First Call: NHL Draft lottery fallout posses questions for NFL if 2020 season busts

For “First Call” Monday, we look at the NHL draft lottery drawing over the weekend and what the NFL can learn from it.

Or — better said — what the NFL can learn to avoid.

So the NHL had its draft lottery over the weekend, and its perceived worst-case scenario took place.

Team X won.

Team X means some random club from the loser pool of teams, which don’t advance from the play-in round of the rebooted schedule, will have the opportunity to select future franchise player Alexis Lafreniere.

In other words, the loser of the Penguins-Montreal Canadiens series has a chance to draft this future organization-altering player.

Meanwhile, the dreadful Detroit Red Wings only finished fourth.

Seems weird, right?

Many people are ripping the NHL for how this lottery process was organized. So what can the NFL learn from this perceived misstep if its season isn’t allowed to get off the ground in 2020?

I know. It’s a pessimistic view. But with the way covid-19 numbers are going, maybe we should start embracing that possibility.

Keep in mind, the last time there was a canceled NHL season, it was the Penguins who benefited from a tiered lottery system that yielded them the top draft choice in Sidney Crosby’s rookie season.

As the Detroit Free Press recalled, “When a lockout canceled the 2004-05 season, with no new standings to go on, the league came up with an alternate way to weight its lottery.

Rather than take a single season into account, the NHL used composite records from its three previous full seasons — 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 — to slot teams into different categories. Teams with no playoff appearances in that time, and no No. 1 overall picks in the previous four drafts, were given three lottery balls. Teams with one playoff appearance or No. 1 pick were given two. And everyone else had one of the 48 balls in the hopper, or approximately a 2% chance of landing the greatest prospect of his generation.”

And, cue the angels singing. The Penguins landed Crosby.

Now then, what may happen in the NFL if no games are played and Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence is sitting there as the prized, clear-cut prospect as the No. 1 pick?

Someone — God bless their hearts and covid-19 shut-in-inspired ingenuity — created an NFL-style simulation based on the 2005 NHL model.

Here are few other ideas:

Option 1: Reboot last year’s order, relying solely on 2019 results with only existing trades of picks allowed, and those made in advance of the 2021 event.

The problem with that idea, though, is that the Cincinnati Bengals get the No. 1 pick two years in a row. Which is a problem for everyone besides the Bengals.

But before we dismiss this idea out of hand, what do you think Cincy would do?

Do the Bengals take Trevor Lawrence and trade Joe Burrow? Or vice versa?

I’d trade Burrow and go with Lawrence. Either way, though, the Bengals would get a franchise quarterback and an ungodly haul in exchange for whichever “other” franchise quarterback they shipped away.

So much so, that the resulting takeaway would be disproportionately unfair. So scratch this plan.

Option 2: A tiered lottery format with sliding-percentage chances.

Let’s say, between the worst 10 teams from 2019, the middle 11 teams, and the best 11 from 2019.

This would be more equitable, and similar to the NHL system.

However they do it, just exclude the Bengals from the first tier. I can’t live with them getting the first pick two years in a row!

Option 3: Whatever the NFL format in the first round, it could do a snake draft like a lot of fantasy football leagues do. It’d go 1-32. Then 33 back up through 64 in the second round. And back down again 65-96.

Option 4: Just don’t have a draft. Skip it.

I don’t know how that would go over with the NFL Players’ Association or college players who are now three years removed from high school graduation.

But maybe that doesn’t end up being the NFL’s concern.

Congrats, Clemson! You get Lawrence in 2021 as well.

Nah. I don’t see that one happening either.

But of all these shaky ideas, I really don’t have a stable one. So, let’s just play. Somehow. Someway.