Around the League

By Zach Kruse | Packerswire

The weather and location of Green Bay were at least contributing factors to why veteran receiver Emmanuel Sanders picked the New Orleans Saints over the Packers in free agency.

Sanders, who agreed to sign a two-year deal with the Saints, told Rich Eisen of “The Rich Eisen Show” that playing indoors in the south appealed more to him than playing in the cold up in Green Bay.

“It’s just Green Bay, that cold weather, Rich, I wasn’t trying to do it, man” Sanders said. “To be in a dome 12 games out of the year in a pass-heavy offense or go to Green Bay? I can’t do it. I’d rather go to New Orleans. I’m from the south. My grandma is six hours away, can come to all the games. I can have my family drive up. It’s just a perfect opportunity for me.” ...

Full Story - Packerswire

By Ken Belson | The New York Times Company

The coronavirus pandemic has upended much, but with a late summer start to the season five months away, the NFL has been one of the few major professional sports leagues to avoid postponing or canceling games.

With little else going on in sports, the league has doubled down on holding its annual three-day draft — which ranks behind only the Super Bowl as the NFL’s biggest spectacle — beginning April 23, altering only the broadcast, which will now be a TV-only studio production with top picks participating remotely.

The NFL is sticking to its self-imposed calendar even as the league instituted travel restrictions and ordered team facilities closed, forcing teams to adapt all-important evaluations that will affect their fortunes for years to come, causing worries that draft selections might go lower or higher than their available research would support.

“When we look back at the draft in two years, we’re going to see guys who were overdrafted because of their familiarity and guys who were under-drafted in later rounds or not at all because they hadn’t been seen or were injured,” said Mike Tannenbaum, an ESPN analyst and a former NFL general manager.

Full Story - Boston.com

By John Hendrix | SI

The max amount of prime time games one NFL team can have in a scheduled season is five, and it feels like the New Orleans Saints are destined to be featured on the big stage for the upcoming season. In 2019, the team had four nationally televised prime time games, which was tied with the Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Chargers. 10 teams received five prime time games.

Naturally, this can change with the way flexing happens across the league, but the league didn't do this last season with favorable matchups between the Saints and 49ers or the Saints and Titans. With the addition of Tom Brady, the Buccaneers are sure to go from one prime time game in 2019 to a bunch more. With two of the league's best quarterbacks set to duel twice in 2020, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Saints and Buccaneers will get some type of national spotlight, with the other game potentially featured as a top contender as America's Game of the Week on FOX.

While the NFL schedule won't drop until mid-to-late April, it's something the football world is ready for to help take their mind off the COVID-19 threat. Here's some of my predictions.

Full Story - SI

By Dianna Russini| ESPN

The NFL draft will go on as scheduled April 23-25, commissioner Roger Goodell said in a leaguewide memo distributed Thursday.

In his memo, obtained by ESPN's Adam Schefter, Goodell served warning to those around the league who criticize the league's stance.

He wrote in the memo, "public discussion of issues relating to the Draft serves no useful purpose and is grounds for disciplinary action."

Goodell said the NFL Management Council Executive Committee met Thursday and was "unanimous and unequivocal that the Draft should go forward as scheduled," despite the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted work for most of the nation.

Full Story - ESPN

By John Sigler | Saints Wire

The NFL turned down a recommendation from team general managers to delay the start of the 2020 NFL Draft in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus, which disappointed many executives around the league. New Orleans Saints executive vice president/general manager Mickey Loomis was one of the loudest voices in favor of pushing back the draft’s start date (the three-day event is currently scheduled to begin April 23), and he made an appearance on The Peter King Podcast to share his perspective on the issue.

“This is not a fantasy draft that you can conduct with a list of things on a piece of paper,” Loomis told King, referring to a complicated process in which team personnel hold conference in “war rooms” on the day of the draft to remotely phone in their decisions.


Full Story - Saints Wire - USA Today