Notes: NFL Draft to have safeguards in case of technical issues

Lions fans got a preview today of what NFL operations look like in the current environment of remote negotiations and teleconferenced interactions with general manager Bob Quinn’s pre-draft press conference. Many members of the media and some Lions staff were connected on a joint video conference call:

The distancing policies put in place by the league to protect athletes and staff have made roster building quite different from years past:

This includes the functioning of the draft itself, which will need to take into account the possibility that teams may be cut off without a representative on-site to make a selection in person. The usual examples of teams having problems getting a selection submitted in time are the Ravens and Vikings episodes, but there will be no running the card from the team’s table to the Commissioner to make a pick this year. Instead, a team could plausibly have no way no communicate the pick through no fault of their own:

According to The Athletic’s Chris Burke, there are additional precautions to hopefully keep even severe technical difficulties from getting to that point, but you never know:

Tim McManus at the Worldwide Leader reported that the league will conduct a mock draft on Monday to test the systems early. Philadelphia GM Howie Roseman joked that they will “have fun making some mock trades” during the exercise. Naturally, the mock draft will not involve real prospects:

If Detroit does not select Barry Sanders at third overall, I think a riot is in order. Hopefully everything goes well with the test and it’s smooth sailing on Thursday. With that, we now move on to the rest of today’s Notes:

• One of the greatest Lions games of the last decade is going to be shown on Sunday:

In case you were wondering about the status of Wheels at the moment:

• From Justin Rogers at the Detroit News, we find out that NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah has thoughts about two defensive options at the third overall pick (assuming they do not get Chase Young).

• The Detroit Free Press’ Dave Birkett posted the last of his position-by-position draft previews (this time for quarterbacks), and he has an interesting note about a Day 3 player the Lions could be thinking about. For more on quarterbacks from Dave, he also had a piece on how GMs may be viewing the risks and opportunities associated with drafting highly-touted quarterbacks not named Joe Burrow.

• Bleacher Report’s Martin Fenn does not think highly of Detroit’s offseason moves so far. He is particularly critical of the contract the team gave to Halapoulivaati Vaitai.

• Good work here by Marvin Jones Jr. and his wife Jazmyn: