The NFL Draft Process Will Look Different This Year

The coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the sports world over the past 10 months. As it continues to spread throughout the country, things are still not back to normal. That means the typical NFL Draft process, which usually includes a combine, pro days and visits, will be drastically altered this year.

We spoke to NFL Draft Bible's Ric Serritella to find out what it will look like for the 2021 draft, including how that impacts Syracuse's draft prospects (Andre Cisco, Nolan Cooney, Ifeatu Melifonwu and Trill Williams).

"It truly is an unprecedented draft process," Serritella said. "When you look at last year, yes the pro day circuit got wiped out for the most part. But this year, we've already lost the East West Shrine Game, the NFLPA Bowl. Luckily there's a Senior Bowl, but not every player gets invited to that. For the Syracuse players specifically, because they're underclassmen, I don't know if these guys have graduated to be eligible for the Senior Bowl. Chances are they won't get that opportunity.

"Now, I'm understanding that there's either going to be no combine or a limited combine. The medicals are the most important aspect there. Even so, with the Syracuse guys, again because they're all expected to test very well for their size, I'm hearing that there may not be positional drills at the combine. If campuses don't want these scouts going from school to school to school coming into their facility for pro days, then it could be a dicey draft process for everybody trying to get verified measurables and 40 yard dash times, etc.

"It's a tough year, especially for underclassmen. One advice the NFL Draft Bible would give players, the one lesson we learned from the pandemic last year, don't by-pass on any opportunity. Take advantage of any opportunity because you don't know when you might get another chance. Last year we saw guys sit out at the combine saying 'I'm good, I'll run that at my pro day,' and that chance never came. So that was the biggest lesson to be learned from the draft process last year.

"We hope there's a combine. It could get moved to April because they need two weeks to pull it off this year, bringing all those players into the local hospitals. It's going to have to be a little bit more staggered from my understanding. The typical timeframe would overlap with March Madness. So that's why it's either not going to be held, or held in a condensed format in April.

"I'm anticipating it's going to be tough for school's to pull off pro days even with the vaccine. I think there's too many wild cards floating around out there. It's really interesting to see how that's going to unfold. But I think it's important to paint that picture for what the next four months look like."