Everyone knows the professionalization of college football has permanently altered the migration of players from the college game to the NFL, but this week at the NFL combine Kansas City Chiefs general manager Brett Veach put a number on it.
The number of "top 100" prospects in the draft has been reduced by a quarter. In essence, the entire third round has now been eliminated -- a fourth-rounder five years ago is now a third rounder, a fifth-rounder is now a fourth, and so on.
“When the official decision date for the underclassmen came, I believe we moved over 25 guys off our board that we had Top 75, Top 100,” Veach said. “So it’s really impacts, I think, the draft, and then you’re getting older, older prospects as you go on. I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon and I think that’s something we have to adapt to.”
The number of early-entrants was on a steady rise until the advent of NIL, where it's since moved into a steep decline.
NFL Draft Early Entrants by Year
2018: 106
2019: 106
2020: 99
2021: 130
---- NIL rules passed July 1, 2021 -----
2022: 73
2023: 69
2024: 58
2025: 70
2026: 63
If you want to have a laugh, in 2021 The Athletic published a piece essentially asking, "What do we do about all these guys leaving college early who go undrafted?" The incentive structure has completely changed, and so the thinking has gone from Pro careers are short, so I need to get a paycheck while I can to Pro careers are short, so I need to stay in college as long as I can. The old "so and so took a pay cut to go to the NFL" joke is no longer a joke.
Both sides of the college/NFL divide are asking themselves how to deal with players who have become sleepover guests still hanging around at 4 p.m. the following day: these guys just won't leave.
As Veach explained, the typical Chiefs Day 2 draft pick was a 21-year-old with explosive traits and not a lot of game experience. Now, he's more likely to be a 23-year-old with 40-plus college games and more average physical traits. That's going to affect how rosters are built, in ways both good and bad.
“Typically, the second and third round would be those guys that maybe they didn’t play a lot, but they were young,” Veach said. “Well, now these guys are just bouncing and getting paid by another school and getting paid and playing. So Round 2, 3, 4, the younger developmental guys who haven’t scratched the surface yet, you’re getting more finished product so that’s challenging, but that’s what we have to adapt to and how we position our board.”