Apr 5, 2020 5 min read

With less than three weeks to go before the NFL holds its annual draft, there is a small but vocal group of reporters out there who are questioning why the league would move forward while the country is mostly shut down because of the COVID-19 virus.

The latest to question the league’s decision was none other than Adam Schefter, ESPN’s top NFL reporter.

While on that station’s SportsCenter this week, Schefter told host Scott Van Pelt, “The draft is happening only through the sheer force and determination and lack of foresight from the NFL, frankly. They are determined to put this on while there is carnage in the streets.”

I’m not sure what streets Schefter is traveling, but I’m pretty sure they don’t involve any carnage. In fact, most streets in the country are empty, at least for the most part.

Are people dying from COVID-19? Sure. Is that a tragedy? Absolutely.

But not all businesses are shut down. And the fact of the matter is, the NFL can hold its draft without any more issues than there have been in fantasy football drafts that include people in different locations.

Everything will be done online and via teleconferences. Nobody is going to be put in danger because the NFL holds its draft.

There are many people who not only want the NFL to hold its draft, they are thankful for it. Not the least among those is Schefter, whose job is to report on the league. If the league were to shut down operations, would ESPN feel the need to keep Schefter in its employ?

Perhaps Schefter is too big to fail. He’s considered one of the top NFL reporters in the country. He likely has a lengthy contract with ESPN, which still has people like former Steelers running back Merril Hoge and NFL reporter John Clayton on the payroll even though they haven’t appeared on air in years.

But news organizations around the country – along with plenty of other businesses – are laying workers off because they can’t work.

The other issue is that if the NFL moves the date of the draft back, who is to say things will be better two weeks or a month from now? I was unaware of Adam Schefter’s credentials as a virologist.

I get it. People are scared. At the same time, the NFL has to plan for a time when things return to normal. And if it can safely hold its draft, then why shouldn’t it?

• The NFL’s chief counsel, Jeffrey Pash, also took some heat last week because he said the league is planning to start as normal in September.

What, the league should have no plans in place at all? That’s six months from now.

• As expected, NFL owners voted last week – via a conference call – to expand the playoffs in each conference by one team each.

Some have come out against it, saying it waters down the playoffs.

But the NFL will have just seven of 16 teams in each conference make the postseason, a far lower percentage than in both the NHL and NBA, which both take over half of their teams to the playoffs.

And don’t expect a glut of sub-.500 teams to make the playoffs. Since 1990, when the playoffs expanded from 10 to 12 teams, 44 of the 60 teams that would have made the postseason as the seventh seed would have had winning records. That includes 10 different 10-win teams.

Only one team, the 1990 Dallas Cowboys, would have been the seventh seed with a losing record.

Oh, and the Steelers would have been in the playoffs every year since 2009.

• It’s now April 5 and the Pittsburgh Pirates are still in first place. Gotta keep looking on the bright side of things.
• One of the big issues for the NHL holding its postseason at some point will be ice quality.

Hockey isn’t meant to be played in places such as Tampa, Las Vegas and Dallas in July and August. But that’s starting to look like what’s going to happen.

The NHL, which has by far the worst TV contract among the four major sports leagues, needs the gates from the Stanley Cup Playoffs to survive. It will hold its playoffs, poor ice quality in the arenas or not.

• Raider Nation (@WBG_RAIDERS) is one of the better local high school social media feeds on Twitter. Last week, it posed the question, “Best all-around athletes to come out of Waynesburg… Go!”

There were a lot of good answers to the question. Waynesburg has had some solid athletes over the years.

But there is only one right answer to that question. Bill George is, far and away, the best athlete to come out of Waynesburg. He was a state wrestling champion, played college football at Wake Forest and then went on to star from 1952 through 1965 for the Bears, where he was the NFL’s first middle linebacker.

George, who finished his career in 1966 for the Cowboys, might not be remembered by many of young people in the area. In fact, his name wasn’t mentioned in the Twitter feed until I brought it up.

But unless any of the other athletes mentioned wind up enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as George is, the rest are just jockeying for second place.