Mr. Irrelevant: The NFL Draft's Last Pick

Mr. Irrelevant is the nickname for the very last player chosen in the NFL Draft — the final selection of the seventh round, usually somewhere in the 250s or low 260s overall. Far from being ignored, that player is celebrated with a week-long tradition, and the most famous Mr. Irrelevant of all, Brock Purdy, went on to become a starting NFL quarterback.

The title captures one of the draft’s most charming contradictions: the pick that theoretically matters least gets its own party. Here is where the nickname came from, what Mr. Irrelevant actually receives, and why the label has become a badge of honour rather than an insult.

What Mr. Irrelevant means

The NFL Draft runs seven rounds, and with compensatory picks factored in it usually ends somewhere around the 256th to 262nd overall selection. Whoever hears their name called dead last becomes “Mr. Irrelevant.” The name is deliberately self-deprecating: by the time the final pick arrives, most fans have stopped watching, and the player is, in draft terms, an afterthought.

But the nickname is a joke with a warm heart. It exists precisely to give the least-hyped draftee a moment of recognition, and every year it reminds fans that draft slot and career outcome are two very different things.

Where the tradition came from

Mr. Irrelevant was created in 1976 by Paul Salata, a former wide receiver who had played in the NFL and college football. Salata felt the draft’s final pick deserved a spotlight rather than silence, so he founded “Irrelevant Week,” a celebration held in Newport Beach, California. For decades Salata himself announced the final selection, turning the moment into an annual tradition the league embraced.

The centrepiece is the Lowsman Trophy, a parody of college football’s Heisman. Where the Heisman shows a player striding with the ball tucked away, the Lowsman shows a player fumbling it — a perfect visual gag for the honour of being picked last.

Famous names down the years

The whole point of the nickname is that being last means little, and several Mr. Irrelevants have proved it.

Player	Year	Position	Claim to fame
Brock Purdy	2022	Quarterback	Became a starting NFL QB and playoff performer
Ryan Succop	2009	Kicker	Won Super Bowl LV with Tampa Bay
Marty Moore	1994	Linebacker	First Mr. Irrelevant to play in a Super Bowl

Purdy’s rise is the story that redefined the label. Picked 262nd and last in 2022 by the San Francisco 49ers, he was thrust into the lineup by injuries and seized the job, showing that a franchise quarterback can come from the very bottom of the board. His success is now the go-to example whenever anyone argues that draft position is overrated.

Why the label matters

Mr. Irrelevant is a reminder that the draft is an imperfect prediction, not a verdict. Teams spend enormous resources ranking players, yet the last pick has repeatedly outperformed dozens of players chosen ahead of him. That unpredictability is a big part of what makes the draft so compelling, and it feeds directly into how rosters are built and how far a team can go, as our guide to the NFL playoff format shows once the season begins.

It also underlines how much value can hide late in the draft. Some of the game’s biggest earners were not early picks, a theme our list of the highest-paid NFL players reflects, and the quarterback position in particular has produced late-round success stories, as our look at the most Super Bowl wins by a quarterback makes clear.

A nickname worth having

What began as a gentle joke has become one of the draft’s best traditions. Being Mr. Irrelevant means you made it — you were drafted into the NFL when hundreds of college players were not — and, as Purdy and others have shown, it can be the start of a remarkable career. If you enjoy testing your own knowledge of draft history and players, our roundup of free NFL player guessing games is a fun place to start.

The short version: Mr. Irrelevant is the last pick of the NFL Draft, a title created by Paul Salata in 1976 and celebrated with Irrelevant Week and the Lowsman Trophy. Brock Purdy, the final pick of 2022, is the most famous of them all, proving that being drafted last says nothing about how good a player can become.