Season in jeopardy?

[CanDB]

So....this is just theoretical stuff, because I still have hopes for a season, even if late. I mentioned before but like to get your feedback on this.

IF a sport like The NFL cancelled it's entire season (or most other teams sports), how would the draft work the following year?

In other words, and lets stay with The NFL and our beloved Broncos....we just came off our draft. If there was no football, what would be the fairest way to conduct the draft, relative to draft order? The draft we just had was based on last year's performance, but how do you select in the 2nd draft, given there is no new performance (standings) to guide the process?

Here's my take:

1) It would not be fair to use the same draft order, because that would overly benefit lower level teams. If you just got rewarded with the best picks, you should not automatically get those same high quality draftees. because doubling up in quality is more then enough compensation for your poor performance the year before.

2) Clearly, where trades were involved, those selections no longer apply.

3) If anything, I would go with some form of lottery, perhaps weighted a little bit towards bottom to top in the previous year's standings. That way weaker teams might gain a little, but all teams would have a chance to move up where possible. The weightings in my opinion, would be advantageous but not significant. Though it still seems to over compensate weaker teams, not if the weightings are reasonable. Conversely, I prefer that to a complete open lottery, because I don't think it wise for top teams to easily gain high picks.

What are your thoughts?

One thing I never thought of until I read someone's post in here is what about the draft ? If theres no season what's the draft order ? How can the league fairly decide the draft order if theres no season? Easy answer , they cant . That is one good reason to see the season go ahead. The coaches can disntance themselves from the players and coaches and trainers can wear masks .

Pretty sure it would remain the same draft order as last year. That makes the most sense to me.

I was trying to start a discussion on this topic, so good that others have responded. But DB, if you read my response, I do not think it fair to use the same draft order. That would be too big an advantage to the poorer performing teams. No way , for example, should one team get 2 straight #1's. That's huge!

If they do not play this season, I would go with a weighted lottery, weakest to strongest, to give weaker teams an advantage, but not a guarantee.

[Bronco51]

Good thing for football is that the NBA and MLB can guinea pig this experiment. It was reported today that 16 out of 302 tested NBA players have the virus. And there were supposed to be approximately 340 players reporting. So they aren’t sure if the other 30+ not tested are going to report to play. MLB is opening next week and they have players unsure of the safety protocols as well. Our hometown Rockies had 3 players test positive. What impact does that have on them going forward? So, if we see sports, we may see a watered down product. Is that worth it for entertainment? For some, yes, for others, nope. Thankfully football has some time to see how it will go and adapt plans.

[beastlyskronk]

I was trying to start a discussion on this topic, so good that others have responded. But DB, if you read my response, I do not think it fair to use the same draft order. That would be too big an advantage to the poorer performing teams. No way , for example, should one team get 2 straight #1's. That's huge!

If they do not play this season, I would go with a weighted lottery, weakest to strongest, to give weaker teams an advantage, but not a guarantee.

A lottery makes sense to me, maybe even a bidding system somewhat like the waiver wire, possibly even a snake draft. I wouldn’t complain if it stayed the same but I know a few teams wouldn’t be happy about it particularly the Patriots who will probably be drafting much higher this upcoming draft.

Although keeping the same order could really flip the league on its head and those perennial bottom feeders that think they finally got their QB could really turn their fortunes around. The good teams would still be fine as they’re good teams because they typically draft well.

[Spice 1]

It’s not just coaches. There’s been players in all leagues saying they don’t think football is worth risking it.

Malcolm Jenkins said yesterday football is non essential and he doesn’t think he wants to play and risk getting it.

Just because people think they are healthy enough to beat it doesn’t mean they want to get it. I don’t wear a mask when I go grocery shopping. But outside of that I still stay home and try to avoid getting too close to people when I do go out. I don’t think it would affect me much as I rarely ever get sick but I’m still not really wanting to find out.

The thing is, I've seen testimonials on social media from people in their twenties to early forties, who claim to have been in good health, who are having debilitating long term effects from having it. Stuff like kidneys, lungs, heart arrhythmia, and blood clotting.

I am an essential worker but I am not front line customer service like a story worker.

IMO the difference between say a store worker and a sports player is this.

The store workers are exposed to more people who may be infected but have various forms of protective gear and shields in place.

The Sports players do not get the same level of risk in terms of number of potential exposures.... but they have less protective gear and shields in place.


Least I think this is the arguments in place.

Totally agree. I deal with probably 10-15 people per day on average. Not a high volume, but the same measures apply. I can maintain my distance, not touch my face, and sanitize my hands during and after encounters. Participating in a contact sport is a different animal entirely.

One thing I never thought of until I read someone's post in here is what about the draft ? If theres no season what's the draft order ? How can the league fairly decide the draft order if theres no season? Easy answer , they cant . That is one good reason to see the season go ahead. The coaches can disntance themselves from the players and coaches and trainers can wear masks .

I'm having visions of frozen envelopes, and fist pumping NY Jets fans.

[Bronco51]

I was trying to start a discussion on this topic, so good that others have responded. But DB, if you read my response, I do not think it fair to use the same draft order. That would be too big an advantage to the poorer performing teams. No way , for example, should one team get 2 straight #1's. That's huge!

If they do not play this season, I would go with a weighted lottery, weakest to strongest, to give weaker teams an advantage, but not a guarantee.

I can’t see the Bungles getting Joe Burrow, and then getting to draft Trevor Lawrence. They could turn one of those into a tremendous haul of draft picks. Without playing a snap.

[orange crush75]

I can’t see the Bungles getting Joe Burrow, and then getting to draft Trevor Lawrence. They could turn one of those into a tremendous haul of draft picks. Without playing a snap.

