12 Posts
CNN World Sport discussed the NFL Draft with NFL Network analyst and former NFL general manager Scott Pioli.
They say when you have a near death experience, your life flashes before your eyes. When you’re waiting to be drafted into the NFL, the same thing happens.
You reflect on what it has taken to get to this moment: not just the training, the dedication, the sacrifice, but the injuries and the pain.
You know you had to go through that, and that none of it made sense at the time, but this is the moment you realize it was all worth it.
I’ve never won the lottery, but I imagine the feeling is very similar. The moment you are drafted is the moment your lifelong dream comes true.
I was the 97th overall pick of the 2002 NFL Draft, chosen by the Buffalo Bills with their third round selection.
Part of the thrill and stress of the draft for players is the unknown of where you will end up.
When it comes to college, a number of colleges may extend scholarship offers to you, but in the NFL when a team picks you, you say yes.
I played for Stanford during college in sunny California, and I was drafted by Buffalo, where some of the snowiest NFL games in history have been played. I went from palm trees to snowmen, but I couldn’t have been happier.
Dating back to when I was seven years old, my parents had never missed a single one of my games. And that includes when I moved to the other side of the country for college. Home or away, they were always there.
So to learn that my team was only a five hour drive from my parents’ home filled me with joy.
I knew they were going to be able to drive up and watch me live out my dream in every game.
In a session with local reporters hours ahead of the start of the draft, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell praised the Green Bay Packers and the city, calling the team “one of the oldest franchises, maybe one of the smallest markets, but maybe the mightiest.”
“I think this is going to be a great event,” Goodell said. “This community deserves it.
The franchise deserves it, and I think it’s going to be great for the NFL and this country.”
Goodell also spoke about what this event means for the league.
“It’s a little bit of a mini Super Bowl, and it’s not even mini anymore,” Goodell said.
“It’s really an incredibly important offseason event for us of a football team, but much more importantly it’s a chance for us to engage our fans and our communities, and I think it’s really that turning of the wheel to the hope we are looking for the next season.
“The schedule will be coming out in a couple more weeks and so I think it’s a really important moment to celebrate our game.”
Colorado’s Travis Hunter could become the first full-time two-way player in NFL history having excelled at both wide receiver and cornerback with the Buffaloes and is coming off a Heisman Trophy-winning season.
Under head coach Deion Sanders, Hunter blossomed into a superstar with 92 receptions for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns on offense as well as 15 passes defended, four interceptions and a game-winning forced fumble on defense.
There are still question marks over whether Hunter’s two-way game will translate to the NFL or whether his coaches will prefer to have him specialize on one side of the ball, but the 21-year-old has shown he possesses all the skills to be a game-changer wherever he is deployed. In fact, Browns general manager Andrew Berry called Hunter a “unicorn” player in a pre-draft press conference.
Although there is a consensus No. 1 overall pick in many people’s eyes, lots of questions still remain about the other selections in the first round.
Miami Hurricanes quarterback Cam Ward is widely expected to be drafted by the Tennessee Titans with the first pick as the clear cut best quarterback in the class and with the franchise in dire need of a difference-maker at the position.
While he still has room to grow, NFL draft expert Daniel Jeremiah says that Ward could have a “very high ceiling” if he can be “reined in” from his gunslinging nature.
This year’s NFL draft could perhaps be one for the history books
For the first time since 1967 (since the common draft era began), not a single first-round draft pick has been traded… but there is still a enough time for that to change!
Picks can be swapped at any point as long as the team currently owning the slot is still on the clock.
It’s OK to brag on a teammate, right?
CNN Sports’ Coy Wire is as humble as they come – always giving full attention to those who seek out his passion and joy for sports and beyond.
The thing is, if you didn’t really know him like we do, you wouldn’t expect he has the ultimate flex over most, if not all, of us wannabe athletes roaming the globe.
He rarely plays his NFL card and never to brag, but here he is talking about a day when he experienced something that always makes us smile (a lil’ jealous/impressed).
You’ll note a slight authentic twinkle (or is that dust in here) around the minute mark…
The Los Angeles Rams are honoring Southern California firefighters as they take their draft headquarters on the road this year.
The team will conduct their 2025 NFL draft operations from Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) Air Operations, honoring first responders following the wildfires that swept across the Los Angeles area earlier this year.
