NFL Draft Kicks Off

The 2026 National Football League draft opened Thursday night in Pittsburgh, with Round 1 starting at 8 p.m. Eastern on April 23. (nfl.com) The draft runs April 23-25, and the league scheduled live coverage on NFL Network, NFL+, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes for the first round. (nfl.com) Kansas City entered the night holding the No. 9 overall pick and the No. 29 pick in Round 1, according to the Chiefs’ draft tracker. (chiefs.com) That No. 9 slot stands out for a Chiefs team that has spent most recent drafts picking near the back of the first round after deep playoff runs. Kansas City also brought nine total picks into the weekend. (chiefs.com) Round 1 arrived with less certainty than many recent drafts. NFL Media analyst Daniel Jeremiah projected four trades in his final mock draft and wrote that the board becomes harder to read after the first overall pick. (nfl.com) Quarterback is one of the biggest questions. Jeremiah’s final first-round projection had only Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza going in Round 1, while another recent NFL.com mock sent two quarterbacks into the top 16. (nfl.com, nfl.com) The official round-by-round order listed 257 picks across seven rounds before the draft began, with Kansas City also scheduled at No. 40 overall in Round 2 and No. 74 overall in Round 3. (nfl.com, media.nfl.com) Pittsburgh is hosting the event through Saturday, with the league’s free Draft Experience open to fans and the Draft Theater reserved for invited ticket holders. (support.nfl.com) By the end of Thursday night, the questions around Kansas City’s early pick, the trade market and Mendoza’s place in the quarterback class were set to have real answers instead of mock-draft guesses. (chiefs.com, nfl.com)