The Jacksonville Jaguars were always going to take Trevor Lawrence with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft last month.
The team knew it. Lawrence knew it. Fans knew it. Everybody knew it — and they knew it for months.
So why did it take the Jaguars so long to actually make the pick on draft night?
The NFL forced them to.
Jaguars said NFL made them wait 7 minutes to make pick
Each team has 10 minutes to officially make a selection in the first round of the draft.
Though the Jaguars knew that the former Clemson star was their guy, they said that the NFL forced them to wait at least seven minutes before making any sort of move.
“Well when the league called, they said you have to wait seven minutes to turn in the card,” Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke said in a draft video released by the team. “So we didn’t pick up the phone to call [Lawrence]. We just sat there, and he’s sitting on his end wondering why we haven’t called him.”
Fans watching the draft at home were understandably annoyed. As everyone knew what the Jaguars were going to do, why drag it out?
Once that seven-minute mark hit, though, things got worse for the Jaguars. Lawrence wasn’t picking up his phone.
“We started calling him, getting a recording,” owner Shad Kahn said. “Then you’re seeing the clock tick away and, ‘Let’s try it again.’ We got the same recording. So after about three tries, you’re nervous.”
Coach Urban Meyer eventually picked up the phone himself and got through to Lawrence, and the rest was history.
While the Jaguars won’t complain, considering everything worked out just fine, fans at least now know why it took them so long to officially select Lawrence to kick off the draft.
More from Yahoo Sports: