The NFL draft is an annual sports draft in which National Football League (NFL) teams select newly eligible players for their rosters. To be eligible for the NFL draft, a player must be at least three years removed from high school. While the regulations have to explicitly need collegiate attendance, players must either exhaust their college eligibility or seek a special exemption from the league. Each NFL franchise seeks to add new players through the draft as it is the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is assigned a position in the drafting order based on the reverse of its record from the previous year. The team with the worst record selects first, followed by the team with the second-worst record, and so forth. Teams also have the option to trade with another team to move up to a better draft position. Teams that did not make the playoffs are ordered by their regular-season record, with any remaining ties broken by strength of schedule. Playoff participants are sequenced after non-playoff teams, based on their round of elimination (wild card, division, conference, and Super Bowl).

From through , the first selection in the NFL draft was awarded by a random draw known as the "bonus pick." The team that received the bonus pick forfeited its selection in the final round of the draft, and once a team won, it was excluded from future draws. By the 1958 draft, all twelve league teams had received a bonus pick, leading to the system's abolition. Following this, the NFL faced competition from the American Football League (AFL), which held a separate draft prior to the merger agreements in 1966. This rivalry resulted in both leagues often drafting the same players, sparking bidding wars for top prospects. The two leagues adopted a unified "common draft" system as part of the merger. After the AFL-NFL merger was finalized in 1970, the common draft became the modern NFL draft.

Through the 2026 NFL draft, 91 players have been selected first overall, with the first being Jay Berwanger and the most recent being Fernando Mendoza. The Indianapolis Colts and the Los Angeles Rams have each made the most first overall selections in history with seven, while the Baltimore Ravens, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Denver Broncos have never selected a player first overall. USC is the college with the most selections with 6, followed by Notre Dame, Oklahoma, and Georgia with 5. Quarterbacks are most commonly selected position with 41, followed by running backs with 23. Of the first overall draft picks, 43 have been selected to a Pro Bowl and 14 have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

List of first overall picks

1. Key

First overall draft picks

First overall picks by NFL team

The Indianapolis Colts and Los Angeles Rams have each held the first overall pick a total of seven times, the most of any NFL team. This includes the Colts' time in Baltimore and the Rams' time in Cleveland and St. Louis. The Boston Yanks are the only defunct franchise to have held a first overall pick. The Baltimore Ravens, Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks are the only teams that have never had the first overall pick.

First overall picks by school

USC has the most first overall picks with 6. Notre Dame, Oklahoma, and Georgia are tied for second-most first overall picks with 5 each. Auburn, and Stanford are both tied for third-most first overall picks with 4 each. Only two schools have had first overall picks in consecutive years: USC, with Ron Yary (1968) and O. J. Simpson (1969), and Oklahoma, with Baker Mayfield (2018) and Kyler Murray (2019).

First overall picks by position

First overall selections by position played

See also

• List of second overall NFL draft picks

• Mr. Irrelevant – title given to the final pick in the draft

• List of first overall CFL draft picks

Notes

References

Further reading