Undrafted free agent

Undrafted free agent

An undrafted free agent (UDFA) is a player in a professional sports league who is not selected in a draft. The term is most common in the National Football League (NFL), where rookies enter directly through the NFL draft and do not play in a minor league system. It can also occasionally be seen in the National Hockey League (NHL), which increasingly uses college hockey as a source; the NHL entry draft usually drafts players of high school age (i.e., junior leagues), which allows overlooked players who excel at the college level or in European professional leagues to bypass the draft and sign directly with the NHL. Notable undrafted players in sport include Martin St. Louis, Bruce Sutter, Ben Wallace, Kurt Warner, and Antonio Gates.