Greg Parks breaks down the 2023 XFL Rookie Draft by the numbers (Stock image: pxfuel)
The XFL held its first Rookie Draft on Friday. The results can be found here. I’ve taken a look at all the players drafted and come up with some notable numbers related to the selections.
1: Specialists drafted
While two XFL special teams players have gone on to sign NFL contracts, only one of those spots was filled with a rookie draft pick. Defenders punter Daniel Whelan will spend the summer challenging incumbent Pat O’Donnell for that job in Green Bay. DC replaced him on the off-season roster by taking Tennessee’s Paxton Brooks. Brooks won’t just be a camp leg next January, however: He was the 5th rated punter in the 2023 NFL Draft by The Athletic’s Dane Brugler and he also attended the NFL Combine in February. A question I brought up in my mock draft article (uhh…feel free to scroll right down to the summary) was whether teams would draft for need based on losses to the NFL, other leagues, or retirement; or if they would just draft the best players available. DC has lost three receivers to the NFL as well as a punter, and they replenished those positions in those exact numbers.
1: Players drafted under contract to another league
One of the rules for this draft was to be eligible, you couldn’t be under contract to another football league. However, there are a lot of other football leagues to account for, and teams in those leagues are making transactions every day. It’s difficult to keep track of who is where especially when those leagues aren’t transparent about their moves in a timely manner. XFL News Hub’s Anthony Miller pointed out that one of Arlington’s selections, DB Jalen Green, had signed with a USFL team on Thursday, the day before the XFL Rookie Draft. Green’s name has subsequently been removed from the list of drafted players on XFL.com. As Miller pointed out in this tweet, it’s unclear if Arlington will be able to replace that selection in the coming days or if they’re stuck with the error.
It’s obvious that XFL Directors of Player Personnel were keeping an eye on the NFL transaction wire and grinding film up until the last possible moment though: CB Anthony Witherstone was released by the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday and drafted by the St. Louis Battlehawks on Friday.
1: Trades executed on draft day
It was a family affair on Friday when the Renegades and Sea Dragons consummated the first trade made with draft picks in the XFL since 2001. Arlington DPP Rick Mueller traded OT George Moore and a fifth-round pick (40th overall) to his brother, Seattle DPP Randy Mueller, for LB Tuzar Skipper and a sixth-round pick (46th overall). Moore began the year as a starting tackle for the Renegades but was relegated to backup duty after week seven. Despite ending the NFL season on the practice squad of the Denver Broncos, Moore turned out to be the lowest-graded Arlington offensive player per Pro Football Focus. Perhaps a change of scenery will help. There are jobs available at that position in Seattle with Barry Wesley now in the NFL and Colin Kelly moving back to the CFL. Skipper was on the opposite end of the spectrum: He was Seattle’s highest-graded defender, averaging just over 20 snaps per game as a reserve. He had six sacks and two tackles for loss.
2: Players selected that attended the NFL Combine
The NFL Combine is invite-only for what is supposed to be the cream of the crop of draftable prospects. It’s where players get measured, medically tested, and perform on the field in drills. The majority of those attending end up getting drafted or at worst, signed as undrafted free agents. It’s rare that NFL Combine attendees remain unsigned this deep into the summer. The XFL was able to nab two of them in P Paxton Brooks and WR CJ Johnson. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was the Defenders that drafted both. Johnson even had a sixth-round grade from The Athletic’s Brugler and was signed by the Seattle Seahawks as a free agent after the draft, only to be released earlier this month.
2: Quarterbacks taken in this draft
Because my mock draft bombed so spectacularly, I’m going to take a moment to toot my own horn: I answered a question on Twitter the morning of the draft about the potential for quarterbacks to be selected. My expectation was that only one or two would be drafted, and that Lindsey Scott, Jr. of Incarnate Word was one player to keep an eye on. In the end, two QBs were taken and Scott was one of them. He was chosen by the Houston Roughnecks, who already have a deep QB depth chart. Perhaps Houston knows something we don’t about a player not returning in 2024, or perhaps they just want to create competition at the position in training camp.
