Footy Movement for Humans

What changed?

Some draft picks have moved clubs through trades. Here is what is different from the usual order.

Start here — how the draft works in 3 steps

The ladder sets the order The worse a team finishes, the earlier they pick. The wooden-spoon team gets pick 1, the grand final winner gets pick 18 (first round).

Every pick belongs to a club Pick 1 originally belongs to Adelaide (last in 2025). Pick 2 to Brisbane, and so on. This is the original club of each pick.

Trades move picks around When clubs trade, picks can change hands. For example, if Collingwood traded their first pick to GWS, then GWS now holds it — not Collingwood. The pick number stays the same, but the holder changes.

The season of player movement

The footy calendar moves through phases. Each one changes what happens to draft picks. Tap a phase to expand it.

Words you will see

Tied to A future pick that belongs to a club but is connected to another club’s finishing position. For example, “Carlton holds Sydney’s 2027 R1” means Carlton will get Sydney’s first-round pick in 2027, wherever that ends up in the order.

Future pick A draft pick from a coming season (2027, 2028) that has been traded. The exact number is unknown until the ladder is finalised that year.

Projected order The most likely draft order based on the current ladder position. Until the season ends, this can change — so treat it as an estimate.

Bid matching When a club nominates a player (like a father-son or academy prospect), other clubs can place a “bid” at a certain pick number. The matching club must use their next available pick to take that player, or let them go.

Compensation picks Extra draft picks the AFL gives to clubs that lose a free-agency player. These are slotted into the draft order and can shuffle other picks back by one spot.

What picks does my club have?

Select your club below to see every pick it holds across the next three drafts.

Choose your club

Select a club above to see its picks.

Predicted 2026 draft order

This is the best estimate of where each club picks in the first two rounds of the 2026 draft, based on the current ladder and known trades.

Round 1

Round 2

Why should I care?

Draft picks are how clubs build their future. Here is what the numbers mean for teams and fans.

Methodology & data sources

Pick ownership: the official AFL Future Picks page is canonical. Our self-hosted Crawl4AI captures it every six hours. A changed page creates a review candidate; only a reviewed, approved candidate can change the ledger.

Projected numbers: the 2026 order reverses Squiggle’s final home-and-away ladder. Finals order, free-agency compensation and father–son/Academy bid matching can move those numbers. The 2027–28 picks remain round-level because nobody knows those future ladder positions yet.

Confidence: Confirmed means official and applied; Provisional means a likely calculation still awaiting an official outcome; Hypothetical is a scenario only.

Player directory: restricted/unrestricted status will come from the official AFL 2026 Free Agents list. Current rosters and season-by-season appearances will establish club history. If a contract detail is not publicly confirmed, it stays “unknown” rather than becoming a creative writing exercise.

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