2020 NFL Draft goes virtual

Charles Robinson, Yahoo Sports Senior NFL Reporter, spoke with Yahoo Finance about how the NFL is weathering coronavirus along with how the annual NFL Draft is moving online.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, we're going to talk about sports now, because we are just hours away from the NFL draft. Charles Robinson is a Yahoo Sports senior NFL reporter, and he joins us to break it all down.

And, Charles, you know, we'll get to the expected picks. But I want to know more about how the NFL's going to pull this all off, because this is the draft that was supposed to take place in Vegas. There's usually a live audience. How are they going to do this digitally?

CHARLE ROBINSON: Well, I think that's part of the big question here right now. I think what's really interesting about this is, not only is the NFL expecting its biggest ratings ever because there's such a captive audience, I think they feel like there's a pent up demand for something to happen in sports right now.

But they look at the WNBA. The WNBA just put on its draft. The WNBA doubled its draft audience.

But when you call teams in the NFL and you say, well, how is the NFL going to do this digitally, what's it going to look like, teams are saying, we don't know. We have no clue exactly what the league office is going to do.

So I think that is part of the draw for this draft, not just the fact that we haven't had sports and everyone wants to, you know, get away a little bit from an entertainment standpoint. But I also think the draw is, how exactly is the NFL going to pull off an all-digital format, and what does Roger Goodell's inner sanctum look like? We're going to see his Batcave.

MYLES UDLAND: And, you know, Charles, obviously tonight is the beginning, I guess, as far as the public is concerned, of the 2020 season. Now we're expecting the schedule to come out on May 9. It sounds like that's probably still going to happen.

But the question is, how does the league kind of get things going? From folks you've talked to, how much time do, you know, teams think they need for guys to get in shape, guys to-- I mean, they're going to draft guys tonight that they haven't had medicals on for a lot of these players. How much time does the league need to begin even talking about games? Because all of a sudden, Labor Day weekend is here, and then the season's five days away.

CHARLE ROBINSON: Right. The really important answer to that is actually coming as soon as the draft concludes. Now I had a chance to talk to someone with a team that's kept open a pretty consistent line of communication in terms of moving to the next phase of this off-season.

And one of the things he told me is look, they're already scheduling a number of conference calls post-draft to start to talk about, now what? We're past the draft. Usually we'd be getting into the business of setting up our break.

You know, we're going to go to our rookie minicamps. We're going to have our full squad minicamps. And then we're going to break, and we're all going to come back together.

No one knows exactly what's going to happen next. So I think that's going to be ironed out in terms of the commissioner's office. All the NFL owners need to talk about this. But they're going to lean heavily on the medical experts.

I think the one thing that you could expect is-- say the beginning of the season gets pushed back. They will look at potentially pushing the season further into February to try to fit in a full slate. But I do think the pre-season would be clipped.

You would see training camps-- instead of being say, a full three weeks, I think you could see those microwaved a bit, down to 8, 9, 10 days. Maybe you would lose a pre-season game. They're going to lose more in the pre-season than anything in the regular season. But it really, ultimately, depends on what the medical experts tell them and how far they'd have to push this into February.

ANDY SERWER: Oh, those preseason games, Charles. For freaks only, man, you know. Although, people do watch them. So is it possible they're going to have the games without the fans?

CHARLE ROBINSON: I think it's possible. I absolutely think it's possible. I think that's the nuclear button option, you know.

And when I talk to teams even about having games with no fans-- I've talked to a number of general managers about this, and they said, look, it's a bottomless hole of questions. They're like, even without the fans-- you take that element out of the mix-- are we going to test our players every day? Are we going to have them in, quote unquote, "clean hotels"? Are we going to essentially quarantine people for the extent of the season?

And what I thought was really interesting-- a general manager said to me, what if I'm playing a game and I lose a cornerback, and now I have to go sign someone off the street because my cornerback just blew out his knee? How do I know the guy I'm signing-- now do I need to quarantine him for two weeks? Like, how am I going to know I'm bringing someone into the fold who's not going to, essentially, get under the threshold of all these things that we're doing to keep ourselves safe?

