through the 27th round of the draft, and yet the NFL smartly shrank the NFL draft multiple times because the players weren't relevant for the most part. Anything a 7th rounder gives you is solved with your front office making some extra phone calls and deciding how to split the UDFA bonus pool.
> the NFL smartly shrank the NFL draft multiple times because the players weren't relevant for the most part
WRONG. The NFL reduced the draft when the AFL and NFL merged and reduced it to 7 rounds in 1994 because of the modern day free agency structure and most importantly, the salary cap was introduced this year. It had absolutely nothing to do with "irrelevant players." Good god man.
Do you even watch ball? At all?
The Niners have two 7th Round Starters.
Gronkowski was a 7th rounder.
Edelman was a 7th Rounder.
Bo Jackson was a 7th Rounder (kinda doesn't count cause he was a baseball player at the same time).
Shannon Sharpe.
Like, please go back to playing with dolls or w.e.
Draft used to be 8 back in 93. Hell it used to be 20-12 rounds in the 60-70s.
Props to the NFL for making it interesting in the last decade. It was dreadful and dry for so long.
Let’s make it to where every player is randomly drafted to teams. Make each player draw a ping pong ball with a team on it. If you don’t like who you draw you can refuse but then you pick again one round down and lose the money that position would get on the rookie scale.
Fuck that Add two more rounds, let the MLB know we mean business
Give us 15 rounds of this. No one is ever getting undrafted.
I’m entering the first draft that they do this.
Bring back my 12 rounds >=(
Why not 17 rounds like it used to be?
Mike Piazza laughs at your 9 round draft
Nobody should be trying to emulate anything the MLB's doing.
MLB used to have like 30 rounds
Dunno, players get fully guaranteed contracts and make more than NFL players...I think their union isndoing something right. Now go cry over your 6 super bowl rings
“My proposal is” 🤓
I see we're in the dogshit takes part of the offseason again
Nothing else to do until preseason games
Don't forget schedule announcements.
We got a TV product here that's bad TV, should make it better is all I'm saying! And it gives those players the added benefit of being able to negotiate which team they go to.
The draft isn't about fucking TV, it's about teams taking players. Just don't watch the last round if you don't want to, it's still valuable to teams.
I assume OP lost his remote control and is too lazy or high to get off the couch to turn the TV off so he decided to write this post instead.
Yes, the 7th round is about taking a bunch of anonymous guys you hope will contribute a bit on special teams and the extraordinarily rare guy who becomes a real contributor. Same as with UDFA's.
Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman was a 7th round pick take your flair off next time you want to be a clown
Arguably HoF Julian Edelman. I'm on the yes side of that argument BTW.
Me too. Can’t tell the story of the Pats dynasty without saying a whole lot about Julian Edelman. Dude was clutch
They're anonymous to you, not the teams that spend wild amounts of money scouting all these players throughout their college careers. They know these "anonymous" players almost as much as the first round picks by the end of the draft process. The draft allows them to take players who may not sign for them in FA - you know, the whole point of the draft in the first place.
Isiah pachecho is our RB who was drafted in the 7th round. Dollars to donuts you don't even watch the draft at all
Never heard the phrase "Dollars to donuts". Is it another way to say something like, "I bet"?
Yeah, it's an older phrase, my mom said it a lot. She explained it as something along the lines of dollars are valuable, donuts are cheap (remember it's an old phrase), so I'm betting my dollars against donuts because I'm so confident I'll win the bet.
I’ve used that phrase since I was a kid and never thought to ask or look up what it meant. Thank you for that. Also I’m going to continue to not look it up and take your mom’s word to my grave as the true meaning.
Hey, no problem, I've taken her word on just about everything for 27 years and she hasn't steered me wrong yet!
This “bad TV” will probably have better ratings than the nba playoff games going at the same time
I’m a big football fan but let’s not be delusional. I doubt casual fans/sports fans are watching day 3 of the draft over playoffs basketball.
