New England Patriots: 2020 NFL Draft offers fun and intrigue

The 2020 NFL Draft will go on April 23-25 for the New England Patriots and all other NFL teams despite the rest of the sports world pausing.

As the 2020 NFL Draft approaches, it might be worthwhile to reflect on just what the draft offers to viewers, non-viewers and fans of the New England Patriots and NFL teams in general.

There’s certainly a lot of hoopla for a nonsporting sporting event. What’s this all about?

Before getting to that gist, it is helpful to talk briefly about the 2020 draft and how it will differ from any in recent memory. While there have been questions raised about whether the draft should go on at all, the NFL has decided it will from April 23-25, but not in Las Vegas as was planned.

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NFL.com reports that “The league also said that it is currently exploring “innovative options for how the process will be conducted and will provide that information as it becomes available.” They  quoted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell:

"This decision reflects our foremost priority — the health and safety of all fans and citizens,” Goodell in a statement. “While this outcome is disappointing both to the NFL and to the Las Vegas community, we look forward to partnering with the Raiders, the City of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority for a future NFL Draft as well as evaluating opportunities for other major NFL events in Las Vegas in the future, including the Super Bowl."

So, due to the crisis situation facing our nation and requirements related to that crisis, the NFL draft in 2020 will be far different as an “event” than it has been in recent years. The situation in our nation has warranted that the draft assumes a different form and it will certainly feature more of electronic communications than its usual full-fledged media extravaganza.

What the draft means to New England Patriots fans and all draft fans

With that decision having been made, the draft will be conducted in about 2 weeks. So why all the hubbub in the first place about the NFL draft? I’ve touched on this briefly before, but let’s get a bit more in-depth into what this is all about.

First, the NFL draft originated in 1936. The first player ever selected according to NFL.com was Jay Berwanger from The University of Chicago. According to Heisman.com, Berwanger also received the “‘Downtown Athletic Club Trophy,’ later dubbed the Heisman Memorial Trophy.”

A bit of trivia, CNN.com notes that “The model for the trophy was Ed Smith, a player for New York University in 1934.” Note: I thought it was Berwanger actually. Nope.

Since 1936, the draft has evolved into the great event of today, a television gala to which millions of NFL teams’ fans are glued (at least part of the time) to see whom their team selects.  But why this interesting, but more importantly, why is it so vital to their teams?

It’s all about  off-season team-building

The real reason it’s vital to every team’s interests and future, is that it’s one of the major cornerstones of NFL team-building every off-season. Only one team reaches the pinnacle of success and wins the Super Bowl Championship. All the others are also-rans.

To seek to remedy the deficiencies, all teams (even the Super Bowl winner) must go back to the proverbial drawing board, regroup and begin to rebuild their squads to compete the next season. The major components are free agency, the draft, trades and undrafted free agency.  I’ll just speak about the draft aspect here.

The draft in addition to being exciting is also a very practical and relatively cost-efficient means of restocking a team’s roster. With a salary scale in place, rookie costs can be fairly easily determined to build into the team’s mandatory salary cap.

Good drafting is thus a very cost-effective means of adding productive players to your roster, if … you do a good job at it. And that is an art, not a science.

Actually, it’s more of a crap shoot than an art. Witness the New England Patriots 2019 draft as an example. Ouch!

New England Patriots 2020 draft, let the fun begin

With that in mind, the New England Patriots like all other teams are gearing up to improve their team. They are loaded with 12 draft picks at present meaning theoretically that they can add 12 new players to their team merely by selecting them at their designated slots.

A recent article doubts whether the Patriots will in fact do that, however, and the chances that they won’t are quite good. Yet, even though their draft day activities may be a bit disappointing, devastating or even appear nonsensical, you cannot say they aren’t interesting.

So all Patriots’ and other fans can watch the draft live or set their DVR’s or whatever to record it so that they can see (commercials notwithstanding, a pet peeve of mine, when the Patriots select there always seems to be a commercial interrupting it!) whom their favorite team selects.

As for this draft fan, I, an admitted draftnik, will wait enthusiastically for April 23-25. And then, I will observe as the Patriots trade up, down and all-around the draft board to baffle, bewilder and befuddle even the staunchest fans. But hey, at least you can’t say they’re boring! Right? And that’s something, isn’t it?

Interestingly, a major factor in this draft for the New England Patriots is that they don’t have the ultimate NFL Ace card to play in the season, whatever their draft success may or not be. That, of course, formerly would be No. 12.

So that will make this 2020 draft even more interesting and compelling than ever, but even more importantly, more essential to get right than any in almost 20 years! I can’t wait!