League commissioner Roger Goodell sent out a memo Thursday telling teams the Commissioner’s Executive Committee unanimously decided the draft will be held April 23-25 as originally planned.
“Everyone recognizes that public health conditions are highly uncertain and there is no assurance that we can select a different date and be confident that conditions will be significantly more favorable than they are today,” Goodell wrote in the memo (via ESPN’s Adam Schefter).
NFL DRAFT: Why scouting limitations are good for players like Tua Tagovailoa
This year’s draft will not include public events or feature top prospects and their families in attendance, and it will be televised “in a way that reflects current conditions,” whatever that means. Maybe considering a postponement would be the most accurate way to reflect current conditions?
Aside from the typical Goodell language that says a lot without saying anything, one particular portion of the memo stuck out as just a little bit strange.
You shut your stupid mouth about our sacred football days … Now let’s have the best NFL Draft ever!
We look forward to working with each of you to make the 2020 draft an event that will make everyone proud and help build excitement for the coming season.
There are more than 85,000 cases of COVID-19 in the United States as of Friday afternoon, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 1,246 of those cases have resulted in death. A record number of people filed for unemployment benefits just last week. But yeah, public discussion is definitely not useful.
To not even acknowledge the possibility of pushing the 2020 NFL Draft down the road is, as one AFC executive put it to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, “ridiculous and embarrassing.” And the idea of punishing employees for speaking out? What, people aren’t worried enough about job security at the moment?
In periods of chaos, you can always count on Goodell to deliver robotic messages lacking any awareness of what is happening outside of the NFL bubble. The money train stops for no man, woman or global pandemic.
Now come on, Joe Burrow, show us that smile via Skype.
