2018 NFL Supplemental Draft: Time, eligible players, format and more

The National Football League will hold the 2018 Supplemental Draft tomorrow, 11 July. The Supplemental Draft is pretty much nothing like the regular draft, and while the Minnesota Vikings likely won’t be participating in this year’s festivities, it’s still worth reviewing how everything works.

The Supplemental Draft will get underway at noon Central time on Wednesday, and the entire thing is conducted via e-mail. The 32 NFL teams are divided into three groups:

• Group 1: Teams with six wins or less in 2017
• Group 2: Non-playoff teams with seven or more wins in 2017
• Group 3: Playoff teams from 2017

Obviously, the Vikings would fall into Group 3. Then, there’s a lottery system within each group to determine who has priority in each group. None of this is actually televised or disclosed or anything, so we may never know who wound up falling where, but that’s how it works.

After all of that is determined, teams submit blind bids for players that they might be interested in acquiring. The team with the highest priority will then be awarded the player. So, if a team in Group 1 and a team in Group 2 each submit a similar bid for a player, he would be awarded to the team from Group 1.

If a team is awarded a player from the Supplemental Draft process, they would forfeit the corresponding pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. That’s why we generally see teams use lower round picks in the Supplemental Draft. The Browns used a second-round pick on Josh Gordon in 2012, but that’s been a rarity in recent years.

There are five prospects that are eligible for this year’s selection process, and we’re likely to see two of them go off the board this year.

• Adonis Alexander, CB, Virginia Tech
• Sam Beal, CB, Western Michigan
• Brandon Bryant, CB, Mississippi State
• Martayveus Carter, RB, Grand Valley State (Division II)
• Bright Ugwoegbu, LB, Oregon State

Beal and Alexander are both expected to be selected on Wednesday, and Beal could fetch as much as a second-round pick. Alexander is expected to have a fifth or sixth round value, while the other three players are not likely to be selected. Any player that is not selected in the Supplemental Draft immediately becomes a free agent and is free to sign with any team. You can read a couple of scouting reports on the eligible players at the mothership at this link here.

Again, it would be a surprise to see the Vikings actually take part in the Supplemental Draft for just the second time in franchise history, but this year’s edition promises to be more interesting than it is most years.