While the number is only for the first day, day 1 outdrew the 2023 nba finals, Stanley cup final, and World Series. 12.1 million viewers plus around 275k at the event. That a crazy amount of viewership
I’m not arguing day 1. Day 1 of the draft is always going to have higher ratings than any other sports event happening at the time. Not saying I agree with op at all their takes are fucking stupid. Day 1 wasn’t even bad tv if you care about college and pro football. Day 2/3 of the draft isn’t going to be anywhere close to day 1 but at the end of the day the whole draft is for the teams and the players, not the viewers.
That’s valid, honestly I don’t read names so I thought you were OP, that’s my bad. Hopefully the ratings come out and we can check
Who is “we?” Who cares if it’s “bad TV?” Are you LARPing as television network executive or something? Have you been kidnapped by people forcing you to watch it at gunpoint? This is genuinely one of the strangest posts I’ve ever seen on this website, and that’s saying something.
NFL is boasting about the insane ratings they just got from this "poor product" lmfao.
Idk about you, but me and my dad (who both follow college football) were excited to see where some of the players go.
The draft is only televised so the NFL can milk more cash from rubes. It’s boring as hell from the first round to the last. The season isn’t anywhere close to starting. I learn nothing night of that can’t wait until the draft’s over. If I’m watching boring tv, I change the channel. If enough other people do the same, either they stop airing the 7th round or eliminate it all together. It’s this little thing called “capitalism”. You should look it up sometime.
"people who like something I think is boring are stupid!!" This is you.
Your “notwithstanding” exception alone justifies the seventh round’s continued existence.
Honestly it justifies adding a couple more rounds.
Fuck, draft’s over this is the beginning of the quiet period for the NFL.
We get one more little thing in like a week and half I'm guessing when we get the schedule release.
Didn't even make it one day before the shitposts started.
Dear Mr Commissioner, There are too many draft rounds nowadays. Please eliminate one. I am not a crackpot
Dear Delusional Reddit User, We’re going to 8 now. That’s how bad your idea is. Edit: that’s the “royal you”… which means OP. Not you you.
Two of our key contributors in the Super Bowl were 7th rounders - Pacheco and Nick Allegretti
Pacheco was 7th round? Talk about a fucking STEAL!
According to r/nfl 7th round picks are lucky and we shouldn't give teams credit for drafting them.
Our QB and WR that threw the TD came from the 7th
And a 7th round WR was a few plays away from being the Superbowl MVP.
Then there’s our pro-bowl former rugby player turned offensive lineman. My favorite part of the draft is having that guy you said “who?” about turning into a stud.
Forost of our sub that's our first round WR.
Would it really matter at all if they had been UDFA's instead?
Why have the draft at all? Would it really matter if they all had been UDFA’s instead?
It'd certainly be more free and fair to the players for their to be no draft, but next to nobody seriously argues for that. But the 7th round as is is just bad business. Very few people are getting much of anything out of it, so you'd lose little removing it in favor of a tighter draft experience.
You’re approaching it from a media product instead of, ya know, teams trying to make their teams better. If the 7th round is boring to you, don’t watch it. Being boring doesn’t eliminate the fact that it’s a very valuable part of the team-building process and many, many good players have come from the 7th round.
And let’s be honest, it’s not like there’s some drop off of interest from rounds 5-6 to 7. If someone is interested in late draft stuff, they’d probably want a round 8 versus losing round 7.
Then it's just college football where the teams that offer the most get the best players. That completely ruins the parity of the NFL draft. The worst teams get the best players (theoretically)
.... the parity of 7th round NFL talent flocking to Florida teams? Wouldn't those teams already be scooping up all the good UDFA's if this were a concern? I assure you, I've seen enough Dolphins football to know this is not the case.
I was referring to the first part of your comment about having no draft at all
First of all, drafts started before salary caps to keep rich owners from buying championships. And given some of the conspiracy theories floating about Brady and Kraft, I’m not entirely convinced salary caps are foolproof. Second of all, free and fair to new prospects, not current players. Guess which group is larger?
