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The 2020 NFL Draft is scheduled to go on as planned – well, at least on the same date – on April 23-25. It will no longer be held in Las Vegas and it will be done mostly virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic that has brought our country and the world to a standstill.
On Tuesday we heard from president Trump who said: “We’re going to go through a very tough two weeks” coming up as things with the coronavirus worsen across the country.
Dr. Anthon Fauci said on Tuesday that we could see 100,000-240,000 deaths from the coronavirus in the coming weeks.
And the NFL is just going to go about things with its draft?
Yeah, its hard to see how something like the NFL draft is going to matter later this month, especially if things go as badly as predicted by the health experts.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter voiced his frustrations Tuesday night with the NFL and its desire to keep chugging along with business as usual despite all the horror that is happening in the world.
Schefter’s passionate rant happened during an appearance on Scott Van Pelt’s SportsCenter (if you’re reading the newsletter version of this post you can watch Schefter’s rant here):
Even @AdamSchefter is fed up. pic.twitter.com/2c8VXpeIC0
— Matt Rogers 🎙 (@Politidope) April 1, 2020
He closed his rant with this:
“The draft is happening only through the sheer force and determination and lack of foresight from the NFL, frankly. They are determined to put this on while there is carnage in the streets!”
Schefter is absolutely right. What we might see over the next few weeks could change everything. If it gets as ugly as it could get, the NFL draft is not going to be any type of distraction that could lift us out of shocked state that we will be in.
I know this is all a little depressing. OK, a lot depressing. But this all seems to be heading down an even more depressing road.
And it’s not something that football can “fix” by calling out a bunch of names in late April.
So good for Schefter to voice his concerns with the NFL, a league he has covered very well for many years and has built many important relationships with during that time. And good for him to do it on ESPN, which has a TV deal with the league and has often made their reporters “stick to sports.”
This is all a lot more than sports and we’d be silly to stick to the games and the sports that aren’t going on right now.
Schefter is right – the NFL needs to sit back and take a real, hard look at what it wants to do the next few weeks.
Because draft talk right now seems entirely out of place.
Larry David made the perfect coronavirus PSA.
OK, let’s lighten things up a bit. The great Larry David made a perfect “Stay at Home” PSA for the state of California, in which he said: “I basically want to address the idiots out there… and you know who you are.” You need to watch this PSA.
Quick hits: Godwin’s free gift to Brady… Kittle defends Garoppolo… A-Rod called a fraud… And more!
– Bucs WR Chris Godwin had a very classy reason for why he gave his No. 12 jersey to Tom Brady for free.
– George Kittle went on “First Take” and perfectly defended Jimmy Garoppolo.
– Former New York Met Paul Lo Duca called Alex Rodriguez “one of the fakest people out there.”
– Shaquille O’Neal put on a DJ Diesel concert for his sons from his kitchen… and won the internet in doing so.
– Our Charles Curtis explains what “zoom bombing” is and how you can prevent it.