On Monday, the NFL made the right decision to require all teams to conduct the 2020 draft from home. Implicit in the memo from Commissioner Roger Goodell regarding the decision is, necessarily, a decision from Goodell that he’ll be staying at home, too.
Although Goodell doesn’t come out and say it, the memo necessarily eliminates the notion of Goodell making the trip from his home to ESPN’s studio for the first round of the draft.
"[W]e want all NFL personnel to comply with government directives and to model safe and appropriate health practices,” Goodell writes in the memo, a copy of which PFT has obtained. “Our staff will carry out its responsibilities in the same way, operating in separate locations outside of our offices. And after consulting with medical advisors, we cannot identify an alternative that is preferable from a medical or public health perspective, given the varying needs of clubs, the need properly to screen participants, and the unique risk factors that individual club employees may face.”
Goodell can’t expect the teams to comply with those principles if he won’t be doing the same. So get ready for Goodell to be appearing from his house -- and perhaps for his family members to boo when he declares the draft to be open, in order to best simulate the usual experience for him, and for those watching.
