The upcoming, fully virtual NFL Draft presents a number of potential obstacles that has teams worried. A main concern involves the process of signing undrafted rookies following the draft.
Recently speaking with Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane supported a potential solution to this problem, proposed by Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert, where the traditional seven-round draft would be expanded to 10 rounds.
Each year after the draft, teams suddenly become the ones pitching to prospects as those who don't get selected become free agents, getting to sign anywhere they prefer.
With team facilities closed and front office members, coaches, and scouts only connected online or over the phone, this process becomes quite a challenge.
"When you're doing free agency like that after the seventh round, you've got everybody still in your draft room or at least down the hall," Beane told Florio. "Now, trying to communicate because you only have so many dollars that you can allocate from a bonus and so lot of times you have several deals going. Once you agree to one, you've got to pull out of the others. If you're chasing three tackles hoping to land one. If you've offered $15,000 to one and maybe you're talking $12,000 to the other, but you don't want them both. Once you get one in the boat, you've got to back out on the other. It's a moving target. I think that will be an obstacle for all teams as we work through it remotely."
An expanded draft wouldn't completely fix this issue, but it would allow teams a better opportunity to land players they would usually pursue after the draft.
Just another dimension of the draft that exposes the lack of fluidity in communication there may be next week.
