NFL Draft kicks off
- The 2026 NFL Draft first round starts tonight, April 23, at 8 p.m. ET. (cbssports.com) - Consensus top name entering the night is Fernando Mendoza, widely framed as the projected No. 1 pick. (foxnews.com) - Trade chatter is heavy, with some mock drafts forecasting up to four Round‑1 trades that could reshuffle the board. (nfl.com)
The first round of the 2026 National Football League Draft opens Thursday night in Pittsburgh, with the first pick scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern. (nfl.com) Round 1 is set for April 23, Rounds 2 and 3 for April 24 at 7 p.m. Eastern, and Rounds 4 through 7 for April 25 at noon Eastern. The league is staging this year’s event around Acrisure Stadium and Point State Park. (nfl.com) Las Vegas holds the No. 1 pick, and the first-round order released by the league in February starts with the Raiders at No. 1 and runs through pick No. 32 on Thursday night. CBS Sports lists ESPN, ABC and NFL Network as the main television carriers for the opening round. (nfl.com) (cbssports.com) The player most often linked to that top slot is Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza. ESPN described Mendoza as the top quarterback in the class and the heavy favorite to go first overall to Las Vegas. (espn.com) Mendoza enters the draft after a season that ended with the Heisman Trophy and Indiana’s first national championship, then declared in February rather than return for another college season. ESPN reported that he is 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds and has held the No. 1 spot on multiple draft boards. (espn.com 1) (espn.com 2) The uncertainty starts after that first pick. NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah wrote Thursday that “there's uncertainty once we get beyond the first overall pick this year” and projected four first-round trades in his final mock draft. (nfl.com) Jeremiah’s projected deals include teams such as the Eagles and Saints moving up the board, and other NFL.com mock drafts this month also forecast four Round 1 trades. That points to a night where the order on paper may not match the order on the clock for long. (nfl.com 1) (nfl.com 2) (nfl.com 3) The draft is the league’s annual system for assigning college players to teams, with the worst records generally picking earliest and every selection carrying a fixed slot in the order. That gives quarterback-needy clubs at the top, including Las Vegas, the clearest path to reset a roster in one night. (nfl.com) (espn.com) By Thursday evening, the cleanest expectation is still Mendoza first and chaos after that. The clock starts in Pittsburgh at 8 p.m. Eastern, and the rest of the board may move as much by trade calls as by scouting grades. (nfl.com 1) (nfl.com 2)
