The NFL has turned the annual draft into multi-day spectacle. This year’s spectacle planned for in Las Vegas got cancelled by COVID-19. But Commissioner Roger Goodell said the draft will take place anyway April 23 to 25, according to a memo obtained by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
In the memo, Goodell warned the league not to criticize the decision.
“Public discussion of issues relating to the draft serves no useful purpose and is grounds for disciplinary action,” he wrote.
Goodell said the NFL Management Council Executive Committee met March 26 and was “unanimous and unequivocal that the draft should go forward as scheduled,” despite the pandemic.
The commish agreed significant changes were needed to conduct the event. The draft would take place outside team facilities and with a limited number of people present, but not the prospects or their families.
“Everyone recognizes that the 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.
Plans for the Las Vegas draft ended early last month.
“I also believe that the draft can serve a very positive purpose for our clubs, our fans and the country at large, and many of you have agreed,” Goodell wrote.
A source told ESPN the league planned to hold the draft as scheduled despite a recommendation from the league’s general manager subcommittee that it be moved back. General managers worried there wasn’t enough time to conduct a complete draft, with physicals, psychological testing and the logistics of conducting a draft from various homes.
New Orleans Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis, a member of the GM subcommittee, expressed his preference to push back the draft.
“I’d be personally in favor of delaying the draft, so that we can get some of the work done that our scouts and our personnel people ordinarily do,” Loomis said. “And then just the logistics of trying to conduct the draft, with not having access to your draft rooms and your offices, creates a lot of problems.”
