The Chaos and Changes Created by the Coronvirus in the Draft in Real-Time

I just talked to someone who knows front office personnel and coaches on a bunch of teams. He said the virus created unprecedented Chaos before and during the draft. Here's how he summed it up:

-Not being able to fly out and view team workouts of players of interest negatively impacted scouts and coaches' ability to assess players to the depth they like to double-check: speed, directional change, attitude on field etc....
- Not being able to fly players in to team headquarters for extensive interviews had the same impact as the above bullet and for teams who have a very defined culture and who highly value team culture. This really impacted teams' ability to evaluate fit.
- Not knowing if there will be a season had most teams front offices creating multiple models including financial impact analysis based on guessed scenarios: no season, season but no or limited fans, partial seasons with no or limited fans, if they have to pay players this season if they don't play, if they don't play, how will the NFL rule on final year of contracts, tagging and designations. This came into play for a number teams especially on the early round picks - assessment variables they rarely had to deal with on draft day before

In the virtual team War rooms during the draft, it was 2x to 3x the chaos of normal drafts that was only worse because of the virtual nature and few teams being able to get all the key decision-makers in a single room

Teams were flying around sometimes in like panic mode right before their pick when it became pretty clear which players would be options and frantically calling/Zooming scouts and coaches to check things like:

- "Did anybody really check out the reported off-field behavior issue?" One thing he heard was that a head coach said, "Our freaking head scout is in the toilet and we have to decide in 60 seconds. Tell him to piss in a freakin cup. We need his input now!" lol
- If so, or even if not, "Does anybody think this was a one-off mistake or part of the kids personality? How strongly do you feel about that?"
- "Was anyone able to double-check poor performance in one or more areas at the Combine where the player performed poorly or incredibly well? If not, what's our best team guess on that?"
- "Who checked-out how the player's teammates respected or not their team play, leadership and performance? If not, what's our best guess? Is anybody on the eval team willing to take a risk and vouch for this player?"
- "Did anybody talk to their parents. Will they be supportive or a problem?"
- "What do you mean we can't get in touch with our head scout who talked to that player. We pick in 2-minutes. Keep calling!" One coach said, "What do you mean Zoom just dropped him. What in the hell is Zoom! I don't care about Zoom. If I don't get his feedback in the next 30-seconds I'll zoom something up his arse if we make a mistake on this pick!" - lol

The end result is that teams' ability to evaluate players was severely hampered. This created fear to the coaches and front offices because of the level of risk, both in potential player performance and character. To teams drafting, the smart teams view every pick from a "Risk/Reward" basis. Based on much of the criteria and processes above. Ultimately, in most cases, this all made teams much more conservative than previous years trying to reduce risk more than value reward as they did at times in previous years.

In my friend's personal opinion, he thinks the teams that took very conservative approaches will be better off in the long run. And that a few teams, especially those loaded with draft picks that did not put much emphasis on risk, will get a few steals, but also a lot of mistakes.

And most of this was taking place in minutes and even seconds. Apparently it was 2x more adrenaline-pumping than any other previous draft and will take 2-3 years to see who played this Virus situation to their best advantage.