The NFL Draft System

NFL Draft is a player recruitment procedure that has taken place every year since 1936. Every spring, National Football League (NFL) teams have reason to be optimistic, especially those with poor win-loss records the previous season. The NFL Draft gives teams the chance to improve their roster by bringing in the best college players.

The NFL Draft is divided into seven rounds. Each team has a different number of picks. The teams get approximately one pick per round in the average round of 32 picks. Teams have 15 minutes to make their decision in the first round. In the second round, the decision time is reduced to 10 minutes, and in rounds three through seven, it is reduced to five minutes.

Some teams may have decided on their first-round pick well before the draft and may even agree on contract conditions with the player. A team that already has made its selection may have to rush to find a replacement if the player it wanted is picked unexpectedly by another team.

While athletes from other sports occasionally are drafted, college football players account for most of those selected. If an athlete meets certain league criteria, they are entitled to declare themselves available for the NFL draft. However, when players declare for the draft, they forfeit their remaining college football eligibility. Athletes have only seven days following the conclusion of the College National Championship game to express their interest in entering the draft. Once a declaration of interest is made, the NFL, in collaboration with schools, agents, and teams, will verify the athlete’s eligibility.

Hundreds of players will be in Madison Square Garden on draft day, waiting for their names to be called. When their names are announced, these are the players who walk up to the stage, put on the team cap, and have their photo taken carrying a team shirt.

Each team sends representatives to the NFL Draft venue to keep in touch with their leaders during the selection process. When a team makes a pick, the representatives at the draft are notified. A runner receives a card with the player’s name, position, and school.

The first-round picks wait in the green room backstage with their families, friends, and agents. Some are announced later in the round with less fanfare. Players and their agents care about their draft position since teams pay earlier picks more money.

The NFL has hosted a supplemental draft since 1977. Players typically enter the supplementary draft because they missed the NFL draft filing deadline or because circumstances arose that jeopardized their eligibility. The supplemental draft will occur after the regular draft but before the following season.

Since 1994, compensatory NFL Draft picks have been in use. NFL teams that lost free agents to other teams the previous year can use compensatory picks to make up for those losses. Up to 32 compensatory picks can be awarded each year.

A team can draft almost anyone. The Dallas Cowboys have picked two men who never played football: Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis in the 12th round in 1984 and Bob Hayes in the 7th round in 1964.

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Fahrenheit 451 – The Story Behind the Classic

Fahrenheit 451 is a classic dystopian fiction authored by one of America’s most acclaimed writers–Ray Bradbury. The novel explores a future America where books are proscribed and replaced with rather facile entertainment Firemen are mandated to burn whatever literature they find. Guy Montag, the novel’s protagonist, a fireman, becomes wary of his job, having to destroy literature and, by implication, erasing valuable knowledge. He eventually quits his job and commits to preserving literary pieces.

The book has been described as a compelling commentary on humanity’s tendency to suppress whatever it does not understand. The author’s background might have supplied some inspiration making the book such. From a young age, Ray Bradbury had been passionate about books. But after graduating high school, he could not afford to attend college. So the young man spent all his time at the Los Angeles Public Library, where he schooled himself.

After becoming a library resident, especially in between the 1920s and 1930s, he discovered to his utter disappointment that many popular science fiction novels, including some authored by H.G. Wells, were not on the shelves. The library wouldn’t stock them because the books weren’t considered literary. Around the time, Bradbury also learned of the Library of Alexandria, where a wealth of knowledge contained in those walls, acquired before and during that civilization, went up in flames. And how during the Nazi book burnings, all books that remotely contained anti-Nazi ideology were torched. Initially, only Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky’s books were burned. Subsequently, the list expanded to include authors like Helen Keller and Albert Einstein.

Ray Bradbury slowly began to understand how fragile books were, particularly vulnerable to censorship and destruction. He was further appalled by government interference in the affairs of creative artists, from Joseph Stalin’s campaign, the Great Purge, where several writers were detained and killed, to the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which was formed in 1938.

A later event would set the stage for Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. In 1949, during a late-night walk with a writer friend, Bradbury had a puzzling encounter with a police officer. He said that a police car pulled up next to them, and after the officer alighted, he inquired what they were doing. Bradbury responded instead wittingly, “putting one foot in front of the other.” The policeman’s retort, “don’t do it again!” infuriated Bradbury and inspired him to compose the short story entitled The Pedestrian. The story explores a fictitious time where walking was criminal.

What would become Fahrenheit 451 was initially titled The Fireman. It was first a novella Bradbury wrote in the basement of UCLA’s Powell Library. Using a typewriter, he rented at 20 cents per hour. He completed a 25,000-word draft in nine days. When a publisher at Ballantine Books encouraged him to lengthen the piece, he returned to the same room and added 25,000 more words, all again in nine days.

The title came to him on January 22, and by October 1953, the book was published. The book reflects the political tension America was fraught with and is considered a criticism of McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare. In this period, Americans feared that communism would topple the structure of their society. Other readers believe that the book reflects Bradbury’s fear of televisions playing a significant role in killing the reading culture.

The book has sold more than 10 million copies. It is regarded as one of the significant novels of the 20th century earning the author several awards, including an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and a Hugo Award. Even the audiobook released in 1976 earned him a Grammy nomination.

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