2019-20 XFL Player Draft: Date, Social Media Info, Format, Rules for Selections

The XFL's official website revealed details Monday morning about its upcoming player draft.

The draft is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 15, through Wednesday, Oct. 16, and the league will look to stand out by utilizing social media to announce each selection. Each of the eight franchises will have 71 roster spots to fill, and picks will be announced via the league's website, Twitter and Instagram feeds as well as individual team's social media handles.

The draft will follow snake format, which is most commonly used for fantasy football and allows each team one pick per round in a pre-assigned order. In this case, the XFL used a lottery to decide the drafting order. Each team will have just 90 seconds to make a pick.

There are five separate "draft phases": 

1. Skill players (QB, RB, WR, TE)

2. Offensive line (tackle, guard, center)

3. Defensive front-seven (DL, LB)

4. Defensive backfield (CB, NB, SS, FS)

5. Open draft (all remaining players plus punters, kickers and long snappers)

See the full grid showing how the snake draft will work through each phase, here.

Commissioner Oliver Luck sent invitations out to players, and the league disclosed Monday that "approximately 1,000 professional football players" will be available to draft. The full draft pool was released later Monday.

"It's difficult to put together a composite guy that will be an XFL player," Luck told ESPN's Kevin Seifert in August. "But each of them will have a unique story. In some cases, they were in a bad spot. Maybe they were a fifth-round NFL draft pick but ended up on a team with four or five really good running backs. They're all players that we believe can play quality football."

Later in August, former Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback Landry Jones became the first player to sign with the XFL.

Each team will be assigned a quarterback outside of the drafting process. 

The eight XFL franchises are as follows: Dallas Renegades, D.C. Defenders, Houston Roughnecks, Los Angeles Wildcats,  New York Guardians, Seattle Dragons, St. Louis BattleHawks and Tampa Bay Vipers. 

"The XFL is about football and fun, and our team identities are intended to signify just that," XFL president and COO Jeffrey Pollack said via the league's official website when the franchises were announced in late August. "Now it's up to our fans and players to help write the story. What happens on the field and in the community, in the years ahead, will determine the true spirit of each team."

The XFL, rebooting from its inaugural run in 2001, will kick off in February 2020.