Goodell said one of the best elements of the virtual draft was his interactions with fansNFL FOUNDATION
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the first virtual draft "came out better than any of us thought," according to a Q&A with Sam Farmer of the L.A. TIMES. Goodell said that he "wasn't going to judge this on ratings or normal numbers. ... It's all going to be about, can we demonstrate that we can work from home safely, productively, which goes to the the operation of the draft itself?" Goodell added, "Can we send the right tone and messaging. And finally, can we do something really to give back to our communities that are so much in need?" Goodell: "Those things we really hit." Below are excerpts from the Q&A, some of which have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Overall, what did you learn?
Goodell: We can accomplish things that we don't think we can accomplish. The word I use is we have to adapt. You have to pivot, and you have to work the problem for solutions, and that's what we've done. When we saw a problem, we fixed it. We found a way to accomplish it. It was different. We can't hug the draft prospect. So what are we going to do to find something that's as close and may even have additional benefits? The additional benefit for us was, we got to do it with more. I think I was on FaceTime with 70 or 75 players. We couldn't have done that in the past. We could have, but we wouldn't have thought about it.
Q: What are the memories you'll hang onto?
Goodell: We had a cool thing yesterday. We called it the fan inner-circle. Those were 15 or so fans that were selected to be up on the screen. That was really cool because I could interact with them. You guys didn't see a lot of that because I was doing it before the pick came in. To get in there, you had to submit something in video. One of them was a doctor in Baltimore who wears his Ravens shirt. I FaceTimed with him yesterday. Basically, he looks at the FaceTime and says, 'Yeah, I can't talk right now, I'm in the middle of something.' He says, 'Who is this?' I say it's Roger Goodell, and he goes, 'What?' The guy was almost in tears. The thing he submitted was how he uses the Ravens with his patients to talk and to raise their spirits. What he's been doing with COVID. He's right on the front lines. It's powerful as hell. So we just gave him two Super Bowl tickets. I thought the guy was going to cry. It was like the coolest moment.
Q: What about moving forward? What do you draw on from this experience?
Goodell: Our next task is really to get our facilities open. We're putting protocols together. ... There are challenges. There are things that are unknown that we need to figure out. We need to get experts in and help us. But the objective here is X, let's figure out how to get there. The objective for us is let's get our facilities open. The challenge is you've got 50 states, and 32 teams operating in a little bit over half of those. How do we do that, because you've got different standards (L.A. TIMES, 4/27).
DEFINING MOMENT: Goodell said holding the draft "definitely struck a chord with people," and the reactions from people have been "overwhelming." Goodell: "I don't think we've ever had a reaction like that. And I wrote a note to the staff on the way out from my house. I said I'm not sure if in our 100-year history we've had a finer moment and that I've been more proud of our people because it was that kind of experience for us." In DC, Mark Maske notes among the messages Goodell received yesterday was "one from a general manager who had been opposed to the league holding the draft as scheduled." Goodell said, "I won't disclose (which general manager), but I'll just read you this line: 'As a GM who was against holding the draft as scheduled, thank you for having the vision to proceed. It was an experience with my family that I will never forget.' It's just cool" (WASHINGTON POST, 4/27).
CHEERS TO YOU: The L.A. TIMES' Farmer in a separate piece notes Goodell "praised his staff, the hundreds of people it took to pull the production together on the fly, as well as a slew of sponsors who stepped in to offer services and technical support." When the draft ended, Goodell "headed upstairs, grabbed a bottle of whiskey and brought it back to the basement for the final spontaneous gesture." He gathered with his four-member production team -- all wearing masks -- and "proposed a toast, a virtual one, to the league executives watching via video" (L.A. TIMES, 4/27).
