This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning.
The NFL is just days away from its first-ever virtual NFL Draft on Thursday night, and by all accounts, it’s going to be a wild evening. If you’ve been on a Zoom call for work in the last few weeks, you know that technical glitches are inevitable in any massive online meeting, and the NFL’s dry test run for the first round reportedly went sideways in a hurry.
On Monday, NFL GMs around the league gathered for a mock draft to prepare themselves for the real thing, but the Bengals ran into a technical issue with the very first pick. According to ESPN’s Diana Russini, some teams suffered from “bandwidth” issues, which may or may not re-occur on draft night. Russini reported that one head coach lost internet mid-draft because his kids were all using iPads while he was trying to direct the future of his organization.
Broncos president and GM John Elway said that things went smoothly later in the round, but admitted that it’s going to be much more difficult during the real draft. For the practice run, so as not to tip their picks, teams selected former players and had to spend zero time debating a given pick. The situation will be very different on Thursday, when teams will be juggling players on the board while also devising and fielding trade opportunities, all without the convenience of being able to speak to your co-workers in person. The NFL has stated that it will stop the clock if a team runs into a technical issue, which you can guarantee will happen at least once in the first round.
Tuesday’s Big Winners: Kenny Mayne and Linda Cohn
If you were watching “The Last Dance” on Sunday, you may have been fooled by a brilliant State Farm commercial that looked like it could have been a SportsCenter clip used in the documentary. “It’s gonna be lit. You don’t even know what that means yet!”
Quick hits: Scottie Pippen, Danica Patrick, Dave Gettleman
— The second episode of “The Last Dance” focused largely on Scottie Pippen, who grew frustrated during the Bulls’ second three-peat over his very ill-advised contract signed in 1991. Pippen was wildly underpaid for much of his career, but his wife Larsa Pippen reminded everyone on Twitter that he would go on to make more than $100 million in NBA salary.
— Monday was the 12-year anniversary of Danica Patrick’s historic IndyCar win at Twin Ring Motegi Superspeedway in Japan. Patrick became the first woman to ever win an IndyCar race, and it would end up being the only victory of her career. She reflected on the win with our own Michelle Martinelli.
— NFL coaches and GMs will have to work the 2020 Draft from home, and the war room setups we’ve seen so far range from very high-tech (San Francisco’s John Lynch), to staggeringly retro. New York’s Dave Gettleman, who famously is not very computer-literate, appears to be planning to operate with just a single small laptop and a massive binder. Good luck, Giants fans.
Special editions of The Morning Win
The 2020 NFL Draft begins this Thursday, and we’ll be recapping and reacting to all three rounds this weekend on For The Win. On Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be rolling out special weekend editions of The Morning Win to cover all of the biggest news from the NFL’s first virtual draft.