This unique, virtual 2020 NFL Draft is still the draft we know and love — with a fantasy twist
Next week’s annual NFL Draft selection spectacular is already locked in as one we will never forget.
It will be an NFL Draft with all kinds of differences, due to all the combined factors of our current times, with so many tweaks and changes and alterations that it will be more noteworthy when you stumble across a part of it that is actually the same as normal.
No glamorous location and bright lights. No proliferation of designer suits and screaming fans. No Roger Goodell shrugging off the boos and extending a hand to future stars or busts. Instead, Goodell will be in his home’s basement, and the entire thing will take place in an electronic world.
The best forms of entertainment you can find right now, especially those that pertain to sports, are the ones that are completely virtual and yet 100 percent real. The Draft is precisely that.
That’s a lot of No. 1️⃣s
Here is every single top draft pick from the common draft era! pic.twitter.com/zxpFo9PxLY
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) April 15, 2020
It is a bona fide event, one that has been staged since 1936. It grew from a meeting room with a blackboard in a Philadelphia hotel into a showpiece filled with glitz and pomp, yet has now by necessity been boiled down into a form built to weather the restrictive realities of the coronavirus.
Yet for all the readily apparent differences, and there are many, there’s an odd familiarity to this year’s event. It feels like the world’s most important fantasy draft, in that for once you get to reflect on the rather wonderful thought that NFL general managers might have to deal with the same distractions and roadblocks that you do when it is time to pick players with your buddies just before the start of each season.
Will a team’s future be sent down a rocky path because the internet suddenly starts acting up, or the GM’s mind is pulled away by his wife asking how much longer this darn thing goes on for? Probably not; the NFL has taken every possible precaution to make sure this goes off without a hitch, of course. But it is fun to imagine. (No AutoDraft back-up feature here, by the way.)
There are no war rooms this time around, either, no physical ones, anyway. If you are a GM and you’re going to have a good draft, you’ll need to make sure your setup is on point and your technical prowess is at least up to a workable level.
In that way, it is a pretty fascinating reflection of life at present — the need to adapt and rethink and do things differently, the need to find a way to get things done despite the obstacles. GMs get rewarded handsomely for being smart and resourceful all the time. I, for one, kind of love the fact that they are being tested in this way, although the reason for it is obviously awful.
“You can go one of two ways here,” Las Vegas Raiders GM Mike Mayock told ESPN. “You either embrace it and say, ‘This is pretty cool that we’re really just going to watch film and trust who we are as evaluators and trust in who we want in our building.’ Or you can kind of look at it and say, ‘Well, I don’t have verified medicals, and I don’t have verified 40s, and I don’t have verified height, weight, speed,’ and panic about it. And I think we kind of, as a team, as a building, we’ve collectively said, ‘We’re going to embrace it.’”
There’s a reason Mike Mayock and the Raiders are built to dominate the NFL Draft…@ColinCowherd explains it: pic.twitter.com/JjRzr02fEO
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) April 14, 2020
Truly, that’s the spirit. On Apr. 6, the NFL sent a memo to every team, advising that the Draft would be carried out “in a fully virtual format” and must be conducted “entirely outside of their facilities.”
That means each of the 32 teams will be connected via a single video conference, using a reworked Microsoft Teams application, and will also have an established broadband connection with members of the league office.
Picks can be selected directly through that league connection, with telephone and email options serving as a fail-safe. Each decision maker is permitted to have an IT specialist present in their home to deal with any problems regarding connectivity, while video equipment has been shipped to 58 prospects so that they can be a part of the broadcast.
Those are just the details. The upshot is that 255 players will still be chosen. Some of them will prove to be stars, some will be functional, others may not see a single minute of NFL game time.
“I’m of course going to compete and do what I do, but I never knew it would be like this. Junior year is when it became a reality.” ?@__RUGGS sat down with @ReggieBush to discuss his performance at the NFL Combine and what he expects out of himself in the NFL ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/d0P6v9Urq9
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) April 13, 2020
The thrill of each pick will still be there, for the players, for the teams, and for us fans. The entire experience has the potential to make you feel like you’re a part of the process in a way unlike any other draft, save perhaps those you’ve actually held in your living room or on your laptop.
There are no workarounds. The New Orleans Saints planned for a while to get their braintrust together in a brewery, not for the purpose of turning the thing into a big old party but to have a collective space allowing for togetherness with appropriate distancing. No more. Everyone is going to be separated.
The Philadelphia Eagles, for example, would typically have GM Howie Roseman, head coach Doug Pederson and owner Jeffrey Lurie in the same room on draft night. This time they will be at their respective homes.
“We have to operate the way the situation is presented to us,” Roseman told the Eagles website. “No excuses. We have prepared for this and we’re going to make sure we work hard to coordinate everything.”
? Eagles have been doing their homework on Michigan center Cesar Ruiz who is rated the #1 center in the NFL Draft
Ruiz has spoken with the Eagles multiple times
The Camden, New Jersey native tells @6abc his mom would very happy if he goes to Philly#NFLDraft #Michigan pic.twitter.com/2PIeHtYRPS
— Jeff Skversky 6abc (@JeffSkversky) April 11, 2020
The same is true for the players. “As different as this is, I think the hardest part is just finding places to work out and train,” FOX Sports’ Matt Leinart said. “That’s kind of half the battle. But I think a lot of it is the same. Everyone’s just going to have to trust the tape. What you put on tape the last couple years is what a lot of these teams are going to go off of.”
It is the same draft. It has just been given an almighty makeover, because it had to be that way. It will be compelling drama and almost certainly be unique, unless it somehow proves so successful that they do it again like this. Yet it will still have the glow of familiarity.
It is a fantasy draft, without the fantasy. Life-changing picks, at a time when life has changed. A virtual event, with real repercussions. Or, more accurately, a real one, virtually delivered.
