Jaguars, Rest of NFL Adjusting to Changed Pre-Draft Process and Need for 'Information Pipeline'
With the 2020 NFL Draft only three weeks away, the Jacksonville Jaguars and the other 31 NFL clubs are all continuing to adjust to the new way of doing business.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, pre-draft visits to team facilities have been prohibited by the NFL since March 13. What was once an opportunity for teams to bring prospects in to conduct their own interviews, workouts, or medical checks has now been struck down as the NFL attempts to do its part to restrict the spread of the virus.
"We have been closely monitoring developments relating to the coronavirus (COVID-19) and taking action based on the guidance of our Chief Medical Officer Dr. Allen Sills and the medical experts at the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," the NFL said in a memo to teams in March. "After considering recent medical and public safety information related to COVID-19, we have decided to prohibit all in-person pre-Draft visits involving draft-eligible players effective at the end of this business day, until further notice."
The NFL's move to prohibit these visits also means teams can not send club personnel to any college campus to meet with a player ahead of the draft, while draft-eligible players are barred from traveling to team facilities.
Instead, teams will now have to conduct interviews with draft prospects via other means, such as telephone or video conferences. If a team does this, they will have to report to the player personnel department upon completion with the call participants, date, time, and length of the call, per the memo. These types of calls can only take place with a prospect three times in one week and can only be an hour long.
Now, the Jaguars and other teams will be conducting pre-draft visits via Facetime or other video conference methods, a stark contrast to how teams have operated in past years. Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone noted in a conference call with media this week that while it is a big adjustment, being able to speak with players digitally has still been advantageous.
“Yes, I think that helps quite a bit. You get a feel for – kind of what we’re doing now. You can look at someone or tell them to put a board behind them. And you can work some things with them. I think that helps," Marrone said.
But NFL coaches and personnel executives are creatures of habit. Many of them are football lifers who have been doing things more or less the same way for a number of years, or in many cases several decades.
Marrone's process of watching film and breaking down his team's draft strategy has shifted from the confines of his office at TIAA Bank Field to his home. No longer is he surrounded by his staff, instead now being assisted by the family dogs who roam the Marrone household.
"At the end of the day, I was thinking, in this league, I go before, it’s just like myself. Creature of habit. I want to go in and get that cup of coffee and go behind my desk, turn on my computer, start watching film," Marrone said. "Now, I’m watching it from home and the dog will be barking or someone will be knocking on the door. The phone will be ringing. There are lot of things to do.
"It brings me back to – when I was a college coach, we used to do this all the time. We’d watch the film. The only thing we wanted to make sure of was if a guy said he was 6-5, he wasn’t really 5-11. A lot of things that when you’re a head coach in college, you don’t have the ability to go out and work someone out."
As Marrone would note, being able to work players out in person is preferred in some cases. If Marrone and the Jaguars want to see how an interior defensive lineman could play on the edge or how a cornerback could play safety, the ideal situation would be to be able to see how the player processes the transition on the field.
But in the age of technology and social media, there are still vast amounts of workouts and game film that are available for any coach to view. This may not have been the case in past decades, but it is the case in 2020. While it is a stark contrast from seeing a player work out in person, it is still a tool for teams to utilize.
"There’s a lot of film on these guys. Quality film. A lot of workouts. A lot of these players posting workouts where you can get a chance to see that," Marrone said. "If you’re a person that always wants to get your hands on a guy and be able to work them out all day and run through a bunch of drills and feel comfortable and pick that player because of that, yes, then that will be a challenge. But we’re all doing the same thing."
But maybe the specific portion of the pre-draft process which has been most impacted by the inability to conduct visits with prospects is the lack of medical checks that teams can conduct on players.
This year's draft class specifically has a few high-profile players whose medical checks would have played a giant role in their draft stock, such as Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. In the past, teams could use their own trainers to conduct medical reviews of players and determine where they are at in their recoveries or what their long-term outlook may be.
But this year, teams won't have that opportunity. Instead, the teams may have to lean on each other and form a network of communication to ensure teams have the proper information.
"I think that your level of risk is probably a little bit greater more importantly because of the medical check," Marrone said. You’re relying on those things where players will come in and they have issues and they get re-checked and everything’s fine, so I think it’s something that the league has been talking about. Hey, we may have to share information where normally clubs are doing that on their own. I think it’s still a work in progress as far as what we can do better for the information pipeline for everyone."
