The 2010 NFL Draft was the 75th annual meeting of National Football League

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

 (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible football players. Unlike previous years, the 2010 draft

NFL Draft

The National Football League Draft is an annual event in which the National Football League teams select eligible college football players and it is their most common source of player recruitment. The basic design of the draft is each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order...

 took place over three days, at Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, with the first round on Thursday, April 22, 2010, at 7:30 pm EDT

Eastern Time Zone

The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...

. The second and third rounds took place on Friday, April 23 starting at 6:00 pm EDT, while the final four rounds were held on Saturday, April 24, starting at 10:00 am EDT. Coverage was provided by both NFL Network

NFL Network

NFL Network is an American television specialty channel owned and operated by the National Football League . It was launched November 4, 2003, only eight months after the league's 32 team owners voted unanimously to approve its formation...

 and ESPN

ESPN

Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

. The St. Louis Rams

St. Louis Rams

The St. Louis Rams are a professional American football team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are currently members of the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Rams have won three NFL Championships .The Rams began playing in 1936 in Cleveland,...

, as the team with the worst record during the 2009 season

2009 NFL season

The 2009 NFL season was the 90th regular season of the National Football League.The preseason started with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on August 9, 2009, and the regular season began September 10. The season ended with Super Bowl XLIV, the league's championship game, on February 7, 2010 at...

, selected quarterback Sam Bradford

Sam Bradford

Samuel Jacob "Sam" Bradford is an American football quarterback for the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League. He was the first overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft, and played college football at Oklahoma. In 2008, as a redshirt sophomore, Bradford became the second sophomore to win a...

 with the first pick. Three of the top four picks were members of the Oklahoma Sooners football

Oklahoma Sooners football

The Oklahoma Sooners football program is a college football team that represents the University of Oklahoma . The team is currently a member of the Big 12 Conference, which is a Division I Bowl Subdivision of the National Collegiate Athletic Association...

 team, and five of the top six were from the Big 12 Conference

Big 12 Conference

The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of ten schools located in the Central United States, with its headquarters located in Las Colinas, a community in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving...

. The prime time broadcast of the first round was watched by 7.29 million viewers making it the most viewed first round ever and making ESPN the second most watched network of the night.
Of the 255 players drafted 216 (or 84%) were among the 327 players who participated in the 2010 NFL Scouting Combine. This matches the average percentage of combine participants among draftees over the past ten years. An additional 39 players who did not attend the combine were selected.

There was wide speculation that the 2010 NFL Draft would have a very large number of early entrants because of a possible rookie pay scale to be imposed starting with the 2011 NFL Draft

2011 NFL Draft

The 2011 NFL Draft was the 76th installment of the annual NFL Draft, where the franchises of the National Football League select newly eligible football players...

. Eligible underclassmen projected as top NFL prospects risked losing millions of contractually-guaranteed dollars if they did not declare for the draft the year before a new CBA could be reached. The early entry deadline was January 15. After the early entry deadline had passed, it was confirmed that the 2010 NFL Draft would have fifty-three non-seniors, tying a draft record for the most non-seniors ever.

The draft's first round, in which teams were allowed ten minutes to make each selection, consumed three hours and 28 minutes. The second round (with a maximum of seven minutes per selection) lasted two hours and 25 minutes. After the second round, teams were allotted five minutes per pick. The third round took one hour and 41 minutes. Rounds 4 through 7 each lasted less than two hours.

The following is the breakdown of the 255 players selected by position

American football positions

In American football, each team has eleven players on the field at one time. Because the rules allow unlimited substitution between plays, the types of players on the field for each team differ depending on the situation...

