2018 NFL draft
The 2018 NFL draft was the 83rd annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible players for the 2018 NFL season. The draft was held on April 26–28 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; it was the first draft to take place in an NFL stadium and the first to be held in Texas.[3][4][5] In order to be eligible to enter the draft, players must be at least three years removed from high school. The deadline for underclassmen to declare for the draft was January 15, 2018.[6]
2018 NFL draft
Five quarterbacks were selected in the first round — Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, and Lamar Jackson — tied for the second highest number of first-round quarterback selections (along with the 1999 and 2021 drafts) after the six selected in 1983 and 2024.[7] As of 2023, only Allen and Jackson have remained with their original teams. The draft was also the first to have siblings — safety Terrell Edmunds and linebacker Tremaine Edmunds — selected in its first round.[8]
The 2018 NFL draft was the first of two professional sports drafts to be held in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex during the calendar year, as the Dallas Stars hosted the 2018 NHL Entry Draft in June.
Media coverage[edit]
Coverage of the draft was broadcast by ESPN and NFL Network, with Fox also simulcasting NFL Network's coverage of the first two rounds of broadcast television (serving as a prelude for Fox's acquisition of Thursday Night Football for the 2018 season). ESPN aired coverage of the last four rounds on ABC. College GameDay broadcast a special edition from outside AT&T Stadium as a pre-show on ESPN, and its panel hosted a secondary broadcast of the first round on ESPN2.[10] ESPN Deportes broadcast coverage in Spanish.[2][11]
Telecasts of the first round across all three broadcasters (which included the expansion of coverage to broadcast television) drew a combined Nielsen overnight household rating of 8.4, and total viewership of 11.214 million, making it the most-watched opening round since 2014. ESPN drew the largest single audience, with 5.336 million viewers, while Fox and NFL Network had a combined viewership of 5.74 million across both channels (3.776 and 2.005 million individually).[12][13]