Not many 2021 draft picks have been included in trades during the 2020 draft, and possibly for good reason. If this year’s annual crapshoot has become more crap than shoot, next year’s draft could end up being more sh-t than sandwich.
Although plenty of the stewards of college football are taking a glass-10-percent-full approach to the prospect of having college football in the fall without college, there’s a much greater chance than anyone realizes that a September-to-January college football season simply won’t work amid the current pandemic, for reasons including the unavailability of widespread testing to the burden placed on first responders to the reliance . Which means that NFL teams trying to figure out who to draft in April 2021 may be relying on film from 2019.
Given the chance that the college football season will be a spring-semester activity, next year’s draft would happen either during or (if delayed) just after conclusion of the next college campaign.
Thus, the prospect of taking on extra picks next year has to be a bit scary at this point. And the temptation to dangle a 2021 pick may be even greater, since the bird in the hand will be worth far more than the possibility of throwing a dart in an unlit room that may or may not contain a dartboard.