Former NFL Execs See Changes with Virtual Draft

Fewer trades and more players from the Senior Bowl getting drafted are two impacts of the NFL’s virtual draft, scheduled to begin next week, according to SiriusXM NFL radio analyst and former team executive Mark Dominick.

These next few days, as more and more NFL analysts hold conference calls with reporters, the subject of the first-ever virtual draft and its impact will be asked and answered.

On Tuesday, Dominick and Pro Football Hall of Famer Gil Brandt took to the phone lines.

Dominick believes the potential for trades in the first round will remain normal, and that might be good news for Eagles general manager Howie Roseman, who has made two draft-day deals in that round in each of the previous two drafts, it will be the later rounds that could be affected.

The issue is the logistics of teams having their typical war room personnel not gathered in one place, but, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, sitting in their respective homes - at a safe social distance - using zoom or Skype to communicate.

Then factor in the time between picks, which remains unchanged. There will be 10 minutes between picks in the first round, seven minutes in rounds two and three, and five minutes in rounds four through seven.

“I think it will be an exciting draft but I do think because of the difficulty of managing the draft and just the decisions that we make, I think because of the problem with the logistics in terms of quick conversations back and forth and what you take versus what you give and with the negotiating I think what you see happen in the draft can certainly make it more difficult for trades to happen,” said Dominick.

The Eagles have three picks in the fourth round and may try to part with one to move around the board, in typical Roseman fashion.

Dominick recommended that the groundwork for late-round deals start being put into place as soon as right now.

Without the benefit of top-30 visits or face-to-face meetings, finding out all a team needs to know about a prospect was a challenging situation this offseason.

Not even the NFL Scouting Combine can be counted on, because, as Brandt pointed out, not every prospect in Indy in late Februarty actually went through all the testing.

“(Using) defensive backs, corners, as an example,” said Brandt, an analyst for SiriusXM NFL. “There were I think 34 corners and only 10 of them completed everything.”

Dominick also sees other changes a draft such as this one may yield, starting with underclassmen. He doesn’t believe you will see as many of them get drafted as in years past.

“We all know (the elite underclassmen) will go first or second round, but that group of underclassmen that would’ve have been fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh rounders, we’re going to see a higher percentage of underclassmen that declared don’t get drafted," said Dominick.

“They didn’t go to NFL PA game, the East-West game, the Senior Bowl. Some may not have gotten invited to the Combine, therefore you don’t have medicals, so I think the undrafted class will be hit harder.’

Speaking of the Senior Bowl, Dominick expects more players that participated in that game will get drafted than in years past, “because you’ll feel so much more confident about everything you need to know about that player.”