NFL Draft History: When Was the First Draft Inaugurated?

The NFL Scouting was a whole different ball game about eight decades ago or so. In fact, the drafting process that we have come to know today was far different from when it commenced back in 1936. For the most part, the current drafting process came forth from a lack of funds a couple of teams had, which tipped the scales in the favor of the more fortunate.

Back in the day, there were no draft coverages, no social media to scout players and spread the word, and certainly no football scouts. Fast forward to the present, we have the technology that connects people, we have better financial aid, and a stringent cap system in place. Scouting today is a whole different universe than it used to be in 1935.

How the NFL managed the playing field for all the teams?

Bert Bell, the Eagles co-owner in 1934 felt like he was getting the short end of the stick because he couldn’t draft anyone because of a dearth of monetary aid. Hence, teams that were more fortuitous grabbed the best players first, leaving teams like the Eagles dry. Thus, to combat the unfairness of it all, Bell proposed that the NFL host an annual draft where everybody would get equal drafting opportunities.

All the other stakeholders didn’t take long to agree to the idea of equality and unanimously agreed to the proposal. In the initial days of the drafting, the stakeholders gathered player information through the means of newspapers, visiting local colleges, and through word of mouth. The first draft was held on February 8, 1936, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Philadelphia, which hosted 90 players.

But the drafting process didn’t instill confidence in a lot of players. The reason was that a lot of athletes didn’t consider playing football as a “real job” back in the day. Out of 81 players, only 24 chosen in the first draft went on to get enrolled in the league to play professionally. However, that wasn’t the only problem with the drafting process.

How the NFL Scouting Combine made drafting most robust

For a long time, the NFL teams gave little to no thought to evaluating the prospects they were going to hire. It was the son of the Giants owner Tim Mara, who did some informal research on college players which led to the hiring of Alphonse “Tuffy” Leemans. Tuffy helped the Giants get an NFL Championship in 1938.

Come 1963, the Eagles, the Lions, and the Steelers allied to ease the scouting process and dubbed it LESTO, which became BLESTO in 1964 when the Bears joined. Following BLESTO’s footsteps, the 49ers, the Rams, the Cowboys, and the New Orleans Saints created a group called Quadra Scouting which alleviated the scouting process.

In 1980, the NFL took a big step and decided to broadcast the draft on ESPN, thanks to commissioner Pete Rozelle, who was apprehensive about it at first but still went with the flow. Fast forward to 2016, the NFL draft became the most watched with about 600k people participating and cheering for the new class of rookies. Safe to say that the upgraded drafting process is much more personal and transparent, as it is televised for everyone to see.

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