The NFL’s 2015 supplemental draft is scheduled to take place today at 12:00pm central time, with 10 minutes allotted for each round. As such, we should know later this afternoon whether any of this year’s eligible players have been selected.
The supplemental draft allows clubs to select players who for some reason were unable to enter the standard draft; academic trouble or disciplinary issues are often – but not always – key factors. If a team selects a player in the supplementary draft, it will lose its corresponding pick in the following year’s standard draft. For example, if a club were to select a player in the sixth round of the supplemental, that club would lose its 2016 sixth-rounder as a result.
Most players who enter the supplemental draft ultimately go undrafted, allowing them to become free agents and sign with any team. The last two players to be picked were Terrelle Pryor (third round, 2011) by the Raiders and Josh Gordon (second round, 2012) by the Browns.
This year, seven players have entered the supplemental draft, and could be picked this afternoon. They are as follows:
- Isaiah Battle, T (Clemson)
- Darrius Caldwell, DE (West Georgia)
- Eric Eiland, DE (Houston)
- Sean McQuillan, TE (UConn)
- Kevin Short, DB (Kansas)
- Dalvon Stuckey, DT (West Georgia)
- Adrian Wilkins, WR/KR (North Carolina Central)
Of those seven players, Battle is by far the player most likely to be selected, with pundits suggesting that he could go anywhere between the third and seventh rounds. Battle, who had been penciled in as Clemson’s starting left tackle for the coming season, remains raw, and teams are wary of some off-field red flags, but he has the most upside of any player in this year’s supplemental class.
McQuillan has drawn some recent interest, with the Raiders, Dolphins, and Lions among the teams to attend a recent workout for the tight end. Fifteen teams were also on hand to watch the pair of West Georgia defensive linemen work out last week. It seems unlikely that an NFL team will use a draft pick on any of these players, but they might be scooped up as free agents.
While last year’s records contribute significantly to the selection order in the supplemental draft, the order today won’t necessarily be quite the same as it was in the 2015 draft. The order will be determined later today in a lottery-style process which gives 2014’s worst teams the opportunity to land the top picks, while playoff teams are further down, as Jason Cole of Bleacher Report details in a pair of tweets.
Will Darius Caldwell picked up as a free agent