Roger Goodell confirms NFL Draft will not be canceled, for now

On Thursday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent a memo to the teams stating that this year’s NFL Draft will take place at the end of April.

The NFL is going forward with the league’s draft next month, at least that is what Roger Goodell is telling teams. He made it clear via a memo that was sent to the 32 teams that the draft, albeit in a different format, will go on as scheduled.

The question everyone now is asking, is should it?

Prospective NFL players will attend no big stage presentations and will instead stay at home with family. The league has informed teams that they will conduct the draft from outside of their facilities with a small number of people present. They also want the rest of the draft personnel to participate via remote technology with a direct line of communication open.

This is going to be an interesting and unprecedented year for the NFL’s biggest off-season show. To say the least, the show itself will still go on but the fireworks will not.

Albert Breer has stated via Twitter that he has spoken with several coaches and general managers who want the draft delayed. In the memo from the league, there was also a statement about teams being disciplined for making any issues with the process made known to the public.

Even if the draft does go on as scheduled for now, there likely will be no off-season workouts of any kind at least until late June and there is still the possibility that training camp could be delayed in August.

This is completely unknown territory right now and we simply do not know enough about Novel Covid-19 to understand fully how long this will continue to grow or how long it will be until things start to get back to what is considered normal.

For now, the countdown to the NFL draft will continue but it may stop depending on how the national health issues trend.