The XFL’s partnership with Inside the League has allowed them to communicate directly with player agents via numerous Zoom sessions hosted by ITL founder Neil Stratton. Their latest was held on Wednesday night, as XFL Senior Vice President of Player Personnel Doug Whaley and Senior Director, Player Administration and Officiating Russ Giglio detailed the league’s offseason plans for player procurement including extensive discussion of the summer combines and upcoming drafts. The video conference is available for viewing on Youtube here. Below is some of the key information presented by Whaley and Giglio.
*Rookie Draft
The upcoming Rookie Draft, to be held on Friday, June 16, will take place in the late afternoon or early evening. Teams will draft the rights to 80 total players over 10 rounds. It will be an open draft; in other words, it will not be done in phases as last November’s draft was. There will also be no draft “pool” that players must opt into. Instead, all players eligible for the 2023 NFL Draft who are not under contract to another league at the time of this draft are eligible to be selected. Teams will draft players’ rights and those players will be added to the teams’ 90-man offseason roster. Players drafted here will likely be offered contracts sometime in August or September, perhaps in concert with a second draft expected to take place around that time. Any player added to XFL offseason rosters through drafts, even if contracts are signed, will have an NFL “out” up until December 26.
Because of their cooperative deal with the IFL, a question was asked about players in the IFL being eligible for the XFL Rookie Draft. Whaley said he had met with the IFL commissioner and needs to meet again with him on the topic, as he doesn’t want players in the IFL to get drafted by an XFL team and decide to stop playing in the IFL as their league approaches its playoffs. More concrete info will follow once details are hammered out, and will be presented to agents through Stratton and his Inside the League site.
*Other drafts
There will be at least one other draft in the fall intended to, in part, include players who were released at the end of NFL training camps but not signed to practice squads. This is also likely where players from the summer combines will be eligible to be drafted. The expectation is that will take place around September. It also seemed like there could be another draft after that as well, estimated to be in November. Whaley speculated that, based on retirements, players signing with the NFL, or deciding they no longer want to play in the XFL in 2024, each team will need to add about 25-35 in total via these drafts.
*Contracts
Contracts for the 2024 season are being delayed a bit. Whaley mentioned that the potential unionization of its players has complicated the process. In April, XFL players voted against unionizing with the United Steelworkers, the group representing USFL players. It seems they may be attempting to work with another union, perhaps the NFLPA as was suggested by former Brahmas K John Parker Romo when players voted against the USW deal. Whaley and Giglio expect the contracts to be similar in length to the ones offered this past year: A one-year deal through 2024 with a mutual club and player option for a second year in 2025.
*Offseason rosters
As previously reported by the league, teams will carry off-season rosters of up to 90 players. Per Whaley and Giglio, this will include those that ended the XFL season on reserve lists, such as injured reserve and reserve/did not report. For those drafted last year who decided not to play in the league, teams are expected to circle back to them to gauge their interest in playing this year. Players will be added through the various other drafts to reach the 90-man limit. Training camp rosters, however, are expected to be similar in size to last year, with 66-70 being the quoted range. Thus, players selected in the upcoming Rookie Draft are not necessarily guaranteed a training camp roster spot.
*Combines
The XFL’s regional combines (or “showcases”) will be hosted by American National Combines. Out of those combines, at least 100 players will be invited to the XFL Combine to be held in Arlington at the end of July. The goal is to invite 200 players to the XFL Combine; the rest of the roster will be filled out by players who did not attend the regional combines but were recommended by team Directors of Player Personnel. The regional combines are expected to have anywhere from 125-200 players in attendance at each event. Giglio said the league signed around 100 players who attended combines last year, and about 30 made XFL regular season rosters.
*NFL Alumni Academy
Whaley said he had not heard if the NFLAA will even take place this year when asked about the potential of continuing that partnership for the upcoming season.
