The format of the 2020 NFL Draft will be vastly different than typical drafts in recent years. There won’t be a big party at once central location. Coaches and GMs won’t be stationed together in their war rooms. Prospects won’t walk across the stage to shake Roger Goodell’s hand after they’re drafted.
All of that will be different this weekend, but one of the biggest changes to the draft process due to the coronavirus is teams’ inability to meet with prospects before they’re selected. In a normal year, teams would be allowed to bring in 30 players for visits, meeting with them and getting to know them off the field.
This year, they were limited to video calls with prospects due to travel limitations. Teams are allowed to meet with more prospects than the 30 typically allotted, but the nature of those meetings are different.
Rams general manager Les Snead doesn’t seem to mind it, though. He says the Rams were actually able to meet with more prospects than normal because of these changes.
“Interestingly, we probably were able to meet with more players than we normally do. Normally you have 30 players you can bring in. We’ve always tried to take advantage of technology and do some of these interviews via FaceTime – but we’ve tried to implement that over the last few years,” he said on the Rams’ draft preview show. “But I do think by actually ripping the band-aid off and having no visits, what we do is assign scouts, coaches – different people in our organization based on what we’re trying to accomplish with the interview – to reach out and I bet we have done a lot more of these type of interviews than the 30 that we bring here.”
Snead even took it a step further by giving the NFL a suggestion for future years. He says the league should eliminate pre-draft visits and only meet with prospects over video conference calls like they did this year.
“I’m going to go out of the box and it’s going to take a little while to do it, but I think this is how we should interview players moving forward,” he said. “We ask these players to train for the combine, they go to the combine and then we ask them to somewhat stay in shape for a pro day. And in-between all of that, we ask them to fly around the country and visit with teams.
“I think it would be best to allow those players to stay in a normal routine where they’re living at the time, get in NFL football shape and do their interviews this way.”
That sure would be a major change for the NFL, but Snead’s logic is sound. Some players are traveling around visiting 20-plus teams before the draft, all while preparing for their pro days and the combine, too.
Plus, teams are able to talk to players at the combine and the Senior Bowl, which are important interactions, too. It’s unlikely the NFL will change this aspect of the draft process, but Snead might be onto something.
