Saints GM Mickey Loomis: NFL Draft Should Be Postponed Because 'This Is Not a Fantasy Draft'
By Liam McKeone
Last night, the NFL general manager subcommittee unanimously agreed to recommend the NFL Draft be postponed and for commissioner Roger Goodell to push back the event. So far, there has been nothing to suggest that the NFL will do that. There could be some alterations to the process -- Adam Schefter suggested turning it into a seven-day event on Get Up this morning -- but for now, it'll be business as usual come April 23.
Saints GM Mickey Loomis went on The Peter King Podcast Wednesday morning to discuss how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting his team's operations. When asked by King if it would be difficult to draft players a month from now without much exposure between now and then, Loomis had this to say (around the 10:00 minute mark):
""My own opinion is it will be really difficult. I would personally be in favor of delaying the draft so we can get some of the work done that our scouts and our personnel people ordinarily do. And just the logistics of trying to conduct the draft, not having access to your draft rooms and your offices creates a lot of logistics problems. This is not a fantasy draft you can conduct out there with a list of things on a piece of paper. 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. It will be very, very difficult to conduct the draft and do it in a way that you're doing justice to the process.""
- Mickey Loomis
It's tough to disagree. There are dozens of factors we know about that go into each pick for each team, and probably dozens more that go unnoticed by everyone outside of the building. Thinking about it in layman's terms, holding the draft in a month would be akin to deciding to hire an employee without ever meeting them in person and you can only watch video of the employee doing their job, but it may not even be exactly what they'll be asked to do within your organization.
The draft is already a crapshoot as is. Without in-person visits or workouts, the chances of failure are only increased. Moving it back would be disappointing for everyone who needs the distraction during the hard times we find ourselves in, but nothing should be business as usual right now. We'll see if the NFL takes the path their employees are asking for.