2015 NFL Draft: Pick timing changes for seventh round and compensatory picks

The NFL Draft is an always-evolving event, and over the past several years it has changed greatly from its previous state. After decades of taking place over a Saturday and Sunday, it moved to Prime Time and a three-day event in 2010. This year, the venue moved from Radio City Music Hall in New York City to downtown Chicago.

The league has also tweaked the timing of the draft in past years, shortening the time each team had to make their selections. This year, they have made a few minor changes to the timing from the previous few years, as reported by Peter King of theMMQB.com. For the 2015 Draft, here are the amounts of time each team will have to make their picks in each round:

• First round: 10 minutes (no change)
• Second round: 7 minutes (no change)
• Third round through sixth round*: 5 minutes (no change)
• Seventh round: 4 minutes (changed from 5 minutes)
• * Compensatory picks in all rounds: 4 minutes (changed from 5 minutes)

Note that this is the first time that compensatory picks have been treated any differently than other picks in the same round. In this year's draft, that means that the first 32 picks in round three (65 through 96 overall) will each have five minutes, then the three compensatory selections at 97-99 (held by the Patriots, Chiefs, and Bengals) will get four minutes each. For round four, the clock will reset to five minutes again.

All that this really means is that the very end of the draft will wrap up slightly quicker than it has in years past. It's not a big change, though, especially because few teams used all five minutes in round seven anyway. Still, it is a change that likely will keep the action flowing a few seconds faster than before.

For the Packers, this affects three of their selections - the team's normal seventh-round pick (#247), and the two sixth-round compensatory picks (#210 and #213).