The 1960 American Football League draft was held on November 22–23, 1959, in Minneapolis, shortly after the organization of the league, and lasted 33 rounds. An additional draft of 20 rounds was held by the AFL on December 2.
Teams were required to fill the 11 squad positions by selecting four backs, two ends, two tackles, two guards, and a center with their first 11 picks.
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!style="background:#A8BDEC;"|AFL team !!width=20% style="background:#A8BDEC;"|Player !!width=13% style="background:#A8BDEC;"|Position !!style="background:#A8BDEC;"|College!!style="background:#A8BDEC;"|Notes
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| Boston Patriots
| Gerhard Schwedes
| Halfback
| Syracuse
|
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| Buffalo Bills
| Richie Lucas
| Quarterback
| Penn State
| 1959 Maxwell Award winner.
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| Dallas Texans
| Don Meredith
| Quarterback
| SMU
| Did not sign.
|- align=center
| Denver Broncos
| Roger LeClerc
| Center
| Trinity (CT)
| Did not sign.
|- align=center
| Houston Oilers
| Billy Cannon
| Halfback
| LSU
| 1959 Heisman Trophy winner.
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| Los Angeles Chargers
| Monty Stickles
| End
| Notre Dame
| Did not sign.
|- align=center
| New York Titans
| George Izo
| Quarterback
| Notre Dame
| Did not sign.
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| Minneapolis team
| Dale Hackbart
| Quarterback
| Wisconsin
| Did not sign.
|}
Source:
Regular draft
First selections
After the territorial picks, a consensus was reached on the top eight players at each position—at the time, college players were typically categorized by their offensive positions only. The names for each position were then placed in a hat and randomly drawn by each team. This process repeated until each franchise had made 33 selections, or three full offensive units. Those selections were considered as the first round of the draft.
Allocation draft
After the draft was completed, one of the original teams, Minneapolis (which did not have a nickname), was offered a franchise in the NFL and on January 27, 1960, they withdrew from the AFL, leaving the league with seven teams. Three days later, there were announced that the Oakland Raiders had been joined the AFL as the eighth franchise, and them inherited the draft picks of Minneapolis. The problem was that several of the players selected by Minneapolis were signed by NFL, CFL and AFL teams. To solve this issue the AFL held an allocation draft. Each of the other seven AFL teams froze 11 players on their rosters. The remaining players were then eligible for selection by Oakland, which then stockpiled a total of 24 players.