The 2020 NFL Draft will be an unprecedented event in terms of its logistics. Will the virtual setting help or hurt Dave Gettleman and the NY Giants?
I’ve been pondering this since the minute I heard that the NFL was (correctly) switching the 2020 draft to the virtual setting variety. Obviously, as a NY Giants fan, I’m very interested to see how this plays out, and if it will, in fact, be an advantage for us.
On one hand, GM Dave Gettleman is as old school as it gets, and the thought of him sitting in a room, grinding out tape and using old-school measures to evaluate prospects makes me think this could work out in our favor.
We all saw the now-famous photo of Gettleman’s impromptu ‘war room’ and let’s just say it didn’t exactly look like a highly-sophisticated setup. However, Gettleman’s strength has always been grinding tape and finding diamonds in the rough in the draft, and I would put him up individually (which is what is happening) in this regard against most other GM’s.
On the other hand, technology is going to play a crucial part in this draft process. Face-to-face meetings have been replaced by ‘Zoom’ meetings and I’m not quite sure Gettleman is very familiar with things like this.
Due to social distancing, come draft night, Gettleman will, in essence, be in a room by himself while being connected to his main capos via technology in a setting he is not used to — this could end up being an issue.
In some ways, this new virtual draft setting is as new-world as it gets, and in other ways, its as old-school as you could imagine.
Despite former colleague, Buffalo Bills GM Brandon Beane, coming to Gettleman’s defense this week and saying he’s playing the media in terms of not being technologically savvy, the GM’s former comments and mocking of analytics would lend one to believe that he doesn’t exactly embrace new-age tacticts.
Long story short, it’s going to be super important for Gettleman to embrace any piece of technology he can get his hands on instead of just leaning on his three-ring binder (has there ever been a more perfect sight than seeing Gettleman buried in a 1,000 page three-ring binder?).
He’s going to have to lean heavily on his younger, more tech-savvy team, especially new head coach, Joe Judge, who seems to embrace analytics and tech in a major way. Judge’s input is going to be essential for more reasons than just him taking over as the new head coach.
As long as Dave Gettleman continues to turn the tide in terms of embracing new-age methods, this should work out fine for the NY Giants.
After al the scrutiny he’s endured on this topic during his first two years on the job, I actually believe he will do this in spades and am very confident he has a solid plan to navigate through these uncharted waters.
The NFL has already announced it will be lenient with teams making trades and will allow extra time to complete them in an unprecedented decision, so maybe our GM will use this type of thing to his advantage, as there will be plenty of loopholes to take advantage of that weren’t there in the previous draft set up.
Here’s to hoping Gettleman surrounds himself with the right people on draft week and the night of the draft and knocks this one out of the park; the franchise badly needs it.