Roger Goodell Suggests Potentially Shortening NFL Draft 1st Round to 7-Minute Picks

Following Thursday night's first round of the 2025 NFL draft, commissioner Roger Goodell floated the idea of lessening the time each team receives to pick.

Appearing Friday on the Pat McAfee Show, Goodell said he had thoughts Thursday about the need to "shorten" the first round of the draft:

Teams currently get 10 minutes to make their pick in the first round, but Goodell proposed giving them seven minutes instead. He also added a caveat to his idea in the form of every team getting a two-minute extension that they can only use once per draft if they need more time for a particular pick regardless of round.

For many years, teams got 15 minutes to make their first-round picks, but that was shortened to 10 minutes in 2007.

Three years later, the NFL changed the draft format by going from a two-day draft on Saturday and Sunday to a three-day draft on Thursday, Friday and Saturday with the first two days airing during prime time.

The final pick of the first round Thursday night was made at 11:43 p.m. ET when the Kansas City Chiefs selected Ohio State offensive tackle Josh Simmons.

It was just after 8 p.m. ET when the Tennessee Titans went on the clock with the first overall pick, meaning the first round took less than four hours in total.

While first rounds have taken far longer in past years, there is no doubt that the second round moves along with significantly more speed and fluidity due to teams having only seven minutes.

That is followed by teams having five minutes in the third through sixth rounds and four minutes in the seventh.

If the NFL does decide to shorten the length of first-round picks to seven minutes in the future, it would conceivably shorten the length of subsequent rounds as well with the second round possibly dropped to five minutes per pick.

Doing that will give teams less time to make trades while on the clock, but given that there is still plenty of wheeling and dealing that happens on the second and third days of the draft right now, teams have shown that they are still more than capable of getting trades done with less time.

Day 2 of the 2025 NFL draft will begin Friday night at 7 p.m. ET with the second and third rounds, while Day 3 starts Saturday at noon ET.