As you probably know by now, the 2020 NFL Draft is proceeding as scheduled and will take place from April 23-25. However, it’s going to look and feel a lot different than it normally does, and the league has issued a memo on that front. The entire memo can be found here, courtesy of Albert Breer of SI.com (via Twitter).
Essentially, teams can conduct the draft in one of two ways. They can conduct them at their facilities, though they would obviously be subject to all applicable health and safety guidelines (including a limit on the number of personnel that can be at the facility and rigorous cleaning requirements). Or, they can conduct them totally remotely from the personal residences of their staff, though there would certainly be a limit on the number of personnel that could be present at any one residence.
The memo went on to say that a team can choose to draft from remote sites even if other teams choose to operate from their facilities. On the other hand, if any one team’s state prohibits that team from using its home facility, then all teams will be so prohibited and must conduct the draft remotely. Although the league has drawn plenty of criticism for pressing forward in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is at least trying to maintain some semblance of fairness in the way clubs can handle their business.
It seems that at least one team will be in a state that prohibits a gathering of personnel in a war room setting at a team facility, so it presently sounds as though execs and coaches from around the league should start preparing to select their collegiate prospects from their living rooms. The NFL’s IT department is working to make that process as seamless as possible.
Let’s just start making picks, one per day at at certain time, until the first round is done. Each pick would be must see TV, and it would give teams a chance to trade, scout on film, etc. Gives us at least 32 days of content to talk about too.
Except that’s just round 1. The draft would be over in January if we did one pick per day.
seems to me they are following guildlines set by the CDC or states…so F-u to whoever is criticizing them for going on with the draft
If the states dont let then use their facilities because of a stay at home order/non essential personnel, then how do we assume that same state would allow them to meet together in a public space rented out? (Like the brewery one team is planning to)
they should just make the war room one of the staffs living room and they have computer conferences with they staff and phones and then have a line to the nfl for picks that would follow the stay at home order and all that
So basically, the Patriots still have some time to figure out how to hack into the home computers the other GMs will be using.
A happy ending!