The NFL supplemental draft won’t be held this year, according to The Athletic’s Dane Brugler.
The supplemental draft, first held in 1977, gives players who weren’t eligible for April’s NFL draft a chance to be selected into the league.
The last player selected in the supplemental draft is current Arizona Cardinals safety Jalen Thompson, who joined the league in 2019.
Thompson lost his final year of NCAA eligibility in June 2019 after a violation of NCAA rules, Theo Lawson of The Spokesman-Review reported.
Thompson subsequently entered the supplemental draft. The Arizona Cardinals were willing to part with a fifth-round pick in the 2020 NFL draft to take Thompson, and that’s paid off quite well. He’s started 72 of 84 games over six seasons, totaling 483 tackles, 31 pass breakups and nine interceptions.
Overall, though, Thompson isn’t the norm. Only 46 players have been selected in the supplemental draft over the years, including just three overall during the last 10 seasons dating back to 2016. It’s a process that NFL teams rarely used to begin with, and now it’s nearly become dormant.
The biggest supplemental draft success story, though, is arguably Pro Football Hall of Famer Cris Carter, who signed with an agent and was declared ineligible before his senior year for Ohio State in 1987. He landed with the Philadelphia Eagles in the fourth round of the 1987 supplemental draft after leaving school. He went on to become an eight-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro.
Other notable supplemental picks over time include wide receivers Josh Gordon and Rob Moore, linebacker Brian Bosworth and quarterbacks Bernie Kosar and Steve Walsh.
