The Detroit Lions hit a bit of luck this week, winning the NFL supplemental draft lottery.
“What’s that?” you ask.
Every year, the NFL holds a supplemental draft for players that either weren’t eligible to join the regular draft or for whatever reason—often college disciplinary reasons—decided to change their mind about returning to school.
For whatever reason, the draft order for this is not the same as the normal NFL Draft. Instead, teams are placed into one of three tiers:
- Teams that finished with six or fewer wins in 2018
- Teams with seven or more wins that didn’t make the playoffs
- 2018 playoff teams
From within those three groups, a lottery is held to determine priority order for the draft.