Draft legends. Let the record prove it.

An NFL draft game you play in the browser. Each round spins a franchise era and lays out the players who actually played it, you fill twelve seats, and then the season simulates and tells you what your roster was really worth. No account, no install, no fantasy league to join.

To the league's early decades and forward to last season. Every card is one real year a player had, with the yards, touchdowns, sacks or interceptions that year produced, plus the honours the record book gives it.

Against the football of his own decade. A 1,200-yard season behind a 14-game schedule and a 1,200-yard season today are not the same accomplishment, so each card is rated against what leading the league meant that year. Nobody gains or loses for the era he happened to play in.

You fill all twelve seats, and defense is where most rosters quietly lose. A team of famous skill players with nothing in the front seven gives up points all season, and January is unforgiving about it.

One roster per calendar day, dealt identically to everyone who opens it. You get the same franchises in the same order as the person you are arguing with, which is the only way a comparison means anything.

Every card is a real player-season from the public record. Each franchise chapter is identified by its city and years, and that chapter determines which player-seasons can appear when it comes up.

Every one of the 32 franchises on the board, and each of them is split into real eras rather than treated as one timeless club. Drafting Pittsburgh in the 1970s and Pittsburgh in the 2000s means drafting two genuinely different rosters, because the players available are the ones who actually played those seasons.

Yes — that is the whole premise. A finished twelve can pair a 1960s passer with a 2010s pass rusher, because each seat is filled from the era you spun rather than from a single season. The season simulation then runs that roster as one team.

Quarterback carries the most weight, and the board says so — the seat is scored at one and a half. After that it is balance: a full twelve wants offence and defence filled rather than five great receivers, and the flex seats reward taking the best player left rather than forcing a position.

No, and the deep eras are where the game gets interesting. Someone who knows the 1970s well will draft a better team from those spins than a fan who only knows the current league, because the board deals whatever era it lands on rather than favouring recent names.

The record keeps First-team All-Pro, AP Defensive Player of the Year, AP Rookie of the Year and the rest the NFL recognises. On a card they do what raw yardage cannot: a league-best season reads the same in 1975 as in 2015.

Back to 1920, the league's first season, with Chicago continuously recorded for 106 seasons. 390 figures hold Hall-of-Fame membership.