Yup , exactly my thoughts as well

[orange crush75]

I'm with you CanDB

[CanDB]

A lottery makes sense to me, maybe even a bidding system somewhat like the waiver wire, possibly even a snake draft. I wouldn’t complain if it stayed the same but I know a few teams wouldn’t be happy about it particularly the Patriots who will probably be drafting much higher this upcoming draft.

Although keeping the same order could really flip the league on its head and those perennial bottom feeders that think they finally got their QB could really turn their fortunes around. The good teams would still be fine as they’re good teams because they typically draft well.

I can’t see the Bungles getting Joe Burrow, and then getting to draft Trevor Lawrence. They could turn one of those into a tremendous haul of draft picks. Without playing a snap.

Yeah, I see it as overcompensation for the poorer teams, not that I am against parity. But the example of Burrow and Lawrence says it all to me. The Bengals could pick up a load of capital for Lawrence, and that would be far more than they are entitled to, in my opinion. Compensate yes, feel sorry for, no!

However, with a well thought out weighting, The Bengals could in fact gain the #1 pick, but the odds would be highly reduced. And the odds of the top teams landing a high pick would be quite small.

[orange crush75]

Maybe they can do a simulated Madden season then draft accordingly......lol I kid I kid

[darryn16]

I have a strong feeling there will be no season for us this year. I live near Olympia, the capital of WA and Thurston County has been experiencing a resurgence of covid cases soon after WA relaxed the stay at home order. In fact, I had to see my regular doctor about a month ago for something unrelated and she wanted me to come in for my annual physical. She actually told me to schedule ASAP because there is definitely going to be a resurgence of covid cases and she wanted to get my physical out of the way before the second wave hits. Don't know what the national stats are, but so far where I live, looks like she was right on.

If no NFL players had caught the virus up to this point I could easily see the league taking the, "our guys are too young and strong to get sick" stand and carrying on with the season...but...Von Miller kinda blows that argument out of the water. Besides the Bronco season in jeopardy, what bums me out even more is I'm a huge LSU fan and I doubt there will be a chance to see my Bayou Bengals defending their national championship

Hey Dennis,
I live in Seattle and as of the beginning of this week, Yakima county had the highest number of confirmed cases in the western US. Yikes!!!!! I saw a story where the Hall of Fame game was cancelled. I can only imagine the upcoming season will be next.....

[jazzbodog]

It would be sad if there isn’t football because of the unnecessary panic.

The NFL has the only regular season I care about.

I don’t care about basketball or baseball until it’s playoff time and even then it’s more about the championship series.

That being said, it would be somewhat interesting to see if people really are willing to tolerate not having football.

I'm curious...please define "unnecessary panic".

Unnecessary, adjective, not needed.

Panic, noun, sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior.
verb, feel or cause to feel panic.

OR did you mean "all people being over cautious"?

[lvbronx]

A lottery makes sense to me, maybe even a bidding system somewhat like the waiver wire, possibly even a snake draft. I wouldn’t complain if it stayed the same but I know a few teams wouldn’t be happy about it particularly the Patriots who will probably be drafting much higher this upcoming draft.

Although keeping the same order could really flip the league on its head and those perennial bottom feeders that think they finally got their QB could really turn their fortunes around. The good teams would still be fine as they’re good teams because they typically draft well.

Have a lottery for each round. Put a ball from each team into the machine and pull them out one at a time and that team picks. Next round put all the team balls back in. I'm not saying it's best for the NFL only that it would be fun to watch fans react as they "win" or "lose" the lottery and the teams scramble as they don't know who is picking next.

[DenverBlood]

I was trying to start a discussion on this topic, so good that others have responded. But DB, if you read my response, I do not think it fair to use the same draft order. That would be too big an advantage to the poorer performing teams. No way , for example, should one team get 2 straight #1's. That's huge!

If they do not play this season, I would go with a weighted lottery, weakest to strongest, to give weaker teams an advantage, but not a guarantee.

Why would it be fair to do anything else but Can? You’re going to reward someone else the top pick that for all we know could’ve won 6-8 games this year? I think most people believe the Bengals need a lot more than joe burrows to turn them around.

Sure teams would move but there’s no other possible format that would be fair at all. Honestly the most fair thing to do is skip the draft altogether. Even though that’s not really fair to the college players. But without them playing this year how can you possibly know who’s ready?

Are we really that worried about the bengals or redskins getting the top two picks two years straight? For all we know in 5 years they may have taken two awful picks this past year.

[DenverBlood]

Yeah, I see it as overcompensation for the poorer teams, not that I am against parity. But the example of Burrow and Lawrence says it all to me. The Bengals could pick up a load of capital for Lawrence, and that would be far more than they are entitled to, in my opinion. Compensate yes, feel sorry for, no!

However, with a well thought out weighting, The Bengals could in fact gain the #1 pick, but the odds would be highly reduced. And the odds of the top teams landing a high pick would be quite small.

So what happens when even with this weighted lottery the chiefs still land at #1?? Who on earth is that fair too?

Even if you cap it at 14 teams like the NBA why should a 8-8 team get the top pick over the Bengals?

Are y’all really that upset if the Bengals got it again? That’s way more fair than giving some other team that could be a piece or two away from 11-5 season getting the top pick.

Last year we were 7-9 and many think they additions we made will catapult us to the playoffs. We still drafted 15. You really think there’s any system that should catapult us to 1 and that would be fair compared to the Bengals or redskins who clearly have way more holes? I don’t think so. You put in a lottery that pushed those two down to 9-10 and you’ve doomed those franchises for the next 5-7 years.

[orange crush75]

Good points on the draft . So its obvious the only right answer is we must have a season this year to make it right lol