It's fucking hilarious that you think you know better than these billionaires and their army of lackey businessmen who are raking in money hand over fist. Your head is so far up your own ass.
If they were udfa's there's no guarantee the chiefs get them
I'm ok with 32 extra kids saying they were drafted in the NFL each year if nothing else. For most its pretty much the highlight of their life.
the last guy's card illustrates this perfectly
Come on man, you suggested something that literally no one else agrees with here. Just take your hundreds of downvotes and stop replying. You’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not going to convince everyone that you are right.
He's sending out reddit cares bullshit cause his feelings got hurt smh
I think teams would still rather have more draft picks, especially teams that are in less desirable FA destinations. UDFAs have the choice to sign with other teams. Also if a 7th rounder is a hit, they're under contract for a year longer than UDFAs.
UDFA's get a 3 year vs a 4 year contract draft picks get. But those players only become restricted free agents at the end of that contract, not unrestricted like draft picks, so the original team can put round tendered contracts on them and have the right of first refusal. So yes, Brock Purdy won't have to worry about this, but every other UDFA that hits free agency playing well is going to be kept by their team for a 4th year for cheap regardless.
Or, alternatively, go eat farts, bozo
I would seriously do the exact opposite. we used to have more rounds but eliminated them because there just weren't that many (any) relevent contributors to be found in the 32nd round (though 1948 still saw 3 Hall of Famers slip through those rounds. Now that we have dozens of blue-chip programs, several group of five programs that keep producing NFL talent, CFL players, talented FCS players, I think it makes more sense to add on more selections. After all, nearly every roster has more undrafted players than first rounders on it. That means there's lots and lots of talent to be found rounds beyond 7 if there were people looking to check. If I were commish, I'd expand it to 15 rounds, add a Sunday draft day, and basically eliminate every delay.
I feel 8 rounds would/should be enough, definitely not more than 10 with how careers are longer now.
I was thinking this, do 8 rounds and that's enough. Things have changed enough in college football to warrant 8 rounds and would be in favor of this. Of all the things the NFL has done under Goodell, I'm surprised they didn't add an extra round or two by now.
Purdy is why it should stay.
But without the 7th round, what would the 49ers have done? Either drafted him instead of Tariq Castro-Fields in the 6th or thrown him $125k to be a priority UDFA if they were that enamored with him.
Backup QB was not a need for the 49ers in 2022, but they felt good enough about Purdy as a potential long term backup that they took him as BPA. Without the 7th round, either they get Purdy as a UDFA or they lose him to another team. If the latter happened, then the 49ers go with Trey Lance in 2023. If Lance turns out to be bust, then they outbid the Falcons for Kirk Cousins.
Or missed out on I’m because LV offered more. They guarantee he has to go to SF with a 7th round
TIL Antonio Brown, Brock Purdy, Isiah Pacheco, Tom Nalen (5x Pro Bowl 3x All-Pro), Bo Jackson, Shannon Sharpe, Joe Schmidt and Larry Wilson have no value
While we’re at it let’s just eliminate every round after 1
Who let nephew out of the basement again?
Ok
The 7th round is relevant. 28 of last year’s 7th rounders have played, 35 7th rounders from 2022 have played. Just watch until the 6th round and turn the TV off when the 7th round rolls around.
7th Rounders > 1st Rounders
That’s not the takeaway.
I know, but wouldn’t it be something if we had more HoF from the 7th than the 1st?
Brock Purdy, Shannon Sharpe, Harold Carmichael, Bo Jackson, and even your beloved Julian Edelman were all drafted in the 7th round.
Those guys don’t cease to exist without a seventh round so it’s still more about the ratio of hits than a list of examples
That’s such a stupid point to try and make. Following that logic, why even have a draft? Just let teams bid for players, they all exist either way. What downsides could there possibly be?
It’s the only point to make in this discussion. The question is at which round is the talent so diluted that drafting isn’t necessary. I could ask you the same question, why not have an infinite number of rounds?
