2015 NFL Draft: Latest Details and Rumors on Dates and Location

Updates from Thursday, Oct. 2

The city of Chicago will play host to the 2015 NFL Draft, the Bears confirmed on Thursday:

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The start of the NFL draft is set to move back to April in 2015, but the league has yet to settle on a formal location. 

According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, sources are reporting that the 2015 draft will be held from April 30 through May 2, and that Chicago and Los Angeles are the two potential hosts:

Rand Getlin of Yahoo Sports is reporting that Chicago will be the host:

The 2014 draft was moved back further than usual and occurred from May 8 through May 10. While it is possible that league management was unhappy with how that affected the league calendar, making the change could have easily had to do with venue availability as well.

While the draft has been held in New York City every year since 1965, that streak will come to an end. Per ESPN.com, Commissioner Roger Goodell decided in July to focus his efforts on either Chicago or L.A.

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We had 12 cities that were interested. We felt the best thing to do was focus on the three cities, because they had such a tremendous interest. There are very attractive aspects to each of those cities. Because we don't have the appropriate dates in May, our focus is completely on Los Angeles and Chicago. They both have tremendous bids.

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Although it is unclear if either city has the upper hand over the other, NFL.com's Gil Brandt reported in August that Los Angeles looked to be ahead:

The draft has once been held in L.A., but not since 1956. Chicago has hosted the draft on seven occasions, including the most recent one to not be held in New York back in 1964.

With expansion or relocation to Los Angeles always being a hot topic of discussion, it wouldn't be particularly surprising to see the NFL go in that direction in order to make some waves. Chicago has long been one of the most reliable NFL cities in the country, though, so it can make a great case as well.

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