:

33 Cornerback Cornerback A cornerback is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in American and Canadian football. Cornerbacks cover receivers, to defend against pass offenses and make tackles. Other members of the defensive backfield include the safeties and occasionally linebackers. The cornerback position... s 30 Defensive end Defensive end Defensive end is the name of a defensive position in the sport of American and Canadian football.This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formations have substantially changed how the position is played over the years... s 29 Linebacker Linebacker A linebacker is a position in American football that was invented by football coach Fielding H. Yost of the University of Michigan. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up approximately three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage, behind the defensive linemen... s 27 Wide receiver Wide receiver A wide receiver is an offensive position in American and Canadian football, and is the key player in most of the passing plays. Only players in the backfield or the ends on the line are eligible to catch a forward pass. The two players who begin play at the ends of the offensive line are eligible... s 25 Defensive tackles

23 Offensive tackles 20 Tight end Tight end The tight end is a position in American football on the offense. The tight end is often seen as a hybrid position with the characteristics and roles of both an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Like offensive linemen, they are usually lined up on the offensive line and are large enough to be... s 19 Safeties 14 Quarterback Quarterback Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line... s 13 Running back Running back A running back is a gridiron football position, who is typically lined up in the offensive backfield. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback for a rushing play, to catch passes from out of the backfield, and to block.There are usually one or two running... s

9 Offensive guards Guard (American football) In American and Canadian football, a guard is a player that lines up between the center and the tackles on the offensive line of a football team.... 6 Centers Center (American football) Center is a position in American football and Canadian football . The center is the innermost lineman of the offensive line on a football team's offense... 3 Punters 2 Fullbacks Fullback (American football) A fullback is a position in the offensive backfield in American and Canadian football, and is one of the two running back positions along with the halfback... 2 Kick returners

Changes in draft order

At the 2009 annual owners meeting, NFL owners unanimously approved changes to the order for assigning draft picks, starting with the 2010 draft.

The new format took into account the seeding of playoff teams

NFL playoffs

The National Football League playoffs are a single-elimination tournament held at the end of the regular season to determine the NFL champion. Six teams from each of the league's two conferences qualify for the playoffs based on regular season records, and a tie-breaking procedure exists in the...

. The two major changes from previous years were:

• Teams that make the playoffs pick after teams that do not.
• Teams that advance further in the playoffs pick later. In 2008, the Chargers, who went 8–8 in the regular season, defeated the 12–4 Indianapolis Colts
  Indianapolis Colts
  The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. They are currently members of the South Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League ....
  
   in the AFC Wild Card game, but, nevertheless, the Chargers picked 16th while the Colts were assigned the 27th overall pick according to the rules then in effect, which prioritized regular season record for all teams except those in the Super Bowl.

The new order assigns picks for each round as indicated in the table below. With the exception of the changes noted above, the order will generally follow that used in previous years (i.e., within a given status, teams with worse regular-season records will pick earlier in the first round, and picks will cycle from round to round among teams that are tied).

Three coin tosses were necessary to establish the final selection order: Jacksonville, Tennessee, and Atlanta won their flips over Denver, Carolina, and Houston, respectively.

Status	Draft picks
Non-playoff teams	1–20
Eliminated in Wild Card round	21–24
Eliminated in Divisional round	25–28
Eliminated in Conference Championships	29–30
Super Bowl losing team	31
Super Bowl champion	32

Player selections

* = compensatory selection ^ = supplemental compensatory selection † = Pro Bowl Pro Bowl In professional American football, the Pro Bowl is the all-star game of the National Football League . Since the merger with the rival American Football League in 1970, it has been officially called the AFC–NFC Pro Bowl, matching the top players in the American Football Conference against those... er

Trade explanations

In the explanations below, (D) denotes trades that took place during the draft, while (PD) indicates trades completed pre-draft.

Supplemental draft selections

Two players were selected in the 2010 Supplemental Draft.

