Munich – NFL boss Roger Goodell has spoken a word of power: Despite the corona crisis, the NFL draft will take place from April 23 to April 25 (live on ProSieben MAXX and ran.de) as planned – in a television studio and without Spectator.
Previously, a seven-member general manager committee had called for a move, according to “ESPN”.
The reason: Because of the closed team facilities, there would be no time for fitness and psychological tests. In addition, some information about college talent is currently difficult to obtain.
Goodell is not deterred by this and sticks to the appointment. He makes the right decision – in several ways.
Welcome distraction from Corona
Professional sport is not just about whether Team A or Team B fishes for the better player – even if that is of course the goal. Professional sport lives from the fact that it entertains millions of people and gives them pleasure.
Especially during this time, when Corona poses so many people with health and existential problems, every distraction is welcome. But professional sport is suspended for well-known reasons.
Apart from WrestleMania 36 (live on April 4th at 0:05 a.m. on ProSieben MAXX and ran.de), April does not offer an active sporting event to look forward to – but the NFL Draft does!
Whatever the world shaped by Corona in less than a month, the draft will distract us from it for a few hours.
And not only that: Already in the weeks before it was a pleasure to deal with the individual players, read reports about them, analyze mock drafts or create them yourself.
Enough opportunities for scouting
And as far as the arguments of the general manager are concerned, one cannot analyze the players sufficiently: sorry, but this is not understandable!
It is true that most pro days fall flat and the usual team visits cannot take place. Nonetheless, there have been, and still are, more than enough opportunities to properly assess football talent.
The NFL Combine was tested, measured, weighed, spoken and examined. There is also enough college footage to watch every player’s turn in the umpteenth repetition. If there are still questions, these could easily be conducted via video telephony.
And as for the ProDay: Agents like Paul or Peter Schaffer from the Authentic Athletix player agency should already discuss hiring film teams to film as many players as possible and then send these training videos to all 32 teams.
Special times require special measures.
Isn’t that enough?
How much research is required?
Do you really have to let the players fly across the USA (I leave the environmental aspect out of the way for now), so that they are punished with many unnecessary questions?
Do you really have to examine the players several times to discover that someone turned down ten years ago?
Do you really have to examine the private environment of the players to the infinite to find out that someone as an eight-year-old stole a candy bar in the kiosk next door and could possibly derive a character weakness from it?
In the past, did all of these measures result in the right players being selected in the draft? Rather not – otherwise a mega-flop like JaMarcus Russell would not have been drafted at position 1 and a legend like Tom Brady would not have been drafted at position 199.
The most important thing is: All NFL teams have the same requirements for the draft.
And who knows: We may even find out afterwards that many actions in advance of the draft are unnecessary anyway.
After all, it’s just about whether someone can play football well or not.
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