No NFL Combine – – Say It Ain’t So…

The NFL Scouting Combine is a coronavirus casualty; the event – normally held in February – will be held this year remotely.  Instead of having hundreds of players who have declared for the Draft to be invited to Indianapolis plus coaches and scouts from all 32 NFL teams plus a large contingent of media personnel, the NFL will handle player interviews virtually and will do the “physical stuff” in a menu of separate “pro days” held on college campuses around the country.  Here is an excerpt from the memo sent from NFL HQs to all teams:

“Any workouts will take place on individual pro days on college campuses. We will work with the schools to encourage consistency in testing and drills across pro days and ensure that all clubs have access to video from those workouts, irrespective of whether the club is represented at a particular workout.”

And:

“Club interviews of prospects and psychological testing and assessments will be done virtually…”

I am certain that once the Super Bowl Game is in the past so that all NFL reporting must have a tie-in to that game, you will begin to hear about how this will make it even more problematic for teams to construct their draft boards.  Here is a foreshadowing; it will not be more difficult; it will merely be more inconvenient.

• Is Devonta Smith going to drop out of the first round because no team will have a scout with a stopwatch in hand to witness his 40-yard dash?
• Will any team shy away from a player they had on their board as a QB prospect because they cannot look him in the eye and ask him, “If you were a vegetable, which one would you want to be?”  [Answer:  Kale … so everyone would just leave me alone…]
• Is it important at all to watch a 340 lb. offensive lineman demonstrate his vertical leap – – whether watching in person or on video tape?

The cancelation of this year’s Combine is not worth lamenting; the Combine is a made-for-TV event that only allows for some guy – –  “Butch in Dubuque” – –  to sound authoritative when he prepares a Mock Draft in mid-April notwithstanding the fact that said Mock Draft is meaningless.  I think the world can do without such exposition very nicely and I will second the assertion made here by Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Idle thought: The world would be a quieter place if fewer people pretended to be NFL draft experts.

Moving on …  NBC Sports Network  (NBCSN) is going dark by the end of 2021.  If NBCSN is not in your “power rotation” of channels to check out, this is where you might find English Premier League games, NHL telecasts, motorcycle racing, winter sports, NASCAR events, dog shows, car auctions and the Tour de France.  If your conclusion from seeing that overview of the network’s content is tepid, I can easily agree; other than EPL games and NHL games, there is not a lot of stuff on NBCSN that I find compelling.  Moreover, a lot of the stuff they televise is not prime material for any sort of telecast.  Let me just use the car auctions as an example.  While you look at the car up for sale a bunch of folks hold up numbered paddles indicating their bids for the car you are looking at while a couple of car enthusiasts gush over the various restoration efforts that have been performed on the vehicle.  Not exactly a lot of dynamic action going on there…

In any event, some of the content from NBCSN will “migrate” to USA Network which is also owned by NBCUniversal.  USA Network is not part of my “power rotation”; it is not in the “sports cluster” of channels on my cable box, so I had to go and look up what sort of programming they offer.  A cursory glance tells me that the only thing they carry that is close to “sports” is professional ‘rassling; other than that, it seems to be a home for Law and Order SVU reruns, a bunch of shows featuring someone named Chrisley, movies and NCIS reruns.  How the Premier League and the NHL will fit into that milieu is not clear to me.

Some of these items and other NBCSN “properties” will migrate to NBCUniversal’s new streaming platform, Peacock. What has not been announced is the fate of what I call the “NBCSN local channels”.  Here in the DC area, there is a channel that has the NBCSN logo, but it focuses on sports in the Washington/Baltimore area exclusively.  There are similar “local channels” in other major sports markets around the country and none of the reporting about the demise of NBCSN has indicated what might happen to those outlets.

Back in mid-December as the NBA was about to start, I made this comment:

“There will be loads of attention paid to the Houston Rockets and the Washington Wizards based on their blockbuster trade of Russell Westbrook and John Wall.  But … what if both teams just stink…?”

The Rockets are treading water; as of this morning, they are 8^th in the Western Conference with a record of 10-9.  The Rockets have won 6 games in a row and 7 of their last 10.  With about 30% of the season gone, the Rockets are not a compelling story, but they are relevant.

The Wizards … not so much.  As of this morning Les Wiz are dead last in the Eastern Conference standings with a record of 4-13.  Bradley Beal has been electric this season averaging 35 points per game with one game where he poured in 60 points.  A major problem for Les Wiz has been defense; Beal commented after one game that the team cannot cover a parked car; he is absolutely correct in that analysis.

Finally, here is an item relating COVID-19 and the NBA from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“Spurs coach Gregg Popovich announced on his 72nd birthday that he’d gotten a COVID-19 vaccine, telling AP: ‘Sciencewise, it’s a no-brainer.’

“In other words, good shot selection.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………