Notable undrafted players

Selections by college conference

Selection totals by college conference:

Rank	Conference	Players selected	Division
1	Southeastern Conference Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...	49	I FBS
2	Big Ten Conference Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conference. Its twelve member institutions are located primarily in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Nebraska in the west to Pennsylvania in the east...	34	I FBS
3	Atlantic Coast Conference Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic league in the United States. Founded in 1953 in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC sanctions competition in twenty-five sports in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association for its twelve member universities...	31	I FBS
4	Big 12 Conference Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference of ten schools located in the Central United States, with its headquarters located in Las Colinas, a community in the Dallas, Texas suburb of Irving...	30	I FBS
5	Pac-10 Conference	28	I FBS
6	Big East Conference Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletics conference consisting of sixteen universities in the eastern half of the United States. The conference's 17 members participate in 24 NCAA sports...	18	I FBS
7	Mountain West Conference Mountain West Conference The Mountain West Conference , popularly known as the Mountain West, is the youngest of the college athletic conferences affiliated with the NCAA’s Division I FBS . The MWC officially began operations in July 1999...	13	I FBS
8	Conference USA Conference USA Conference USA, officially abbreviated C-USA, is a college athletic conference whose member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports...	7	I FBS
8	Sun Belt Conference Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference is a college athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , the higher of two levels of Division I football competition . The Sun Belt has member institutions...	7	I FBS
10	Mid-American Conference Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference is a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I college athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twelve full member schools are in Ohio and Michigan, with single members...	5	I FBS
10	Western Athletic Conference Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference is an American collegiate athletic conference, which was formed on July 27, 1962, making it the sixth oldest of the 11 college athletic conferences currently participating in the NCAA's Division I FBS...	5	I FBS
10	Colonial Athletic Association Colonial Athletic Association The Colonial Athletic Association is a NCAA Division I college athletic conference whose full-time members are located in East Coast states from Massachusetts to Georgia. Most of its members are public universities, with five in Virginia alone, and the conference is headquartered in Richmond,...	5	I FCS
13	Independent	4	I FBS
14	Big Sky Conference Big Sky Conference The Big Sky Conference is an intercollegiate college athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I, with football competing in the Football Championship Subdivision. The BSC was founded in 1963. Member institutions are located in the western United States in the states of Arizona,...	3	I FCS
14	Missouri Valley Conference Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference is a college athletic conference whose members are located in the midwestern United States...	3	I FCS
16	Ohio Valley Conference Ohio Valley Conference The Ohio Valley Conference is a college athletic conference which operates in the midwestern and southeastern United States. It participates in Division I of the NCAA; the conference's football programs compete in the Football Championship Subdivision , the lower of two levels of Division I...	2	I FCS
16	Southern Conference Southern Conference The Southern Conference is a Division I college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision . Member institutions are located in the states of Alabama, Georgia, North...	2	I FCS
16	Lone Star Conference Lone Star Conference The Lone Star Conference is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II. Member institutions are located in the southwestern United States, with schools in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico...	2	II
19	Ivy League Ivy League The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...	1	I FCS
19	Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference is a collegiate athletic conference of historically black colleges and universities in the Southeastern United States...	1	I FCS
19	Patriot League Patriot League The Patriot League is a college athletic conference which operates in the northeastern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I) for a number of sports; in football, it participates in the Football Championship Subdivision...	1	I FCS
19	Southland Conference Southland Conference The Southland Conference is a college athletic conference which operates in the south central United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it participates in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision...	1	I FCS
19	Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference The Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is a competitive intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division II. The GLIAC was founded in June 1972. Member institutions are located in the midwestern United States in the States of Michigan and Ohio, with affiliate...	1	II
19	Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference is a college athletic conference that participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II. The conference is composed of 16 full-time members within Pennsylvania and one associate member in New York...	1	II
19	Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is a College athletic conference consisting of historically black colleges and universities located in the southern United States. Formed in 1913, the SIAC is a member of the NCAA and participates in Division II athletics...	1	II

See also

• List of first overall National Football League draft picks
• Mr. Irrelevant
  Mr. Irrelevant
  "Mr. Irrelevant" is the title bestowed each year upon the last pick of the annual National Football League draft.- Irrelevant Week :The name arose in 1976, when former Southern California and NFL receiver Paul Salata founded "Irrelevant Week" in Newport Beach, California. He announced the final...
  
  – the list of last overall National Football League draft picks