The NFL has made its May draft date official.
The 2014 NFL Draft will take place May 8-10 at Radio City Music Hall in New York. For 2014, anyway, other key offseason dates are staying about where they usually land. The league also announced the annual scouting combine will take place Feb. 18-25 and the league year will start March 11.
The draft is expected to stay in May going forward, though the league has dropped hints that it moved back this year because Easter falls on what usually has been draft weekend and Radio City was booked. The idea of moving the start of the league year -- when every team must be under the salary cap and the player movement period begins -- up and moving the NFL Combine back to after the start of the league year is something that would need approval from the player's association.
In addition, dates for the 2014 Senior Bowl and scouting combine have already been booked. Nothing has been made official in regard to future drafts or calendar changes. The NFL manages to stay in the news about 360 days a year and moving the draft back, though it may seem strange at first, will help increase that number. The May 8-10 date will force most teams to alter their offseason schedules by just one week and shouldn't affect anything else on the football calendar.
