The NFL has a "problem": Its virtual NFL Draft was superior to the old way

Los Angeles Times

Next year, the NFL plans to go back to making the NFL Draft a glitzy affair with a massive stage and crowd in Cleveland. But this year's virtual draft showed the virtues of paring things down. "The NFL has a problem with this draft format: It’s better than the old way. Now the league has to figure out how to incorporate this authentic, not-too-perfect style into the glitzy extravaganza typical drafts have become," says Sam Farmer. The NFL sent "tech kits" to 58 players that included lights, microphones, tripods, and two iPhones — all for streaming video of the sheltered-at-home prospects celebrating being drafted, says Farmer. This allowed more draft prospects to participate in the  draft. In an interview, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell -- who over three days did a TikTok dance with a draft prospect and wore a T-shirt --  was asked by Farmer what he learned from this year's virtual draft, which was the highest-rated ever. "We can accomplish things that we don’t think we can accomplish," he said. "The word I use is we have to adapt. You have to pivot, and you have to work the problem for solutions, and that’s what we’ve done. When we saw a problem, we fixed it. We found a way to accomplish it. It was different. We can’t hug the draft prospect. So what are we going to do to find something that’s as close and may even have additional benefits? The additional benefit for us was, we got to do it with more. I think I was on FaceTime with 70 or 75 players. We couldn’t have done that in the past. We could have, but we wouldn’t have thought about it."

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• Remote NFL Draft also highlighted the lack of diversity among NFL general managers and head coaches
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