2012 Supplemental Draft: Schedule, Lottery System and How to Follow Along

The NFL dead zone has been slowly beating us all down, but we get a brief break from the lack of news on Thursday with the 2012 NFL Supplemental Draft.

As most of you know, the draft is designed for players who either missed the deadline to declare for the actual NFL Draft in April or had circumstances come up since then which made them reconsider going pro. A player must have been eligible for the 2012 NFL Draft in order to throw his name in the ring for the Supplemental Draft. In order to draft a player, a team must forfeit a selection in that same round in the 2013 NFL Draft.

After the jump, check out the schedule, how the draft order will be determined, a list of available players and how to follow along.

The day’s events will get under way with a draft lottery Thursday morning. The lottery system used will be similar to the one the NHL and NBA use. Pro Football Talk described it elegantly here.

“Like the NBA and NHL, the NFL supplemental draft lottery is weighted so that worse teams get a better chance of having the highest picks. The first drawing will feature the 10 teams that won six or fewer games last season: Colts, Rams, Vikings, Browns, Buccaneers, Redskins, Jaguars, Dolphins, Panthers and Bills. The Colts will get their names put in the drawing 32 times, the Rams 31 times, and so on. Those 10 teams are guaranteed to have Top 10 picks, but the lottery will determine the exact order. After that, a second drawing takes place with the 10 teams that won seven or more games last season but didn’t make the playoffs: Chiefs, Seahawks, Cardinals, Cowboys, Eagles, Jets, Raiders, Chargers, Bears, Titans. The Chiefs will get their names in the drawing 22 times, the Seahawks 21 times, and so on. Those 10 teams get picks 11-20. Finally, the third drawing is for the 12 playoff teams, with the Super Bowl champion Giants getting their names in the drawing just once. The 12 playoff teams get draft lottery picks 21-32.”

The picking will take place in a silent auction-type format, and the draft will begin at 1 p.m. eastern time.

How can you follow along with this exciting event? Well, much to our surprise, the NFL is not actually televising the event like they do with seemingly everything else. So, you’ll have to follow along on Twitter and keep Mocking the Draft punched into your browser for the latest news and analysis regarding the picks. Mocking the Draft and Mark Bullock will be worthwhile follows for your Supplemental Draft needs.

Here is a list of players available.