LAFD’s Air Operations plays a vital role in emergency response efforts, particularly in combating wildfires across the Los Angeles region, according to the team.
The devastating wildfires swept through the city earlier this year, displacing tens of thousands of residents in the Pacific Palisades area and testing the city’s emergency response systems. The Palisades and Eaton wildfires – the most destructive in recent years – left 29 people dead and scorched nearly 60,000 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
With the help of Zillow, the Rams and LAFD will alter a room within LAFD Air Operations to serve as general manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay’s draft headquarters. A separate hangar will be used as a space for coaches, scouts, team personnel and media.
It’s no secret that the 2025 NFL draft is being hosted by the smallest market in the league.
But Green Bay is a city with a rich football history, headlined by the Packers’ 13 NFL championships – including four Super Bowls – leading to the nickname “Titletown, USA.”
The home of the Cheeseheads is ready to host one of the NFL’s biggest events of the year outside the iconic Lambeau Field.
The NFL draft is broadcast live on television every year as millions tune in and hundreds of thousands more attend in person to revel in the hoopla of it all.
It’s a far cry from the event’s humble beginnings, when the player picked first didn’t even know it was happening and soon walked away from the game without ever earning a cent.
Two-hundred-fifty-seven players will be drafted this week in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and anyone chosen in the first round – which begins at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday – will be set for life with guaranteed multi-million-dollar contracts. It was all very different in the first year of the draft back in 1936 when just 81 players were selected through nine rounds in the inaugural draft.
There was little doubt that University of Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger would go first that year. At 6-foot tall and 195 pounds, the standout player of his class had just received the first ever Heisman Trophy and been named as the Chicago Tribune’s Big 10 player of the year.
The Hartford Courant described the first draft as “no gala, more like a penny-ante poker game. Nine cigar-puffing, mogul wannabees, some of whom were paying their players with IOUs, stubbornly trying to salvage their dream of professional football.”
Berwanger told the Courant in 1994 that he was oblivious to the draft at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia.
“I found out I was drafted by reading it in the newspaper,” he said, “I didn’t even know the draft was going on.”
Philadelphia Eagles owner Bert Bell had persuaded his peers to formalize a draft in order to cease the expensive and “self-defeating” bidding wars for college players and he’d proposed that teams should choose players in reverse order from the previous season’s standings. That meant the worst team, Bell’s own 2-9 Eagles, went first and chose Berwanger, quickly dealing his rights to the Chicago Bears. The Eagles didn’t think they’d be able to afford Berwanger’s salary demands, and the Bears owner and coach George Halas soon realized he didn’t have enough money, either.
According to the Courant, the two met in the lobby of a downtown hotel in Chicago.
“He asked what I wanted,” Berwanger recalled, “and I had my tongue in my cheek. I told him, $25,000 for two years. He looked at my date and said, `Nice to have met you; have a nice time tonight.’ And that was the end of it.”
The first round of the 2025 NFL draft will be held on Thursday, with the second and third rounds taking place on Friday and the remaining four rounds happening on Saturday.
Like years prior, the draft is set to be a huge event with fans from all across the US traveling to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to watch names being read out by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and others, with the event being held outside the famous Lambeau Field, home of the Packers.
Fans at home can watch all the picks on NFL Network and ESPN, with the first pick of the first round being made at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday. Friday’s action begins at 7 p.m. ET and Saturday kicks off at noon ET.
Here’s the draft order for the first round:
1. Tennessee Titans
2. Cleveland Browns
3. New York Giants
4. New England Patriots
5. Jacksonville Jaguars
6. Las Vegas Raiders
7. New York Jets
8. Carolina Panthers
9. New Orleans Saints
10. Chicago Bears
11. San Francisco 49ers
12. Dallas Cowboys
13. Miami Dolphins
14. Indianapolis Colts
15. Atlanta Falcons
16. Arizona Cardinals
17. Cincinnati Bengals
18. Seattle Seahawks
19. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
20. Denver Broncos
21. Pittsburgh Steelers
22. Los Angeles Chargers
23. Green Bay Packers
24. Minnesota Vikings
25. Houston Texans
26. Los Angeles Rams
27. Baltimore Ravens
28. Detroit Lions
29. Washington Commanders
30. Buffalo Bills
31. Kansas City Chiefs
32. Philadelphia Eagles
