Buckle up—Mock Monday is upon us. With the NFL staging its first-ever completely virtual draft due to the coronavirus, the threat of an internet snafu has IT teams working overtime to make sure their equipment is in shipshape for Thursday’s 8 PM ET start. Obviously, we’ve come a long way in the past two decades, graduating from bulky desktops and snail-speed dial-up to touch-screen tablets and 5G smart phones. But even the most technologically-savvy among us have experienced our fair share of computer catastrophes (we’ve all been swallowed up at one time or another by the dreaded “blue screen of death”), which means it’s good to be prepared.
To prevent such an occurrence from happening Thursday night, the NFL’s 32 teams will join up Monday for a test run to help acclimate themselves to the equipment they’ll be using during the draft. Not wanting to tip their hand, teams will instead draft former NFL greats during Monday’s mock simulation while also experimenting with trades.
Given the unusual nature of this year’s draft—this will be the first time in recent memory that teams won’t all be in the same room together—the league has put in a number safeguards to prevent chaos. According to ESPN’s Tim McManus, each team will have three representatives permitted to make picks in case of technical difficulties. The league will also be allowed to pause the draft clock should extenuating circumstances arise. Teams have already been running detailed simulations to prepare for Thursday night, so no one will be going into Monday’s dry run completely cold.
Monday’s dress rehearsal should be a useful exercise, just one suggestion—if teams are able to draft past legends like John Elway and Walter Payton, why not open it up to fictional players like Willie Beamon and Shane Falco? I can see it now. "With the 23rd pick the Patriots select ... Uncle Rico."
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