[JoeRedskin]

I am not sure if my original question was clear:

Before playing in the NFL, must a player be subjected to a draft so that every team, in its turn, has the opportunity to reserve your playing rights to themselves? And, if so, does this mean that, unless and until you are eligible to be drafted, you cannot play in the NFL?

I think that the answer to my questions are yes and yes. With the result that players not eligible for the draft cannot play in the NFL.

If this is true, then from a purely legal standpoint, my gut feeling is that you can't draft ineligible players or, if you do, you just waste your pick and have nothing:

1. The draft only reserves to teams the exlcusive negotiating rights to a player.
2. Players ineligible for the draft cannot play in the NFL and, thus, have no right to negotiate a contract with any team.
3. As such, teams drafting such a player gain nothing because the player has no negotiating rights to exclusively reserve.

For example: As to Henson, he was eligible for the draft under the CBA last year but not the year before (which is when he left college to play baseball). Although last year eligible, he chose to forego football for a year and continue playing baseball; essentially, sitting out of football for a year. After drafting him last year in his first year of eligibility, Houston would have lost their rights to him if they had not signed him by tomorrow's draft. Instead of signing him, they traded their exclusive negotiating rights to the cowboys. If the cowboys had not signed him by tomorrow's draft then they would have lost their rights to him and anyone could have drafted him.

Similarly, I think if someone drafts Clarrett in tomorrow's draft they have nothing because, until and unless the Supreme Court reverses the Circuit Court (an outcome I seriously doubt) Clarrett has no right to negotiate with any team. The CBA is binding until it is nullified and, if nullified, given the Stay and Ginsberg's ruling, it will be nullified on a prospective basis, not retroactively.