NFL cancels 2025 supplemental draft

This marks the fifth time in the last six years the league has scrapped the supplemental draft. It was instituted in 1977 to offer an alternative path to the NFL for players who were ineligible for the main draft in the spring. Typically, that group includes players who were academically ineligible or had other off-field issues.

The supplemental draft uses a bid system to assign players. Teams can bid anywhere from a first- to a seventh-round pick; if they win, they are awarded the player and forfeit their pick in the same round in the next year’s main draft.

Players also have to apply to join the supplemental draft pool, but few do. During the last supplemental draft in 2023, only two players were available to be selected, and neither was.

Since the talent pool for the main draft dwarfs that of the supplemental, teams rarely make bids in the supplemental draft. The last selection was safety Jalen Thompson in 2019, who, the Cardinals drafted with a fifth-round bid. They gave up their fifth-rounder in 2020, but Thompson, who started nine games as a rookie and 72 over the last six years, certainly seems to have been worth it. However, there have only been 46 players selected in the entire history of the supplemental draft.

As noted by Justis Mosqueda of SB Nation, the emergence of professional spring football leagues and NIL payments in college have thinned the supplemental talent pool even further, meaning the NFL will likely continue its trend of cancelling the event.