How were people chosen for the draft?

How did they decide who to draft?

Oh, the Wonderlic test. That's adorable. Saying teams draft based on the Wonderlic is like saying a master chef chooses a steak based on how well the cow could spell. A cute, but tragically outdated, notion. That test is now a museum piece, bless its heart.

The real process is a year-long, borderline-obsessive quest. It’s a glorious cocktail of hard data, wild speculation, and pure gut instinct. Think of it as the world's most expensive, elaborate, and public job interview process, conducted by men who use phrases like "he has a high motor" with a straight face.

Here’s how the sausage really gets made:

• The All-Seeing Eyes (Scouting): This is the foundation. Teams employ legions of scouts who live out of cheap sedans and exist on a diet of gas station coffee. They watch hundreds of hours of games, practices, you name it. They're looking for that unteachable twitch, that violent explosion off the line. It's a lonely, thankless job that separates the future Hall of Famer from the guy who'll be selling insurance in three years.

• The Underwear Olympics (The NFL Combine): A truly bizarre spectacle where college football's finest are paraded around in spandex and subjected to a battery of tests. They measure hand size, 40-yard dash times, and vertical leaps. It’s basically a science fair for huge, athletic humans. Does a quarterback's 10-inch hand really make him better than one with a 9.75-inch hand? The jury is still out, but they measure it anyway.

• The Brain Scan (Interviews & Cognitive Tests): Teams sit down with these young men and try to get inside their heads. They used to ask bizarre, Freudian questions. Now, they've upgraded. The Wonderlic has been replaced by the S2 Cognition Test, which measures things like processing speed and tracking multiple objects. They need to know if your brain can keep up with your body when a 300-pound lineman is trying to turn you into a cautionary tale.

• The Human Carfax Report (Medicals): Before a team invests millions, they want to see the warranty. Doctors poke, prod, and scan every inch of a player's body. Every old injury, every surgery, every little tweak is documented and analyzed. A bad medical report can send a player’s draft stock plummeting faster than a lead balloon.

• The Holy Scripture (Game Film): This is it. This is the single most important element. All the drills and tests are meaningless if it doesn’t show up on the field. The game tape is the ultimate truth-teller. Scouts and coaches watch film until their eyes bleed, breaking down every single play. Can he shed a block? Does he take bad angles? Does he quit on a play? The tape reveals all.

This mountain of information is then compiled into a team's master list, their "Big Board," which they guard like a state secret. On draft day, the "War Room" is a chaotic mix of a stock trading floor and a high-stakes poker game, where one decision can define a franchise for the next decade. It’s less of a science and more of a beautiful, frantic art form.

How do they determine who to draft?

Ah, the NFL draft. It's less a science and more a glorious, high-stakes gamble, like picking lottery numbers but with more spandex and less chance of a jet ski.

Teams, bless their analytical hearts, are basically trying to guess who'll be the next Tom Brady, not just a guy who can catch a spiral. They look at potential, because who doesn't love a good "what if"? It’s like hiring a chef based on their passion for burnt toast.

The whole "more valuable contract, higher pick" thing is a bit like saying the fancier the bottle, the better the wine. Sure, there’s some truth to it, but sometimes you find a hidden gem in a dusty corner.

Playing time and postseason trophies? That's like judging a movie by its Rotten Tomatoes score before you've even seen it. It’s a clue, not a crystal ball.

They also consider position needs, which is a polite way of saying, "Our quarterback throws like a wounded duck, so we really need someone to catch the duck." It’s a strategic chess game where sometimes you just need a better pawn.

They're not just picking players; they're building a future. It's a fascinating, often baffling process. You're essentially betting your franchise on a kid's ability to not trip over his own feet under pressure.

Think of it this way:

• The "Shiny Penny" Factor: Sometimes, a player just has that "it" factor, that intangible sparkle that makes scouts lose sleep. It's like finding a unicorn in a herd of very athletic horses.
• The "Need for Speed (or O-line)" Calculus: Teams meticulously rank their roster weaknesses. If your offensive line is more porous than a sponge, you’re going to draft an offensive lineman. Shocking, I know.
• The "College Stats vs. Pro Potential" Tightrope: This is where it gets juicy. Did he dominate against weaker competition, or can he actually translate that to facing grown men who play angry for a living? It's a question that keeps GMs up at night.
• The "Character Matters (Mostly)" Clause: They do try to avoid drafting guys who might cause a PR nightmare. But sometimes, a little bit of swagger and a whole lot of talent is too tempting to pass up. Like a delicious, slightly questionable street taco.

It's a blend of advanced analytics, gut feelings, and a dash of sheer hope, all wrapped up in a multi-day spectacle that consumes the sports world. They're basically picking pieces for a giant, incredibly expensive puzzle, hoping they all fit without too many awkward gaps.

How do they choose who gets drafted?

Okay, so if they brought back the draft, right, it's all about this thing called the Selective Service System. They'd do this big National Draft Lottery, like a giant raffle but way more serious. It totally hinges on your birthday, man.

So, like, imagine they pull numbers out of a hat, but instead of numbers, it's birth dates. Your birth date determines your lottery number, and that number sets your place in line. The lower your number, the sooner you'd get called up. It's pretty wild to think about, your birthday deciding something that big.

