The 2007 National Football League Draft took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on April 28 and April 29, 2007. The draft was televised for the 28th consecutive year on ESPN and ESPN2. The NFL Network also broadcast coverage of the event, its second year doing so. There were 255 draft selections: 223 regular selections (instead of the typical 224) and 32 compensatory selections. A supplemental draft was also held after the regular draft and before the regular season. This was the first draft presided over by new NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

The first round was the longest in the history of the NFL Draft, lasting six hours, eight minutes. One of the big stories of the draft was the fall of Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn. Quinn had been projected as a potential first overall pick in early mock drafts and had been invited to attend the draft in person, but he wasn't selected until the 22nd pick in the first round by the Cleveland Browns, who acquired the pick in a trade with the Dallas Cowboys. Louisiana State University quarterback JaMarcus Russell was selected first overall by the Oakland Raiders after he had replaced Quinn as the projected first selection among most analysts following his performance in the 2007 Sugar Bowl against Quinn and Notre Dame. Russell is considered by many as one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history.

The National Football League Draft is an annual event in which the National Football League (NFL) teams select eligible college football players and it is their most common source of player recruitment. The basic design of the draft is that each team is given a position in the drafting order in reverse order relative its record in the previous year—the last place gets positioned first. With this position, the team can either select a player or trade their position to another team for other positions, a player, or players, or any combination thereof. After each team had utilized its position in the drafting order, whether by trading it or selecting a player, a round would be complete. Certain aspects of the draft, including team positioning and the number of rounds in the draft, have seen revisions since its first creation in 1936, but the fundamental methodology has remained the same. The original rationale in creating the draft was to increase the competitive parity between the teams as the worst team would, idealistically, have chosen the best player available.

The 2007 NFL season was the 88th regular season of the National Football League.

Regular-season play was held from September 6 to December 30.

The New England Patriots became the first team to complete the regular season undefeated since the league expanded to a 16-game regular season in 1978. Four weeks after the playoffs began on January 5, 2008, the Patriots lost to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII, the league championship game at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on February 3, by a score of 17–14.

The Hall of Fame Game was played in Canton, Ohio on Sunday August 5, 2007, with the Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the Saints by a score of 20–7; the game was televised by the NFL Network, replacing NBC, who had been previously scheduled to broadcast the China Bowl exhibition game from Beijing, China on August 8, 2007 between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks at Workers Stadium. However, with all efforts being put into the London regular season game, plans for the game were postponed, as Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Marshawn Terrell Lynch (born April 22, 1986) is an American football running back for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League. He was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the first round (12th overall) of the 2007 NFL Draft. In his rookie year, Lynch became the Bills' first 1,000-yard rookie rusher since Greg Bell in 1984. He finished the season with 1,115 total rushing yards and seven touchdowns. Lynch played college football at California, where he was the school's second all-time career rusher with 3,230 yards.

Lynch attended Oakland Technical High School. In his 2003 season, Lynch amassed 1,722 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns in only eight regular season games, and an additional 375 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns in two postseason games. He was voted a PrepStar and SuperPrep All-American and was also voted as the San Francisco East Bay Player of the Year.

Lynch experimented with other positions in high school. He played defensive back and accumulated 20 interceptions his senior year. His coaches put him at defensive end for one game, and he forced three fumbles. Lynch also played some quarterback and wide receiver in high school. Before high school, Lynch had originally played as an offensive guard.Rivals.com had him ranked #1 in the nation as a defensive back, but he decided to stick to his passion at running back. Lynch ended his high school career as the second-ranked running back in the nation in 2004 behind Adrian Peterson by Rivals.com.

JaMarcus Trenell Russell (born August 9, 1985) is an American football quarterback who is currently a free agent. Russell played college football for the LSU Tigers where he finished 21–4 as a starter and was named MVP of the 2007 Sugar Bowl. The Oakland Raiders selected Russell with the first overall pick of the 2007 NFL Draft. Russell held out until the Raiders signed him to a contract worth $61 million with $32 million guaranteed. In three seasons with the Raiders, Russell finished 7–18 as a starter before his release on May 6, 2010.

Russell was born in Mobile, Alabama and attended Lillie B. Williamson High School. For all four years under head coach Bobby Parrish, Russell started and never missed a football game. In his freshman year, Russell completed 180-of-324 passes for 2,683 yards and 20 touchdowns as Williamson reached the state championship game. By the next season, Russell had grown to six-foot-three and 185 pounds, had received his first recruiting letters and was becoming more adept with the playbook. Russell passed for 2,616 yards and 20 touchdowns during his sophomore year and led the team to the semifinals.