An NFL Draft Unlike Ever Before
AP
One of the first live sporting events since the nation shut down proves to be a hit
All eyes turned to National Football League (NFL) commissioner Roger Goddell as he announced the first pick of the 2020 NFL draft from, of all places, his basement. Due to the shelter-in-place implemented across the country, this year’s NFL draft occurred in a new and never-before-seen way: online.
Denver Broncos General Manager and former Super Bowl winning Quarterback, John Elway, gave credit to Goddell for carrying on with the draft despite the current epidemic.
“I will tell you a lot of GMs and some owners didn’t want it to happen right now, but Roger held strong,” said former Super Bowl champion John Elway. “He had forethought about what this country was going through, with people quarantined, missing sports, needing some normalcy.”
Coaches and general managers of teams called, texted and emailed their picks to NFL officials who relayed these selections to Goddell. Then, Goddell announced each of the 255 total selections from his basement in Westchester, New York to the world watching at home. While many media sources shamed the NFL for holding the draft in such an unorthodox setting, the league saw their highest-ever viewership as 55 million viewers tuned in to see the fate of their favorite football franchises. This viewership feat crushed previous years numbers by 35 percent.
Aside from new viewership highs, the 2020 draft saw college football’s most dominant team, the Louisiana State University (LSU) Tigers, tie the draft record for most players selected from a collegiate organization with fourteen.
LSU’s most notable player, quarterback Joe Burrow, was the first to hear his name called as he became the fifth quarterback in the last six years to be drafted with the #1 overall pick.
Drafted by his hometown team, the Cincinnati Bengals, Burrow became one of four quarterbacks drafted in the first round in what was considered the strongest quarterback draft class in recent memory.
With the Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas, the San Francisco 49ers have truly become the Bay Area’s team and their front office did a remarkable job at replacing the departures from this past seasons’ Super Bowl roster.
Earlier in the off-season, the 49ers traded their Pro Bowl defensive tackle, Deforest Buckner, to the Indianapolis Colts in exchange for their first-round draft pick.
The 49ers used this first-round draft pick to select defensive tackle, Javon Kinlaw from the University of South Carolina. Kinlaw earned first-team All American honors at South Carolina and could provide a huge boost to the 49ers frontline.
John Lynch, the 49ers general manager, strongly supports the emphasis on having a strong defensive line to disrupt the high scoring offenses that the team faces and has worked with the head coach, Kyle Shanahan, to build the team’s exceptional defensive line.
“Kyle and I came together and one of the things that we really believed in is that a good defensive line is an equalizer in a football league where everything's set up for offenses to be successful” Lynch said. “One of the ways you can equalize the equation is to get after and knock down the passer. We built a pretty good unit there and we wanted to keep that strong.”
The second most important need for the Niners to address was their issues at wide receiver. With their additional first-round draft pick, they selected Brandon Aiyuk from Arizona State University.
Aiyuk and San Francisco’s seventh-round pick, Jauan Jennings, hope to fill the void that Emmanuel Sanders and Marquise Godwin left at wide receiver this offseason.
Outside of the 49ers, Stanford, Cal and several high schools in the Bay Area celebrated as their former players were selected. Stanford and Cal each saw three players get drafted this weekend, with Cal safety, Ashton Davis being the first selected of the six college standouts. Davis’ Bay Area roots run deep as he attended Santa Cruz High School before walking onto the track team at Cal and subsequently the football team. Mention a player from Stanford here.
Valley Christian High School of San Jose, celebrated as their ex-wide receiver, Colin Johnson, was selected in the fifth round by the Jacksonville Jaguars. Meanwhile in the East Bay, De La Salle of Concord, saw their former tight end Devin Asiasi get picked in the third round by the New England Patriots.
While this draft format proved to be a huge success for many teams, there is no telling what the future will bring for the start of the NFL season.