So it's such a litany of questions to work out that, you know, I think we've got a long several months ahead of us in terms of planning for the NFL.

AKIKO FUJITA: How do you think the players feel? I mean, are they comfortable with this kind of timeline? I mean, I'm looking at all the major sports leagues, and football has the most contact. So I'm curious what you're hearing from players about, regardless of where the league goes, whether they feel comfortable with what's in place right now and the timeline for returning.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Well, look, there's a reticence. There's no doubt there's a reticence. And I think if you talk to people with the NFL players union, the first thing they say is, all we care about is keeping our guys safe.

Like, they're-- already, they said-- look at the NFL historically. They said, the league was slow to react to concussions. The league was slow to react to certain injury standards in the game, just the general violence of the game. And that's all we've talked about is health and safety for the longest time. Why would we cook something up in a situation like this that puts players at any measure of risk whatsoever?

So I think the union will get heavily involved. And you know, having a chance to talk to a few players-- it's interesting, because especially the ones with families, they say well, what am I supposed to do? So if I'm going in, am I coming home now and exposing my family?

You know, younger guys have an advantage over me. Some of these guys aren't married. You know, they don't have wives. They don't have kids.

So are they going to be more apt to say, hey, let's go-- let's just kick the season off-- while I'm a little more reticent because I have a family? There's all kinds of personal questions that I think dip into just humanity, the daily life that-- these aren't just athletes. They're people. And that all has to be resolved as well.

And as I said, there's a union involved here, and it's never easy to get over those health and safety concerns whenever the union's going to step in and say, look, we're just not going to have this. Guys just don't show up.

MYLES UDLAND: All right, Charles, let's talk a little bit about the picks tonight. I'm a Giants fan. Can you reassure me that something stupid is not going to happen at the fourth pick? And then, you know, thinking beyond the guys picked tonight, I mean, this is still the off-season of Brady and Gronk.

ANDY SERWER: Gronk.

MYLES UDLAND: I mean, I think we all want these guys to get together, but I wonder if--

ANDY SERWER Really?

MYLES UDLAND: --we're ever going to see the two wearing Tampa Bay red.

CHARLE ROBINSON: [LAUGHS] Well, we're going to find out. I mean, it's definitely a different off-season. We're going to have to wait awhile to get anywhere.

Tom Brady's got to stop walking into strangers houses, though, when he's going over to pick up a playbook. I thought that was pretty interesting. He goes to pick up a playbook from his offensive coordinator, and he walks into the neighbor's house unannounced. And Tom Brady's in your living room all of a sudden.

But I think what's interesting about tonight is-- you say you're a Giants fan. I mean, there's really two drafts tonight. There's the first two picks.

There's Joe Burrow, who's going to play in Cincinnati. You have the Washington Redskins, who are going to take Chase Young, the defensive end out of Ohio State. And then the real draft begins after the first two selections.

Detroit at number three is trying like heck to trade out of that pick. The Giants at number four, from what I have heard, I mean, they're locked onto two offensive tackles that other teams don't even think are offensive tackles.

You get into the multitude of things that can happen in night one of the NFL draft, and I think, again, that's what's the draw. You know, the NFL's sitting there going, look, we had 6.1 million average viewers last year, and that was our highest rated draft ever. We could beat that by 50% this year.

We might hit nine or 10 million average viewers this year because of some of this intrigue and, you know, what's it going to look like with cameras in players homes? Who got the haircuts, and who didn't? There's just so many things to ultimately think about. It'll be very, very interesting.

MYLES UDLAND: Passing on Josh Allen to take Daniel Jones was painful enough last year. And now you're telling me they're going to take a tackle who only plays guard. This is bad news.

CHARLE ROBINSON: Yeah. It sounds like you've been reading on the situation. [LAUGHS]

MYLES UDLAND: I'm already distressed. I'm already distressed.

ANDY SERWER: You're in deep.

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, we will know the Giants' fate in, what? Just over three hours. Maybe the only sports event we'll see for another month. So certainly a lot of people going to stay tuned. Charles Robinson, great to have you on tonight.

CHARLE ROBINSON: Thank you for having me.