Having Commissioner Roger Goodell announce NFL draft selections from the comfort of his man cave in April, while general managers called shots from their living rooms, was a logistical hurdle for the league.
Preparing for the 2021 draft will be far more complex because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of college campuses hosting football games this fall is dwindling by the day after the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced Tuesday they will not be playing in 2020.
Those conferences followed the Mid-American, the first FBS conference to cancel fall football Saturday, and the Mountain West, which announced its decision Monday. Nine FCS conferences, including the Missouri Valley, have done likewise, and the NCAA Division II and Division III councils canceled fall championships Aug. 5. FBS independents Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Mexico State, as well as Old Dominion of Conference USA, acted on their own in saying they will not play football this fall.
Even if the remaining Power Five conferences — the ACC, Big 12 and SEC — play this fall, new questions are raised daily for NFL teams when it comes to scouting and preparing for the draft.
How many of the conferences postponing football will actually pull off a truncated spring schedule starting sometime in February? If the coronavirus remains a threat, that could be impossible. Even if those health issues have passed, is it feasible to ask college athletes to play two football seasons in one calendar year? How many draft-eligible players would choose to play spring football if it is an option?
“I feel for all college athletes right now,” Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow wrote on Twitter Monday. “I hope their voices are heard by the decision makers. If this happened a year ago I may be looking for a job right now.”
Burrow was viewed as a potential Day 3 draft pick at this time last summer before embarking on a magical season in which he won the Heisman Trophy and led LSU to the national championship. Without that season of dominant tape, he never would have risen all the way to becoming the No. 1 pick — news he got while sitting on a sofa in his parents’ living room in Athens, Ohio, instead of being in Las Vegas, where the 2020 draft was scheduled to be held.
One scouting adage that never is argued is that tape is king, and for prospects at schools without football this fall, the NFL can rely only on game film from 2019 and before.
Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s standing as an elite draft prospect won’t be affected if he doesn’t take a snap this fall. Same goes for Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields. But they’re only two of the 256 names expected to be called in the draft.
The Big Ten had 48 players drafted in April and the Pac-12 had 32, trailing only the SEC with 63. That’s 80 players — enough to fill 21/2 rounds — from programs that won’t have football this fall.
What becomes of North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance, a redshirt sophomore whom NFL teams were looking forward to seeing this fall? Would he play in the proposed eight-game season the Missouri Valley schools hope to have in the spring?
“I have no idea, man,” said a national scout for an NFC team based on the East Coast. “It’s really a world of unknowns, so I am just trying to get as many junior reports as I can on these guys with the hope that the league will figure it out.”
The NFL hasn’t given scouts the green light to travel, and that NFC scout said usually by this point he would have been to at least a half-dozen schools. Instead, he was at home Monday morning doing a Zoom call with a strength coach from an ACC program.
“It makes it difficult when it’s 40 guys on the call instead of being one of three scouts there in person talking to the strength coach,” the scout said. “But in all honesty, I’ve done tape on more guys from more schools than I would have being out on the road right now. I hate to say it, but maybe I’m being more productive.”
Good scouts can gather so much more information face to face on campus, though, than over a Zoom call, and that’s what makes the NFL travel restrictions and campuses without football challenging. Teams are building contingency plans on top of contingency plans as they go because draft preparation can’t slow down.
It creates a conundrum for players from affected schools, not just the late bloomers like Burrow but particularly players from conferences such as the MAC who really could have used a senior season to enhance their draft potential.
“It really does hurt them, but we’re going to work and we’re going to get the evaluation done and we’ll find a way to solve the problem,” one general manager said. “Scouts become even more important now because of the connections they have in these schools.
“You’re going to look at the ’19 tape and do the best we can from a projection standpoint. We’re all playing on the same playing field here. The teams that have good evaluators, who know what fits schematically and have great contacts in college football, will be the ones that do well.”
Northwestern director of football operations Cody Cejda, who serves as the school’s NFL liaison, gave a 30-minute presentation at the school’s pro day in March on the Wildcats’ rising seniors. That provided teams with advance background information on NU prospects. With the fall season scrapped, Cejda said he’s planning a follow-up Zoom call for pro scouts soon.
“This changes our calendar,” said a national crosschecker for an NFC team. “You’re starting off of last year’s tape. I still think the conferences that are canceling are going to play in the spring. I mean, football is the moneymaker, right? That’s what it is about anyway. This has nothing to do with anything other than money. If these conferences could afford to test, they would be playing.
“So, if they play in the spring, you scout ’em and grade the tape again.”
There will be a draft, that much is certain, but so much information needs to be digested and so many decisions need to be made beforehand. For now it’s scheduled for April 29 through May 1 in Cleveland. The league could push back the draft as late as June 2 or seek a later date if it reached an agreement with the NFLPA.
The scouting combine, scheduled to start Feb. 23 in Indianapolis, also could be pushed back. One scout floated the idea of a second combine to account for prospects who play in a spring season.
Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy is hosting a Zoom call with all 32 teams Thursday morning and is open to anything, including expanding the week in Mobile, Ala., which would give players who haven’t practiced or played in pads for 12 to 13 months an opportunity to acclimate.
Nagy spent 18 years in scouting for the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks, so he knows firsthand the hurdles COVID-19 has created for his friends in the industry.
“They’re in a tough spot,” Nagy said. “They’re doing Zoom calls with all the (college) staffs, and for the most part it’s very vanilla. Since you can record Zoom calls, there’s not too many staffs that are out there saying much negative about a player, so you’re getting a lot of just nuts-and-bolts information on guys. From an information-gathering standpoint for an NFL club, you’ve got a long way to go past that stage.
“That’s why the experienced staffs and established scouts that have been in areas for a long time, like Jeff Shiver of the Bears is a perfect example. You go anywhere in the Midwest with Shives, and he knows everyone from the head coach down to the custodian, so those guys are going to be in much better shape.”
The tape won’t change for players who can’t play this fall, but character assessments and other critical elements of the scouting process become more nuanced.
“The teams will be behind in understanding the players as people,” Nagy said. “The easiest thing to do in scouting is evaluate the tape and figure out the player. I always thought the hardest part was trying to figure out the person, their motivation level and what money is going to do to them and more (free) time. Just trying to figure out how guys are wired and if they’re ready to be pros.
“All of those things are so difficult to figure out in a normal year when you can go through Tuscaloosa three times in the fall and spend six or seven days there and then again in the spring. They’re not going to have that. They’re going to have to think outside the box and come up with different methods.”