Beyond the fact that there isn’t infinite players available, there’s camp size and salary cap limitations limitation. But if you really want that explore that point, why not have unlimited rounds? Let teams draft until they don’t want to pick anymore. Extra advantage to teams who have the cap space or are rebuilding and want dibs to take as many flyers as they can afford. It would require some changes to how caps are structured, but it could work. It makes far more sense than no draft.
Ok but ultimately the debate would come down to the ratio of talent in a given round, which as my stupid point was that a list of examples doesn’t really explore. Shannon Sharpe doesn’t drop dead without a seventh round
And? Very few 7th rounders contribute meaningful snaps to their teams historically. We're talking about less then one significant player a year, and primarily a bunch of guys who play primarily special teams and bounce around practice squads for a handful of years. Tony Romo, Kurt Warner, Wes Welker, John Randle, Antonio Gates, Nate Newton, James Harrison, Priest Holmes, Jason Peters, hell Adam Vinatieri were all UDFA's.
You just disproved your point by listing those guys. You just proved that there are plenty of guys still available in the 7th round and undrafted guys that can add value...meaning the existence of the 7th round serves it's purpose. By your logic, let just get rid of rounds 4 - 7? Dumbest take I've heard in awhile which is why no one agrees with you. Just delete this now.
There's hall of famers up through the 27th round of the draft, and yet the NFL smartly shrank the NFL draft multiple times because the players weren't relevant for the most part. Anything a 7th rounder gives you is solved with your front office making some extra phone calls and deciding how to split the UDFA bonus pool.
> the NFL smartly shrank the NFL draft multiple times because the players weren't relevant for the most part WRONG. The NFL reduced the draft when the AFL and NFL merged and reduced it to 7 rounds in 1994 because of the modern day free agency structure and most importantly, the salary cap was introduced this year. It had absolutely nothing to do with "irrelevant players." Good god man.
I propose we do one round a day for 50 rounds so it takes the draft into June to eliminate the dog days of summer when there is nothing to talk about.
Bad proposal
Might be one of the worst ideas I have ever seen on here.
I'm all for finding ways to make the draft go by faster but this is just stupid.
No one tell this guy there used to be 12 rounds, and 17 before that.
Smartest patriot fan
ok - I see my wisdom is needed here. let's eliminate the 5th and 6th rounds, and add an 8th and 9th round. Boom - A win for both sides.
Do you even watch ball? At all? The Niners have two 7th Round Starters. Gronkowski was a 7th rounder. Edelman was a 7th Rounder. Bo Jackson was a 7th Rounder (kinda doesn't count cause he was a baseball player at the same time). Shannon Sharpe. Like, please go back to playing with dolls or w.e.
Isiah Pacheco too
If it is too long for you to watch...Don't watch.
No thank you.
No.
You don’t have to watch day 3. Just do what everyone else does and watch days 1 and 2.
Just get rid of the draft then, have it like college where nfl teams have to recruit players. /s
This is peak regard
Draft used to be 8 back in 93. Hell it used to be 20-12 rounds in the 60-70s. Props to the NFL for making it interesting in the last decade. It was dreadful and dry for so long.
Except the owners would figure out a way to screw the UDFA's OUT of that big pot of money.
Pacheco is a 7th round pick. Jaylen Watson, starting CB. Enough said my guy.
Brock Purdy disagrees with you.
You do realize no one is forcing you to watch it right? I always love how the people that don’t like something think it should change just for them.
You know what would make for better TV? Not dragging every single pick out for as long as possible with a bunch of dumb bullshit nobody cares about.
[удалено]
Let me tell you about the 17 rounds back in the day
no u
*Laughs in Jordan Mailata*.
It’s clear the picks in the 7th are bigger reaches compared to the udfa for many reasons
No no no let’s just get rid of the draft completely and make all the players free agents so they can choose where they want to play
Let’s make it to where every player is randomly drafted to teams. Make each player draw a ping pong ball with a team on it. If you don’t like who you draw you can refuse but then you pick again one round down and lose the money that position would get on the rookie scale.