The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence. It was more successful than earlier rivals to the NFL with the same name, the 1926, 1936 and 1940 leagues, and the later All-America Football Conference.
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world. Each NFL season begins annually with a three-week preseason in August, followed by the 18-week regular season which runs from early September to early January, with each team playing 17 games and having one bye week. Following the conclusion of the regular season, seven teams from each conference advance to the playoffs, a single-elimination tournament that culminates in the Super Bowl, which is contested in February and is played between the winners of the AFC and NFC championship games.
The National Football League draft, also called the NFL draft or (officially) the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the most common source of player recruitment in the National Football League. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order relative to its record in the previous year, which means that the last place team is positioned first and the Super Bowl champion is last. From this position, the team can either select a player or trade its position to another team for other draft positions, a player or players, or any combination thereof. The round is complete when each team has either selected a player or traded its position in the draft. The first draft was held in 1936, and has been held every year since.
The American Football League draft, the American Football League stocked its teams in two ways:
- Signing free agents.
- Signing players from the previous year's college graduates.
The 1965 NFL draft was held at the Summit Hotel in New York City on Saturday, November 28, 1964. The first player selected was Tucker Frederickson, back from Auburn, by the New York Giants.
The 1970 NFL draft was the 35th National Football League Draft and the first of the league's modern era, following the merger of the National Football League with the American Football League. It was held on January 27–28, 1970, at the Belmont Plaza Hotel in New York City, New York.
Steven Cyril DeLong was an American football defensive lineman who played professionally in the American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL). He was a first round draft selection in both the AFL and NFL Drafts in 1965. He played collegiately for the University of Tennessee, and professionally for the San Diego Chargers and Chicago Bears. In 1969 with San Diego, he set a team record with 17 sacks, a mark which stood until Gary Johnson had 17+1⁄2 in 1980. He was traded from the Chargers to the Bears on July 26, 1972, for a fourth-round selection in the 1973 NFL Draft.
The 1962 NFL draft was held on December 4, 1961 at the Sheraton Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.
The 1963 NFL draft was held at the Sheraton in Chicago, Illinois, on Monday, December 3, 1962.
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football franchise based in the Washington metropolitan area. They are members of the East division in the National Football Conference (NFC) of the National Football League (NFL). The Commanders were founded in 1932 as the Boston Braves, named after the local baseball franchise. The franchise changed its name the following year to the Redskins and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1937. In 2020, the team retired the Redskins name after longstanding controversies surrounding it and briefly played as the Washington Football Team before becoming the Commanders in 2022.
The 1965 American Football League draft took place on November 28, 1964. Held via telephone conference call, it remained the only draft in major professional football history to be held without a central location until the 2020 NFL draft. The NFL draft was held the same day.
The 1961 NFL expansion draft was a National Football League (NFL) draft in which a new expansion team, named the Minnesota Vikings, selected its first players. That selection was provided by the expansion draft, held on January 26, 1961.