The other QB was Connor Degenhardt out of New Hampshire, drafted by the Arlington Renegades. Arlington found its starter at the position in Luis Perez, who guided the team to the XFL Championship. The backup job(s) is in flux, however, with Drew Plitt, Kelly Bryant, and Kevin Anderson already on the 90-man roster. Like Houston, it’s possible Arlington already knows they won’t be taking that entire trio to camp next year.
Elsewhere in my mock draft column, I noted that offensive line and defensive front seven (defensive line and linebackers) seemed to be the deepest positions. It appears that XFL DPPs agreed: In the positional breakdown of selections, offensive line led with 20, while linebackers had 15 and defensive line 13. Those were the top three positions drafted by quantity.
6: Unsigned USFL draftees selected
The USFL held its college draft in February, and they chose the same amount of players XFL teams drafted here. Because the USFL’s draft was held before the NFL Draft, most of its draftees would first try to make it in the NFL before deciding whether to move on to the USFL. Some worked out for NFL teams without signing, but then didn’t sign with the USFL team that drafted them, either. That made them eligible for the XFL’s Rookie Draft. Unless they end up hooking onto an NFL team, six players will need to decide between the two leagues in which they were drafted. The advantage for the XFL is that the USFL is in the midst of finishing its regular season; if a player chooses the USFL, they won’t begin play until next April. If they choose the XFL, they’ll be able to play earlier and not be out of action for so long.
17: Players drafted who originally signed with NFL teams as undrafted free agents
Chaos reigns during the final rounds of the NFL Draft. Teams are not only picking with the selections they have left, but they also begin to form their list of those who will go undrafted that are a priority for them. Agents are inundated with calls from teams who want to sign their undrafted players. By the end of the weekend, teams have a pretty good idea of who they’ll be signing. Those players are brought in for rookie minicamp in May, then organized team activities (OTAs) in June. During that time, teams continue to shuffle players on and off their rosters. Some players that are signed as UDFAs don’t last past minicamp. The XFL was able to pounce on those who initially signed but over the course of the last month and a half, have been bounced off NFL rosters.
27: All-star game attendees drafted by XFL teams
Going back to my mock draft column, I surmised that XFL teams would draft extensively from the list of unsigned players who attended postseason all-star games because the league had scouts at each of those games. As it turns out, almost 40% of the players drafted on Friday were a part of these games. Like the NFL Combine, all-star games are invitation-only events, meaning someone saw something in each one of these players enough to extend an offer to play in the game in front of scouts from a myriad of leagues.
At least 70: Drafted players that attended NFL rookie minicamps
I say “at least” because only 26 teams released their minicamp rosters. Those 10 players whose names did not appear on the roster of any of those 26 teams could’ve participated in the other five minicamps with teams that did not release their list of participants (the Los Angeles Rams were the only team that did not conduct a rookie minicamp). Of these 70, 19 attended more than one rookie minicamp as teams held them on different weekends, allowing players to try out for multiple teams. It’s no surprise so many came from NFL rookie minicamps: Those invited as tryout players would be the highest level of talent unsigned and available for XFL teams in the draft.
80: Total players drafted
The XFL allowed for each team to increase its off-season roster to 90 players, making room for the players who ended the 2023 season on the roster, as well as those on reserve lists, draftees from the Rookie Draft and those who will be taken in future drafts. Most teams likely have in the neighborhood of 60-70 players on their roster right now, counting those drafted on Friday. It’s important to note that the players selected in the XFL’s Rookie Draft are those who, if they make the team, will probably make up the last few spots on the roster. Teams are expected to return the majority of their 2023 rosters. They will pick up players cut by NFL teams at the end of training camp via a fall draft. There will be an additional draft later in the year and perhaps even another supplemental draft early in 2024. The players acquired at each of those stops, because of their NFL experience advantage, will have a leg-up on the rookies who were a part of this draft.
