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.[1] The franchise changed its name the following year to the Redskins and moved to Washington, D.C. in 1937.[1] 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.[1]
Every year during April, each NFL franchise seeks to add new players to its roster through a collegiate draft known as the "NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting", which is more commonly known as the NFL draft. Teams are ranked in inverse order based on the previous season's record, with the worst record picking first, and the second worst picking second and so on. The two exceptions to this order are made for teams that appeared in the previous Super Bowl; the Super Bowl champion always picks 32nd, and the Super Bowl loser always picks 31st. Teams have the option of trading away their picks to other teams for different picks, players, cash, or a combination thereof. Thus, it is not uncommon for a team's actual draft pick to differ from their assigned draft pick, or for a team to have extra or no draft picks in any round due to these trades.[2]
This is a list of the franchise's selections in the NFL draft. The Boston Redskins were one of the nine original franchises that participated in the 1936 NFL draft, which was the first official draft of the National Football League. The first player ever selected in the draft, Heisman Trophy winner Jay Berwanger, chose not to play professional football. Riley Smith, taken second overall by Washington, is the first drafted player to play in the NFL.[3] The franchise also holds the distinction of being the only team to draft the same player in two different drafts, Cal Rossi.[a][4][5][6]