La'El Collins to the Cowboys

[pbmax]

The way PFT presented it, he never could've. They quoted the following rule

Bernie Kosar got around this by delaying his graduation until the summer before his senior year. So yeah, doesn't look like it has changed much.

[Guiness]

Bernie Kosar got around this by delaying his graduation until the summer before his senior year. So yeah, doesn't look like it has changed much.

How did he game that, and why did he want to be in the supplemental instead of the regular draft?

[Rastak]

How did he game that, and why did he want to be in the supplemental instead of the regular draft?

Thatw as a while ago and I don't recall the why.....the late graduation qualified him I guess. It's all spelled out.

[pbmax]

How did he game that, and why did he want to be in the supplemental instead of the regular draft?

He was graduating early. He needed only a set number of credits and he could schedule the last of them in the summer, I believe. There was much confusion. If you go back to look at mock drafts, Kosar to the Vikings was a popular choice. There was one put on the web just a few days ago, though not for Kosar related reasons. I also vaguely remember he might have been a red-shirt sophomore (three years of school plus possible early enrollment his senior year of high school) and that unusual status might have played into it.

Kosar graduated from college with a double major in Finance and economics. He took 18 credit hours during the spring of 1985, and an additional six during the summer in order to graduate early.[3]

Now the conspiracy theorists (many Vikings fans at the time and a few elsewhere) thought that he and his family received coaching from the Browns on how to arrange this. The theory in Cleveland was that he wanted to play for the home team. Possible he wanted to avoid the Vikings as well, but his true motivation was never reported as far as I know.

In the regular 1985 draft, the Browns traded for the Bills first round pick in 1986, which allowed them to use the Bills first overall pick in the 1985 supplemental draft. (If you use a supplemental pick, you lose that round pick in the next year's draft). Kosar had to declare for the draft AND he had to graduate from school to be eligible as a redshirt sophomore.

So he had a loophole but he also made an announcement before the deadline that he was going to forgo college and try to get drafted by the Browns. He then delayed sending in his paperwork past the April 15th deadline to become eligible for the draft. Everyone threatened to sue (somehow the Oilers got involved). I think Kosar held a trump card though. He could cancel or bomb the summer class and he would not be eligible according to the current NFL criteria. he was not officially declared eligible until he passed that class and graduated.

Due to the controversy, on April 12, commissioner Pete Rozelle extended the April 15 eligibility deadline for Kosar alone (who had not officially filed the paperwork for draft eligibility) and called a hearing that would take place on April 16. The four teams (Buffalo, Cleveland, Houston and Minnesota) involved in the two trades presented their case at the hearing.

On April 23, Rozelle announced that he would leave the decision up to Kosar, but permitted Minnesota to persuade Kosar to enter the regular draft with the condition that they could not negotiate a potential contract with him. This led to an April 25 news conference where Kosar announced that he wanted to go home to Ohio as a member of the Cleveland Browns and that he would forgo the regular NFL Draft and make himself eligible for the supplemental draft. On May 10, Kosar officially announced his intentions for the supplemental draft in a letter to the commissioner. On June 25, Kosar became officially eligible for the supplemental draft when he took his exam finals and the university notified the NFL front office that he had graduated. On July 3, 1985, the Browns selected Kosar and signed him to a five-year contract that same day.