Round 1 of the 2026 NFL Draft kicks off tonight in Pittsburgh at 8 p.m. ET, broadcast on ESPN, ABC, and NFL Network. The first pick is largely settled. Fernando Mendoza, the Indiana quarterback who won both the Heisman Trophy and the national championship last season, is expected to be the first player selected, heading to the Las Vegas Raiders.
Pittsburgh is hosting the draft for only the second time. The first was in 1948, when the event was held at the Fort Pitt Hotel in December 1947. This year, all 32 teams will make their first-round selections at a venue in the city, with picks expected to begin around 8:10 to 8:15 p.m. ET.
Mendoza arrives in the NFL carrying significant momentum. Beyond the hardware he collected in college, he's drawing comparisons to New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, who was the No. 3 overall pick in 2024 and already an All-Pro in just his second season. Maye was the runner-up for last season's MVP award and led the Patriots to three playoff wins before reaching Super Bowl LX.
The Athletic's Bruce Feldman went further than simple comparison. "There are some physical traits in terms of arm strength and ability to run, where Drake Maye may have a little more, but I feel much better about Fernando than I did about Drake — and I like Drake," Feldman wrote. The praise is notable given how quickly Maye has developed into one of the league's top quarterbacks.
Still, Las Vegas presents its own challenges. Mendoza may be walking into a tougher situation than Maye faced in New England, and the Raiders have not been a consistent winning organization in recent years.
After the top pick, the draft gets complicated fast. The New York Jets, holding the No. 2 selection, are torn between edge rushers Arvell Reese from Ohio State and David Bailey from Texas Tech, according to CBS Sports. The Arizona Cardinals, picking third, remain linked to multiple prospects and have not ruled out trading back. With six teams not owning a first-round pick at all in 2026, the board is expected to shift quickly once trading begins.
The NFL also shortened the clock for first-round picks this year to 10 minutes per selection, down from previous years, in an effort to speed up opening night. Later rounds carry even shorter windows: seven minutes in the second round, five minutes in rounds three through six, and four minutes in the seventh.
Rounds 2 and 3 follow on Friday at 7 p.m. ET. Rounds 4 through 7 wrap up Saturday at noon ET.
