A complete guide to NFL draft events

NFL draft season is upon us. Please consult this step-by-step guide to all the cornerstone events between now and the moment players are putting on hats.

Do we know the draft order? No. Do we know which underclassmen will have their names in the draft? No. Do we know what teams’ needs will be up to a year in advance? Probably not. Does any of that bother you? Only if you’re a cop.

That’s right: It’s draft declaration day for early entrants. For a couple hundred young men, declaration day is another step on the road to achieving a dream. For a couple hundred thousand older men who work desk jobs and love college football, it’s a prime chance to tell their 87 Twitter followers why it’s a mistake for a guy to choose trying to become a low-round NFL pick over playing for free another year at South Carolina.

The more boring of the two big pre-draft college “all-star” games. This one pits an East team against a West team, and it tends to contain all the high-flying offense a Stanford-Michigan State game would feature. A team hasn’t scored 30 points in a Shrine Game since 2008.

In 2017 and ‘18, the scores were 10-3 and 14-10. As an added bonus, they play it at the Rays’ dumpster stadium in Saint Petersburg, which is famous for its ghastly football turf.

Just like any UCLA game.

In the run-up to the game, players are made to strip down to almost nothing and be inspected by dozens of older men holding clipboards.

Here, it’s not weird when a 58-year-old sees a nearly naked 23-year-old he’s never met before and his life and whispers to the guy next to him, “great length.”

During practice some day, Nick Saban, who’s wearing a vibrantly colored sport coat, holds court with media on a sideline, talking both about the six Alabama players in attendance and something that’s wrong with college football. Most likely, he’ll talk about what a mistake players are making if they left before their senior season as anything less than a first-round pick. It would be better if they’d keep playing for him, for free!

Practices will go on for a few days. A viral Twitter video shows a good QB failing to throw the ball into a stationary net and a bad QB throwing darts, and people draw conclusions based on those. A future backup QB then probably wins game MVP, although a Dak Prescott or Matt Forte or Philip Rivers interjects every few years.

Thousands of people shuttle through Indianapolis International Airport. Among them:

Over four or so days, players are herded around a few-square-block area between the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Field.

Drills happen. 40s are run. Verts are jumped. Benches are pressed. Every player spends 15 or so minutes at some point standing at a podium and talking to a horde of reporters. Some of these pressers happen right in front of bathrooms, which at some point prompts the NFL to cover up little toilet signs with official NFL cardboard.

At night, the players meet with teams in their hotel suites, part of a process that closely mirrors the first episode or two of any season of The Bachelor.

Everything at the combine happens within a few minutes’ walk. Anybody who’s anybody stays at the J.W. Marriott on S West Street near the edge of town. Those people gather for Bud Light Limes in the sports bar downstairs, but they also eat pricier meals at St. Elmo, an elite steakhouse you may have seen Ron Swanson eating at on Parks and Rec.

If you’re a peon, you stay at one of the smaller, less impressive Marriott facilities that abut the big J.W. I stay in a Courtyard, but at least — thank heavens — I am not relegated to the indignity of the SpringHill Suites or Fairfield Inn that are also connected.

People in these buildings get their nutrition at the adjoining TGI Fridays. You’ll primarily find media types here, because all the important people are ensconced in the J.W.

These are teams’ last chances to watch prospects. Pro days are big events, with coaches and scouts from anywhere from a few teams to all 32 descending on campuses. It’s exciting for people at, like, Maryland to see Bill Belichick just hanging around. College teams excitedly tweet out pics of their coaches with NFL people, hoping recruits are impressed.

At some point, a tall, probably white QB who had mediocre college stats will be pegged as a surefire first-rounder after a good pro day throwing against air. (Note: This step can be moved up to the combine at the league’s discretion.) A former NFL general manager and/or linebacker will say on SportsCenter around the same time that a more athletic, probably black QB who had great college numbers should at least work out at receiver, just in case.

They’ll do this all over the place, talking to newspaper reporters from Minnesota and national access junkies eager to pass on whatever they say. In what absolutely won’t be an attempt by a team drafting near the end of the first round to get a player to fall to them, an Anonymous Scout will tell a friendly reporter there are misgivings about “the kind of people the guy hangs around” and “a girlfriend who may or may not be in the picture.”

I don’t think those are the actual sponsors. But if you’re in the city where the draft’s taking place, you can go to this event for free and then pay $48 for hot dogs.

Here’s the brief schedule events:

The MAC quarterback your team just signed is unheralded, but do you know who else was unheralded? Kurt Warner.

And the tight end your team signed has great versatility, per his college coach, who played under the same special teams coordinator who used to be on staff with your team’s head coach, when both of them were GAs at Fort Hays State in the mid-‘90s. Underrated fit!

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