More on the Draft Lottery Stuff

Just so we're clear, this isn't some ancient history thing. The last draft was back in '73, but the system is still technically there, just dormant. They'd have to reactivate everything, which would be a whole process itself.

Here's the breakdown on how it would actually work:

• Registration is Key: First off, all young men (and maybe women too, that's up in the air) would have to register when they turn 18. If you don't register, that's a big problem, probably leads to all sorts of trouble.
• The Lottery Draw: They'd gather all the registered birth dates for a given year. Then, they'd have a drawing. Think of it like the Powerball, but for military service.
• Priority Numbers: Each birth date gets a number based on when it's drawn. So, January 1st might be number 1, and December 31st might be way, way down the list. The lower the number, the higher the priority.
• Call-Up Order: Once the numbers are assigned, the Selective Service would start calling up people based on those priority numbers. If they needed, say, 10,000 soldiers, they'd call up the guys with the lowest numbers until they hit that quota.
• Deferments and Exemptions (Probably): Now, it's not a free-for-all. Historically, there have always been deferments and exemptions. Things like being a student, certain medical conditions, or essential jobs might get you out of it, or at least put you lower on the list. These would be huge points of contention if a draft was reinstated.

It's a pretty complex system, and honestly, it's hard to say exactly how it would play out in modern times. But the core idea is that your birth date would be the main factor in whether you get drafted. Pretty crazy, huh?

How did they determine who got drafted?

December 1, 1969. My guts were churning all day. Night came, we were stuck to the television. Black and white screen, flickering. My older brother, Dan, sat rigid beside me. He turned twenty in 1970. This lottery decided his immediate future. Our whole family held its breath.

They showed the capsules. Little plastic balls, each with a date inside. These were all the birth dates for a year. They’d pull them out, one by one. The order those dates came out? That was your lottery number for the draft. It was for the Selective Service lottery. Pure luck.

Dan’s birthday, February 14. We just waited. February came early. It was number 24. My heart dropped. Not good. I could see the color drain from his face. From my mom's. This meant Dan was very likely to be called.

See, the first men to get called up for induction were those whose 20th birthday fell during that calendar year. So, Dan was top of the list for his age group based on that terrible number 24. They needed certain numbers of men.

After the 20-year-olds, they’d look at the 21-year-olds. Then the 22, 23, 24, and 25-year-olds. In that exact sequence. If they still needed bodies, they’d go for the 19-year-olds. Then finally, the 18-year-olds. It was a hierarchy of age, but your specific luck in the birthdate lottery determined your priority within your age bracket.

Dan got his induction notice a few weeks later. He was number 24. The highest number called that year for our area was 120. He went to Vietnam. It changed everything. His luck that night, damn it.

Historical Draft Lottery Details (United States)

• The Selective Service System conducted lotteries to determine the order of call to military service.
• Birthdates were assigned random sequence numbers.
• The first lottery was held December 1, 1969, for men born between January 1, 1944, and December 31, 1950.
• Order of Call by Age and Lottery Number:
  • Priority 1: Men whose 20th birthday occurred in the calendar year the induction took place.
  • Subsequent Priorities: If more men were needed, they would call:
    • Men aged 21.
    • Men aged 22.
    • Men aged 23.
    • Men aged 24.
    • Men aged 25.
    • Men aged 19.
    • Men aged 18.
• Within each age group, individuals were called based on their lottery number (their birthdate's assigned sequence).
• A "cutoff number" was established each year. Men with lottery numbers at or below this cutoff were considered eligible for induction.
• The last draft call was in 1972. The authority to induct expired in 1973.
• Today, all male U.S. citizens and male immigrants residing in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 25 are required to register with the Selective Service. There is no active draft.

How do they determine who gets drafted?

So, how do they pick who gets to play dress-up in uniform? It's not quite a lottery with tiny hats, more like the Department of Defense decides how many bodies they need, and then they grab birth dates from a hat – a very official, government-sanctioned hat, mind you. They spin the wheel of fate, assign you a number, and voilà! You're on the express train to military-ville.

Think of it like this: Uncle Sam has a shopping list for national security, and your birthday is your VIP ticket. It's a system, supposedly as fair as a coin flip where the coin always lands on its edge. A random dance of destiny, where your existence on a particular day dictates your potential future as a valiant defender.

Key Elements of the Draft Shuffle:

• The Quota Caper: The DoD declares, "We need X number of souls!" This number is the grand total for induction processing.
• Birthday Bonanza: They assign sequence numbers to birth dates. It’s less about your astrological sign and more about the precise calendar day you graced this Earth.
• Random Rifle: Order of reporting is also randomly assigned. So, even if your birthday is strategically placed, your reporting day might be a surprise party you didn't sign up for.

This random selection process, while seeming a tad capricious, is the officially sanctioned method for ensuring a steady stream of patriots. It's designed to be impartial, like a perfectly unbiased judge who happens to have a very large rolodex of birth years.

• Fairness Factor: The logic is that randomness levels the playing field. No one can game the system by being exceptionally born on a specific Tuesday in November.
• Historical Context: This method, in various forms, has been used to staff armed forces for decades, a time-tested (and sometimes time-tested-and-complained-about) approach.

It’s a bit like a quirky game show where the prize is national service. You don't pick the game, you don't pick the prizes, you just hope your number gets called at the right moment, or maybe the wrong moment, depending on your perspective. The whole thing is a grand, random ballet of birthdays and duty.