Editing NFL draft (section)

===Early drafts (1937–1946)===
[[Art Rooney]], owner of the [[Pittsburgh Steelers]], chose [[Byron White|Byron "Whizzer" White]] in the first round of the [[1938 NFL draft|1938 draft]] despite White's known public declaration that he would not play professional football and would instead begin work on his [[Rhodes scholarship]]. White did, however, agree to play for the [[1938 NFL season|1938 season]] after Rooney publicly gave him a guaranteed contract of $15,000, double what any other player had ever made in the NFL.<ref name="RUCK, pp. 138-140.">Ruck; Patterson and Weber, 2010, pp. 138–140.</ref> The size of the dollar amount brought condemnation from other owners because it altered the pay expectations of college draftees.<ref name="RUCK, pp. 143, 148.">Ruck; Patterson and Weber, 2010, pp. 143, 148.</ref> For the [[1939 NFL draft|1939 draft]] Wellington, for the first time, was put in charge of drafting players for the Giants. He submitted the list of players into the pool that the Giants—or other franchises—could choose players from. However, in the first round he selected a player, [[Walt Nielsen]], not on the list of players that the Giants or any other franchise had submitted. With a grin Wellington stated, "I didn't think I said I put every name on that list."<ref name="Devito, 2006, pp. 95-96.">Devito, 2006, pp. 95–96.</ref>

In 1939, [[Kenny Washington (American football)|Kenny Washington]] was, to no small extent, viewed as one of the greatest college football players of all time. After information was made available to at least one owner of a franchise that Washington was [[African-American]], he was not drafted by any team for the [[1940 NFL draft]].<ref name="Pervin, 2009, p. 16.">Pervin writes that "Some NFL owners, including Tim Mara, were encouraged to draft Washington but none chose to break the racial barrier." Pervin, 2009, p. 16.</ref>

The draft would be eventually codified into the ''NFL Constitution'',<ref name="NFL Constitution">{{citation | contribution = Organized Professional Team Sports, Part 3 | title = Hearings Before the Antitrust Subcommittee (Subcommittee No. 5) of the Committee on the Judiciary | publisher = United States Government Printing Office | place = Washington | pages = 2580a–2580at | year = 1957|url = https://web.lexis-nexis.com/congcomp/getdoc?HEARING-ID=HRG-1957-HJH-0012 | access-date =October 9, 2011 |url-access=subscription}}. Password protected except at participating U.S. Library.</ref> although no information is available on when that originally occurred.

[[Bill Dudley|"Bullet Bill" Dudley]] was the first overall pick in the [[1942 NFL draft|1942 draft]] and he would eventually become the first player picked first overall in the draft to enter the [[Pro Football Hall of Fame]].<ref name="All Time #1">{{cite web |url=http://www.nfl.com/draft/history/alltimeno1 |title=1936: All Time #1|website=[[NFL.com]]|access-date=October 10, 2011}}</ref>