NFL: Seahawks, teams must prep to run virtual draft with personnel in separate locations
The Seahawks and the rest of the NFL already knew this draft was going to be unlike any other.
Now, it’s going to be even more unfamiliar. It’s going to be the biggest remote event in sports.
Commissioner Roger Goodell informed the 32 teams in a league memorandum Monday they must conduct the draft April 23-25 completely remotely, including among their coaches, general managers and scouts, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Previously, the idea had been if team facilities remain closed, as are most non-essential businesses in the United States as the COVID-19 virus spreads, coaches, GMs, scouts and assistants might gather in small groups of 10 or fewer to do the draft.
A draft operation on John Schneider’s living room was a possibility, if not a likelihood.
No more. Not if teams follow Goodell’s guidance to the letter of his Monday edict.
“...all clubs should dedicate their personnel and technology resources toward preparing for a fully virtual Draft, with personnel in separate locations,” Goodell wrote to teams.
This means Schneider is to be in one place, presumably his residence in the Seattle suburbs. Carroll is to be in another, by himself. Their scouts and assistants are to be in their own locations. All are to be connected by phone, text, email and video conferencing. No face-to-face business.
All 32 team facilities remain closed. So does the NFL headquarters building in New York, where the nation’s highest death toll from COVID-19 reached 5,489 Tuesday. The league had been planning to re-look at those closures this week, by April 8, then reassess.
It already has.
“Given the current and expected conditions, and to ensure that we operate responsibly and in full compliance with current regulations, both League and Club facilities will remain closed indefinitely,” Goodell wrote Monday. “We will reopen facilities when it is safe to do so based on medical and public health advice, and in compliance with government mandates.”
Not only do the closed team headquarters affect the draft, the season won’t begin until well after they reopen and players can train and practice. And those buildings won’t reopen until after states determine non-essential businesses can reopen.
Last week, the NFL’s chief medical officer tempered optimism the league’s vice president and general counsel Jeff Pash had created that the NFL is planning for an on-time start to the season in September. Dr. Allen Sills, leader of the NFL’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak that has shut down the country and sports games worldwide, told NFL.com Thursday: “As long as we’re still in a place where when a single individual tests positive for the virus that you have to quarantine every single person who was in contact with them in any shape, form or fashion, then I don’t think you can begin to think about reopening a team sport. Because we’re going to have positive cases for a very long time.”
For the draft, the league is considering adding time to the 10 minutes each team usually gets to select in the first round, to account for the need for added communication and coordination between team leaders and with other teams to discuss trades. That could make the first round that usually lasts four hours go on longer on April 23.
The Seahawks pride themselves on their information-technology department, and a team owned by Paul Allen, the late founder of Microsoft, is flush with the highest of high-tech equipment under normal circumstances. This absolutely can be done, especially in Seattle.
But there is a greater concern here, of course: the livelihoods of Americans everywhere.
That is bigger than the inconveniences of this draft that will be like no other.
“We are operating in an environment unlike anything we have experienced before, one that requires flexibility, patience and cooperation,” Goodell wrote. “As we work through those challenges together, we should not lose sight of the magnitude of this global health crisis, of the extraordinary work of first responders, healthcare workers, and so many others, of the growing number of Americans in need of assistance, and of those who have lost family or friends to this virus.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 9:13 AM.
