The makeup of rookies on NFL rosters is looking a little bit different this season.
As of Friday, Sept. 4, 45 of the 259 rookies on the league’s active rosters went undrafted this season. That accounts for roughly 17.4% of all rookies.
If that percentage holds for Week 1, it would be the lowest share of undrafted rookies in the past decade except for the pandemic-affected seasons of 2020 and 2021.
Those two years had undrafted shares of 15.5% and 13.1%. The other years since 2017 have all had at least one-fifth of the rookie field represented by undrafted players, with the high being 24.5% in 2024.
But this year, teams are leaning towards drafted rookies, and none more so than the Miami Dolphins, who have a league-high 12 drafted rookies on their
roster.
The Dolphins have a total of 13 rostered rookies as of Sept. 4. That includes two first-round picks, offensive lineman Kadyn Proctor out of Alabama and cornerback Chris Johnson out of San Diego State.
Miami’s large rookie roster isn’t surprising – the team made 13 picks in the draft, which was most in the league and second-most in team history since 1994.
The Dolphin’s total crop of rookies edges Kansas City, which has 12 total rookies as of Sept. 4. However, the Chiefs’ makeup looks slightly different from the Dolphins – with five undrafted rookies, Andy Reid’s squad features the biggest undrafted contingent in the NFL.
Meanwhile, on the other side of things, the three teams with the fewest rookies all made it to at least their conference championship game last season.
That includes the Los Angeles Rams, who are listed as the favorites to win the Super Bowl this season. The Rams have four total rookies, including potential Matthew Stafford heir Ty Simpson out of Alabama.
Just one of Los Angeles’ quartet went undrafted: linebacker Wesley Bailey out of Louisville, who made the 53-man roster "after a strong finish to the preseason" per Rams’ writer Stu Jackson.
The team that beat the Rams in last season’s NFC Championship Game, the Seattle Seahawks, are one of the other teams with four rookies.
The Seahawks rookies include running back Jadarian Price, who they picked in the first round out of Notre Dame. Their lone undrafted player is cornerback Avery Smith, who played the preseason for the Los Angeles Chargers.
The third and final team with four rookies is the Denver Broncos, who made the AFC title game but lost to the New England Patriots.
All four of the Broncos rookies were drafted including tight end Dallen Bentley, who was the second-to-last player picked. Denver also has linebacker Red Murdock, who was the final pick of the draft for this year’s Mr. Irrelevant, but he’s signed to the practice squad and not the 53-man roster.
Interestingly, the other team to make last season’s final four – the Patriots – fell on the other end of the spectrum with 11 rookies on their active roster.
Here’s the full rookie breakdown by team as of Sept. 4:
Can’t see the data table? View here.
Methodology: USA TODAY downloaded each team’s NFL.com roster as of Sept. 4. Players were counted as rookies when NFL.com listed their status as active and experience as rookie. Rookie draft status was cross-referenced with the 2026 NFL Draft data from nflverse, which sources its draft-pick data from Pro-Football-Reference.com.
For the 2017-25 historical comparison, USA TODAY analyzed nflverse’s weekly roster data, which is derived from the NFL Shield API. For each season, the analysis used Week 1 regular-season rosters, counted players listed as active or inactive with zero years of NFL experience, and cross-referenced those players with that season’s draft class. The 2026 figure is a Sept. 1 snapshot and therefore is not yet a Week 1 observation.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NFL’s undrafted-rookie share tracking toward non-pandemic decade low
