Mel Kiper Jr., Steelers' Kevin Colbert weigh in on new-look NFL Draft

With the bravado of a 19th century ringmaster, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell last week proclaimed the show must go on as it pertains to the league’s annual draft.

Amid the escalating coronavirus pandemic, the seven-round event will proceed as scheduled, April 23-25, even though the draft no longer will be held in Las Vegas and will be devoid of the circus-like atmosphere it had garnered in recent years.

Teams will make picks remotely and, if the NFL doesn’t reopen team facilities by then, each organization’s scouts and coaches won’t convene in the proverbial war room to provide input on potential picks and evaluate possible trades. Prospects and their families will not convene at a draft site, meaning no first-round picks will walk across the stage and get a customary bear hug from Goodell.

The process will be akin to an online fantasy football draft, which is a reason the NFL general manager subcommittee recommended having it delayed.

Goodell, though, stood firm and after meeting with the league’s management executive committee, he announced a “unanimous and unequivocal” decision to keep the draft in place.

That decision drew the support of the NFL’s most noted draft analyst.

“I would move forward with it,” ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. said. “Everyone needs normalcy to set in. We’re doing the radio (shows). We’re doing all the draft stuff. We’re doing the mocks. Everything is going along.

“Free agency went along as scheduled even though everything wasn’t perfect and ideal. We saw players moving all over the place, trades being made. Everything is being done. The draft can be done without having everyone together.”

The counter argument is that free agency, unlike the draft, involves transactions of known NFL commodities. Players have spent at least four seasons in the league, and teams by and large know what they are getting from the free agents they covet.

The concern for general managers is only a handful of colleges conducted pro days before the pandemic shuttered such events. Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert and coach Mike Tomlin attended Clemson’s pro day March 12 before the organization curtailed all travel.

“We value the pro days to be able to get up and close and interact with the player, watch him work out, meet his family,” Colbert said. “That part has been taken away from us, but we’re not alone in that endeavor.”

Visits to team facilities for prospects — 30 are allotted to each club — also were eliminated, and teams have scrambled to get medical information on players who didn’t attend the NFL Combine in February.

Colbert, whose scouting career began in 1984, hearkened to how teams conducted the NFL Draft a decade earlier. In 1974, the Steelers assembled the greatest collection of talent from a single class when they drafted Hall of Famers Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Jack Lambert and Mike Webster and signed another, Donnie Shell, as an undrafted free agent.

“Art Rooney Jr., Bill Nunn and Dick Haley, they put together the best draft in NFL history, and they didn’t have pro days, they didn’t have combines,” Colbert said. “They relied on what they felt those guys were as football players. If we have to go into this draft with that same mentality, that’s our challenge, and we’ll do the very best we can.”

Minus face-to-face contact, teams have conducted video chats with prospects. And some players, most notably former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, filmed workout videos that they shared on social media.

Tagovailoa was a top-five pick until he sustained a significant hip injury that included a dislocation and a broken back wall of his hip socket. He wasn’t medically cleared to participate at the NFL Combine, and his chance to work out at Alabama’s pro day was squashed because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“It’s nice to see,” Kiper said. “Teams now don’t have a lot to go by, so that makes it somewhat promising. It’s going to be very interesting with the draft coming up to see what happens there.”

Kiper identified former Penn State wide receiver KJ Hamler as another prospect affected by his school’s pro day being canceled. A borderline first-round pick, Hamler was scheduled to work out for scouts after being limited to the bench press at the NFL Combine because of a hamstring injury.

“He needed to catch the ball effectively,” Kiper said. “He had some drops at Penn State. We know he’s fast, we know how athletic he is and he’s great in space, but not having a pro day hurt him a bit.”