Early Entries To NFL Draft Are Decreasing Drastically, Possibly Due To NIL

Getty Image / Rich Von Bieberstein

Every promising young football player dreams of entering the NFL Draft and shaking hands with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on the stage. But, more and more elite college football players are coming back to college for at least their fourth season, a trend that has been accelerating the last few years.

Take a look at this data.

That’s a pretty steep decline in early entries over the last few years, and i think there are a few reasons for this.

First, NIL is a huge factor. The fact that college athletes can now receive some indirect compensation while they are still student-athletes is a huge incentive for players to come back. It was too hard to turn down the contract of even a lower-round pick, because players were earning next to nothing playing in college.

Now, many of these players are earning the salaries of lower-level picks while playing in college, and can come back and hopefully develop more and increase their draft stock to get a bigger contract, and possibly move into the rounds where contracts with guaranteed money are typically handed out.

For some, the decision is a bet on moving up from maybe a borderline first-round pick into a top-ten pick the next season. Players like Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, Ohio State defensive end JT Tuimoloau, and Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders are all examples of this.

But, another hidden factor is the amount of extra years players are getting right now. With the 2020 season being a free year of eligibility for everyone, there have been a lot of players with five-plus years of college experience on teams. Those players may be blocking younger players from making a huge impact and getting their draft stock to a level that they deem is worth going pro for.

It will be interesting to see if the number of early entries starts trickling back up in the next few years as more and more players that had a free year due to COVID lose eligibility. But, it certainly means that we have more talented players in college football than ever before.