quote:
"To be eligible for the draft, players must have been out of high school for at least three years and must have used up their college eligibility before the start of the next college football season. Underclassmen and players who have graduated before using all their college eligibility may request the league’s approval to enter the draft early.

Players are draft-eligible only in the year after the end of their college eligibility."

McMillon and Tucker still have a year of eligibility, even though they are seniors, due to the weird COVID rule. So they have to declare if they want to be draft-eligible.

See this discussion on the topic.

quote:
"Due to Covid-19, the NCAA has given each player this year another year of eligibility, which on the surface sounds great but it does come with some complications with the NFL Draft process, unless the NFL changes their rules.

All players will have college eligibility left, which means any player that wants to be included in the 2021 NFL Draft must declare for the draft by the declaration deadline (which normally is around January 15th).

Since all players will have to declare, NFL scouts can’t interact with “underclassmen” (or players with NCAA eligibility left) until after the declare date. All-Star games such as the Tropical Bowl, East-West Shrine Game and NFLPA Collegiate Bowl all normally host their event before the declare date, so no scouts would be able to attended until after the declare date, unless the NFL changes their rules for this year.

NFL Combine Invites normally sent out to senior prospects after the schools bowl game will likely not be sent out since the NFL Combine won’t know for sure who is staying and who is declaring, so they will have to wait until after the declare date to send out invites."

This post was edited on 1/19/21 at 10:43 am