This is a
list of first overall National Football League draft picks. The
National Football League draft is an annual
sports draft in which NFL teams select newly eligible players for their rosters. To be eligible, a player must be out of high school at least three years. Teams are ranked in reverse order based on the previous season's record, with the worst record picking first. Each NFL franchise seeks to add new players through the annual
NFL draft. The draft rules were last updated in 2009. The team with the worst record the previous year picks first, the next-worst team second, and so on. Teams that did not make the playoffs are ordered by their regular-season record, with any remaining ties broken by
strength of schedule.
Playoff participants are sequenced after non-playoff teams, based on their round of elimination (
wild card, division, conference, and
Super Bowl).