The league will not hold a supplemental draft in 2025. Their last supplemental draft choice was made in 2019.
It’s been years since the NFL’s last supplemental draft. The last player selected via the supplemental draft process was Jalen Thompson, a safety who was taken in the fifth round by the Arizona Cardinals back in 2019.
There are a couple of reasons why players aren’t testing the NFL beyond the traditional draft. First of all, the NCAA continues to lose legal battles around player movement and compensation, which is allowing players to earn at the college level and transfer at will. In this world, a Terrelle Pryor (2011 third-round pick) never gets suspended by the NCAA for “improper benefits” and never has to enter the supplemental draft in the first place.
Over the last decade, there have been all of three players who have been picked in the supplemental draft: Two players (Sam Beal and Adonis Alexander) who were ruled academically ineligible, and one player (Thompson) who was ruled ineligible by the NCAA due to taking a non-steroid over-the-counter supplement.
It’s just rarer to find players who want to jump to the NFL post-minicamp rather than testing their chances in the transfer portal. The whole pool, at this point, should only be comprised of players who have been ruled ineligible by the NCAA, which isn’t a large group of players to begin with. Even then, the alternative of spring leagues presents an opportunity.
Back in 2020, the XFL signed Kenny Robinson, who was expelled from West Virginia due to academic fraud. Instead of transferring to a different institution, he played spring league football and was ultimately taken in the fifth round of the 2020 NFL draft following his lone season in the XFL. That’s proof of concept that a player could play in an alternative league, rather than just the NCAA, and preserve his stock to go through the traditional NFL draft process.
On Friday, The Athletic’s Dane Brugler reported that the NFL made the decision not to host a supplemental draft in 2025. At this point, it’s uncertain if we’ll see a supplemental draft choice made in the near future.
According to Brugler, one player who was considering the supplemental draft route was former Utah State running back Rahsul Faison. Faison began his college career in 2020 at the junior college level, though he did not play during the COVID-19 season. He also didn’t step on the field in 2021, when he transferred to Marshall. In 2022, Faison jumped back down to the JuCo level before spending 2023 and 2024 with Utah State.
In theory, Faison should have been given a free roll on his 2020 season, due to eligibility being preserved for the COVID-19 season across the board. His 2021 season should have counted as a redshirt year, meaning that he should have eligibility through the 2025 season — which he’s hoping to spend at South Carolina, where he transferred.
Still, the NCAA is making Faison file a waiver for his eligibility, a ruling they have yet to finalize, despite courts already stating that JuCo eligibility has to be separated from NCAA eligibility, as the NCAA doesn’t have oversight over the JuCo level of the sport. That’s why Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who graduated from high school the same year as Faison, still has NCAA eligibility despite never having redshirted at all during his five years of college football.
Just the fact that Faison is willing to take his chances at transfer portal money to play at South Carolina, rather than moving to the professional level via the supplemental draft, goes to show you how limited a future supplemental draft player pool will be moving forward. Last year, Faison earned second-team All-Mountain West honors with Utah State and rushed for 1,109 yards on 198 carries (5.6 yards per carry).
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