New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis called for a delayed start to the 2020 NFL Draft in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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The NFL turned down a recommendation from team general managers to delay the start of the 2020 NFL Draft in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus, which disappointed many executives around the league. New Orleans Saints executive vice president/general manager Mickey Loomis was one of the loudest voices in favor of pushing back the draft’s start date (the three-day event is currently scheduled to begin April 23), and he made an appearance on The Peter King Podcast to share his perspective on the issue.
“This is not a fantasy draft that you can conduct with a list of things on a piece of paper,” Loomis told King, referring to a complicated process in which team personnel hold conference in “war rooms” on the day of the draft to remotely phone in their decisions.
Teams typically send scouts and coaches on cross-country road trips visiting college campuses, where they can personally record the same drill times and athletic measurements that schools send them later. NFL franchises are also normally allowed to fly in as many as thirty prospects to tour their facilities and go through private workouts and interviews, but those meetings have been conducted through teleconference due to league-mandated travel restrictions.
Missing out on all of those data points and in-person conversations doesn’t sit well with Loomis, who would prefer to follow the usual process as closely as possible: “There’s a lot of work that goes into it to prepare and there’s a lot of work that is done during the draft. Listen, it’ll be very, very difficult to conduct that and do it in a way that you’re doing justice to the process.”
There may be some wisdom in pushing the draft’s start date back a little; Loomis also noted the importance of adjusting the NFL offseason to the still-developing national situation.
“First of all we need to make sure we’re not tone-deaf to what’s going on in the world. The entire world has been basically put on pause – and rightfully so,” Loomis continued. “We’re adapting to this new normal, and we just hope the new normal doesn’t last very long.”
Now, Loomis is absolutely right that the typical, preferred processes are not being followed and can not be followed in these troubling times. And it will certainly be more difficult to conduct business as usual if teams must continue working remotely, unable to gather in their offices.
But how much are they really missing out on? Scouting reports were finished and filed months ago. A hundred or so prospects put up practice tape during the weeks leading up to the Senior Bowl, Shrine Bowl, and other college all-star games, working in tandem with NFL coaches. Dozens of prospects already interviewed with each team at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Oh, and there’s also years of game tape available to study again.
It shouldn’t take another handshake and sit-down conversation in a conference room to further convince teams to draft a player, or a full-room debate among coaches and front office brass on the night of the draft. Technological limitations could come into play — John Elway’s infamous struggles with a fax machine during free agency are well-documented — but the NFL is a multi-billion dollar industry. They’ve got more than a month to figure out how to use Google Sheets and Zoom or Skype.
But maybe Loomis will get his wish. If the coronavirus situation continues to deteriorate, the NFL very well might double back and postpone its draft. Right now, though, the structure of the event and the technology available just makes a delay seem unnecessary.
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