It’s obvious NFL teams want the draft pushed back. It’s also obvious the NFL isn’t going to push back the draft.
The G.M. subcommittee lobbied the NFL on Tuesday to postpone the draft. Saints G.M. Mickey Loomis spoke to Peter King about his desire for the same.
Broncos General Manager John Elway has become the latest to voice his opinion on the subject.
“Really, we feel pretty good about where we are,” Elway said in an interview with the team website. “We’d rather have it backed up, so we can get all our scouts and everybody in, but if it’s limited and we can stay there and they’re not going to move the draft, we’re in good shape. I think that one of the reasons why, with I think the coaches not going to the Combine and them spending the whole week here just on the college side, it’s put us way ahead there because we’ve got the coaches’ rankings already. The scouts are already working on next year a little bit to the 2021 summer manual, so we feel like we’re in pretty good shape. If it moves back, great. We’re ready for that. If it doesn’t move, then we’ll be ready for that, too.”
The NFL has made it pretty clear the draft will proceed as planned April 23-25 sans all public events. Instead, the league will turn it into a made-for-TV event.
A handful of teams, including the Broncos, didn’t send assistant coaches to the Combine. Based on what’s happened in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s likely given those teams a leg up in evaluating prospects.