Browns mum on thoughts of delaying the draft

Maybe Roger Goodell was a mail carrier in a previous life and is using a version of his former credo in his present job as NFL Commissioner:

“‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor novel coronavirus stays the league from holding the draft when it says it wants to.’ Now stick that in your pipe and smoke it.”

General managers around the league are trying to convince Goodell to postpone the draft, now scheduled for April 23-25, because of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to an ESPN story.

The draft was to be held in Las Vegas. The NFL first announced no fans would be present and then decided it would be a studio event and not in Las Vegas at all. Details of the plan are in the planning stages.

But as of now the draft will start four weeks from March 26 despite a recommendation from the league’s general manager subcommittee.

“I’d be personally in favor of delaying the draft, so that we can get some of the work done that our scouts and our personnel people ordinarily do,” Saints general manager Mickey Loomis said March 25 on the Peter King Podcast. “And then just the logistics of trying to conduct the draft, with not having access to your draft rooms and your offices, creates a lot of logistic problems.”

A Browns’ spokesman was asked for a response from general manager Andrew Berry on the issue: “Nothing we want to state a public opinion on,” he said in a text message.

Berry and everyone in the Browns’ front office is working remotely, the spokesman said.

The NFL has shut down all pre-draft visits, but not all states with NFL teams have been issued work from home orders from their respective governors. Residents of Texas (Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys), Florida (Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Miami Dolphins), for example, do not have to work from home. The personnel units of those teams could gain an advantage in their draft preparation over those that do have to work remotely.

“This is not a fantasy draft that you conduct out there with just a list of things on a piece of paper,” Loomis said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into it to prepare, and there’s a lot of work that is done during the draft. Listen, it’ll be very, very difficult to conduct that and do it in a way that you’re doing justice to the process.”

The general manager subcommittee’s vote recommending the draft be delayed was 6-1, according to the ESPN story.