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75th annual meeting of National Football League franchises to select newly eligible players From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 2010 NFL draft was the 75th annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible football players. The 2010 draft took place over three days, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, with the first round on April 22, 2010. The second and third rounds took place on April 23, while the final four rounds were held on April 24.[1][2] Television coverage was provided by both NFL Network and ESPN.
The 2010 NFL draft | |
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General information | |
Date(s) | April 22–24, 2010 |
Time | 7:30 pm EDT (April 22) 6:00 pm EDT (April 23) 10:00 am EDT (April 24) |
Location | Radio City Music Hall in New York, NY |
Network(s) | ESPN, NFL Network |
Overview | |
255 total selections in 7 rounds | |
League | NFL |
First selection | Sam Bradford, QB St. Louis Rams |
Mr. Irrelevant | Tim Toone, WR Detroit Lions |
Most selections (13) | Philadelphia Eagles |
Fewest selections (4) | New York Jets |
The St. Louis Rams, as the team with the worst record during the 2009 season, selected quarterback Sam Bradford with the first pick. Three of the top four picks were members of the Oklahoma Sooners football team, and five of the top six were from the Big 12 Conference. The prime time broadcast of the first round was watched by 7.29 million viewers making it the most viewed first round ever and making ESPN the second most watched network of the night.[3][4]
Of the 255 players drafted 216 (or 84%) were among the 327 players who participated in the 2010 NFL Scouting Combine. This matches the average percentage of combine participants among draftees over the past ten years. An additional 39 players who did not attend the combine were selected.[5][6]
There was wide speculation that the 2010 NFL draft would have a very large number of early entrants because of a possible rookie pay scale to be imposed starting with the 2011 NFL draft.[7][8][9][10] Eligible underclassmen projected as top NFL prospects risked losing millions of contractually-guaranteed dollars if they did not declare for the draft the year before a new CBA could be reached. The early entry deadline was January 15. After the early entry deadline had passed, it was confirmed that the 2010 NFL draft would have fifty-three non-seniors, tying a draft record for the most non-seniors ever.[11]
The draft's first round, in which teams were allowed ten minutes to make each selection, consumed three hours and 28 minutes. The second round (with a maximum of seven minutes per selection) lasted two hours and 25 minutes. After the second round, teams were allotted five minutes per pick. The third round took one hour and 41 minutes. Rounds 4 through 7 each lasted less than two hours.[12] For the second time in draft history, the first two players selected were named Offensive and Defensive Rookies of the Year, respectively.[13]
The following is the breakdown of the 255 players selected by position:
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At the 2009 annual owners meeting, NFL owners unanimously approved changes to the order for assigning draft picks, starting with the 2010 draft.[14]
The new format took into account the seeding of playoff teams. The two major changes from previous years were:
The new order assigns picks for each round as indicated in the table below. Except the changes noted above, the order will generally follow that used in previous years (i.e., within a given status, teams with worse regular-season records will pick earlier in the first round, and picks will cycle from round to round among teams that are tied).
Three coin tosses were necessary to establish the final selection order: Jacksonville, Tennessee, and Atlanta won their flips over Denver, Carolina, and Houston, respectively.[15]
Status | Draft picks |
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Non-playoff teams | 1–20 |
Eliminated in Wild Card round | 21–24 |
Eliminated in Divisional round | 25–28 |
Eliminated in Conference Championships | 29–30 |
Super Bowl losing team | 31 |
Super Bowl champion | 32 |
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In the explanations below, (D) denotes trades that took place during the draft, while (PD) indicates trades completed pre-draft.
Round one
Round two
Round three
Round four
Round five
Round six
Round seven
Two players were selected in the 2010 Supplemental Draft.
Rnd. | Pick No. | NFL team | Player | Pos. | College | Conf. | Notes | |
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7 | — | Chicago Bears | Harvey Unga | RB | BYU | MWC | The Bears thus forfeited their seventh-round selection in the 2011 draft.[18] | |
7 | — | Dallas Cowboys | Josh Brent | DT | Illinois | Big Ten | The Cowboys forfeited their seventh-round selection in the 2011 draft. |
Selection totals by college conference:[19]
Rank | Conference | Players selected |
Division |
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1 | Southeastern Conference | 49 | I FBS |
2 | Big Ten Conference | 34 | I FBS |
3 | Atlantic Coast Conference | 31 | I FBS |
4 | Big 12 Conference | 30 | I FBS |
5 | Pac-10 Conference | 28 | I FBS |
6 | Big East Conference | 18 | I FBS |
7 | Mountain West Conference | 13 | I FBS |
8 | Conference USA | 7 | I FBS |
8 | Sun Belt Conference | 7 | I FBS |
10 | Mid-American Conference | 5 | I FBS |
10 | Western Athletic Conference | 5 | I FBS |
10 | Colonial Athletic Association | 5 | I FCS |
13 | Independent | 4 | I FBS |
14 | Big Sky Conference | 3 | I FCS |
14 | Missouri Valley Conference | 3 | I FCS |
16 | Ohio Valley Conference | 2 | I FCS |
16 | Southern Conference | 2 | I FCS |
16 | Lone Star Conference | 2 | II |
19 | Ivy League | 1 | I FCS |
19 | Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference | 1 | I FCS |
19 | Patriot League | 1 | I FCS |
19 | Southland Conference | 1 | I FCS |
19 | Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference | 1 | II |
19 | Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference | 1 | II |
19 | Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference | 1 | II |