How to run a random NFL team draft for your group chat

In a lot of group chats, September starts with the same argument: who gets the Chiefs. A random draft ends it before it starts. Nobody picks, everybody gets a handful of teams, and you spend the next 18 weeks cheering for franchises you'd never have chosen. The random NFL team generator does the drawing. This post is a full set of rules, an example draw, and the bits that trip people up, mainly how to hand out all 32 teams without anyone getting the same team twice.

The basic format

Everyone ends up with the same number of NFL teams. Your score is the total regular-season wins of your teams. Highest total after Week 18 wins the pot, the trophy, or the right to pick the next group restaurant.

That's it. No lineups to set, no waiver wire, no one forgetting to bench a player on bye. It works for people who watch every snap and for people who only watch the Super Bowl, which is exactly the mix most group chats have.

The maths is friendly too. Each team plays 17 regular-season games, so there are 272 games and 272 wins to share out (minus the odd tie). With four people, the average score is 68 wins. Anyone above that is doing well, whatever their teams' names.

Teams per person

Group size	Teams each	Left over
2	16	0
4	8	0
8	4	0
3	10	2
5	6	2
6	5	2
7	4	4

For 3, 5, 6 or 7 people, I prefer leaving the spare teams undrafted over giving someone an extra one. One extra team is worth eight or nine wins on average, which decides most pools.

Two ways to draw

Option A: deal everything at once

This is the method I recommend. The NFL picker draws up to 8 teams per click with no repeats inside a click, but two separate clicks can hand out the same team. So for a full 32-team split, use the random team generator instead. Paste the 32 team names, one per line, choose Number of teams, set it to your group size, and press Make teams. It shuffles the list and deals the teams one at a time like cards, so everyone gets the same number, give or take one. For an uneven group, first draw the spare teams with the NFL picker (2 or 4 of them, from the table above) and delete them from the list before you deal.

Here are the 32 names exactly as the NFL picker has them, ready to copy:

Arizona Cardinals
Atlanta Falcons
Baltimore Ravens
Buffalo Bills
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Cincinnati Bengals
Cleveland Browns
Dallas Cowboys
Denver Broncos
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville Jaguars
Kansas City Chiefs
Las Vegas Raiders
Los Angeles Chargers
Los Angeles Rams
Miami Dolphins
Minnesota Vikings
New England Patriots
New Orleans Saints
New York Giants
New York Jets
Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers
San Francisco 49ers
Seattle Seahawks
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tennessee Titans
Washington Commanders

Option B: draw live, one person at a time

More theatre, slightly more admin. Use the name randomiser to shuffle the draft order. Then each person, in order, opens the random NFL team generator, sets the slider to 1 and presses Pick. If the team is already taken, press again. Go round until everyone is full.

The repeat-and-redraw step is the only annoyance, and it gets worse near the end. With 30 teams gone, a single draw only has a 1 in 16 chance of landing on one of the two left. For the last few rounds, switch to drawing 8 and taking the first unclaimed team in the list.

An example draw

Here's an example four-way split, using the shuffle-and-deal method:

Player	Teams
1	Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Carolina Panthers, Los Angeles Chargers, Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, Detroit Lions
2	Tennessee Titans, Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, New York Jets, Las Vegas Raiders, Jacksonville Jaguars, Seattle Seahawks
3	Miami Dolphins, New York Giants, Chicago Bears, San Francisco 49ers, Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts
4	Kansas City Chiefs, Green Bay Packers, Washington Commanders, Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings, Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns

A few things stand out. Player 1 has three of the four AFC North teams (Ravens, Bengals and Steelers), and division rivals play each other twice a year. Those six games are a guaranteed win and a guaranteed loss for Player 1 every time. Player 2 holds three division pairs: Cowboys and Eagles, Titans and Jaguars, Rams and Seahawks. Player 4 got both the Chiefs and the Bills, which will start the trash talk early. None of that is unfair. It's what random looks like, and clusters like these happen in most draws.

Scoring rules to agree before kickoff

Post these in the chat before the draw so nobody can change them after seeing their teams.

1. One point per regular-season win, half a point per tie.
2. Playoffs don't count for the main prize. They take a month and some teams play one game while others play four.
3. Tiebreak after Week 18: the person with the single team that won the most games. If that's still level, roll a die with the dice roller, high roll wins.
4. No trades. The whole point is that you didn't choose.
5. The draw is final once it's posted. If someone wants a redraw, everyone redraws.

That last rule matters more than it looks. Screenshot the result the moment it appears and post it. A list typed out from memory starts arguments.

Variations

Playoff bonus

Keep wins as the main score, but add 3 points for every team you own that makes the playoffs and 10 for the Super Bowl winner. Fourteen teams reach the playoffs, seven per conference, so most people get at least one.

Weekly roulette

Instead of a season-long split, draw one team per person every week. Set the slider to the number of people (up to 8) and press Pick once, then hand the teams out in list order. Inside one draw nobody gets the same team, which is exactly what you need here. A win is a point. Bye weeks count as a loss, so check the schedule before you celebrate.

An example draw of four: Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, New England Patriots and New Orleans Saints.

Worst team wins

Same split, opposite goal: lowest total wins takes the prize. This is surprisingly fun in a season where your draw is full of contenders and you're stuck rooting against them.

Fantasy draft order

If your group also runs a regular fantasy league, a random team draw is a fair way to set the snake order. Draw 8 teams, and whoever owns the team with the worst record last season picks first. It gives the draft order a story instead of a bare number.

What the NFL picker can't do

It doesn't know records, schedules, divisions or odds. It's a list of the 32 current franchise names, and that's all it draws from. It also has no memory: each press is a fresh draw, so it can't track who already has which team. That's why the team generator is the better tool for the full split, and the NFL picker is better for weekly draws and quick single picks.

If your group is split across leagues, there are matching pickers for the NBA and other sports in the same family. The draft rules above work for any league where teams play the same number of games.

For the NFL, open the random NFL team generator, check that all 32 names match the list you pasted, and run the draw before the first Thursday game. If Player 1's AFC North block is anything to go by, the group chat will have plenty to say by Week 4.