The 2020 NFL Draft will be done virtually

Last week, the National Football League declared that the 2020 NFL Draft would take place on time, meaning that we’re a little more than two weeks away from the start of the selection meeting. At that time, the “War Room” for each team was to be limited to ten people, all observing proper social distancing guidelines.

Now, with the uncertain times that we’re going through, everyone involved with the Minnesota Vikings’ draft, and the drafts of the 31 teams that don’t matter as much, will be even more isolated.

According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, all of the team facilities will be closed during this year’s NFL Draft, meaning that GMs, coaches, and scouts will not be able to gather in one place. The full letter is in Schefter’s tweet above, but the applicable part here reads as follows:

Because of these circumstances, Clubs have been advised to prepare to conduct the 2020 NFL Draft entirely outside of their facilities and in a fully virtual format, with club personnel in separate locations and able to communicate with one another and Draft headquarters by phone or internet. We have reviewed this matter in the past few days with both the Competition Committee and CEC, and this will confirm that Clubs will conduct their draft operations remotely, with club personnel separately located in their homes.

We still don’t know for sure how the networks are going to be handling the draft or anything like that, but without there even being “War Rooms” set up at NFL facilities across the country, it appears that it’s going to be a whole lot of “four people sitting at a desk” shots and highlights of players.

We’ve said several times that this year’s NFL Draft is certainly going to be interesting, if nothing else. Now it’s going to be conducted in the same format as your yearly fantasy football league from the sounds of it. Here’s hoping that Rick Spielman’s internet connection doesn’t drop out and he’s stuck auto-drafting or anything like that.