The "virtual" draft

[Mr. Scot]

Good idea, or a million ways this could go wrong?

As an aside. one non-technical issue has emerged...

 

[hepcat]

Why the F do IT employees need to go to people's houses? Are NFL teams BYOD? 

Seriously the NFL needs to hire an AV professional like me to help them during this time. They are fuging stupid. 

[LinvilleGorge]

If the NFL wants any hope of normalcy this season, it's a necessary evil. Who knows how long they'd have to wait to hold the draft otherwise?

That hope for normalcy seems to be rapidly evaporating, but I understand them trying to maintain whatever hope of that is left.

I'm sure the NFL is also looking at the reality that sports fans are absolutely starved for sports action right now and holding the draft as scheduled will likely result in huge ratings.

[LinvilleGorge]

1 minute ago, hepcat said:

Why the F do IT employees need to go to people's houses? Are NFL teams BYOD? 

Seriously the NFL needs to hire an AV professional like me to help them during this time. They are fuging stupid. 

Probably for network security purposes. Belichick lurks.

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, hepcat said:

Why the F do IT employees need to go to people's houses? Are NFL teams BYOD? 

Seriously the NFL needs to hire an AV professional like me to help them during this time. They are fuging stupid. 

I'm guessing the kind of setup they're gonna need is something business level that most folks, even NFL coaches and GMs, wouldn't normally have in their homes.

(well, except maybe Belichick)

[Mr. Scot]

Regarding technical issues...

 

[hepcat]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

I'm guessing the kind of setup they're gonna need is something business level that most folks, even NFL coaches and GMs, wouldn't normally have in their homes.

(well, except maybe Belichick)

I have no idea what they're setting up but it all sounds like it's probably too complicated. All they need to do is set up something like a Zoom webinar with a super complex password or MFA authentication to it (can set that up on anyones laptop), lock down the stream to only be coming from one source (wherever Roger Goodell is) controlled by a Tricaster or something, and the teams just watch him the whole time. The teams communicate with each other the same ways they always have. Emails, phone calls, etc to make trades. The picks are sent to Goodell via some secure channel like an encrypted chat or email. Done.

[Mr. Scot]

9 minutes ago, hepcat said:

I have no idea what they're setting up but it all sounds like it's probably too complicated. All they need to do is set up something like a Zoom webinar with a super complex password or MFA authentication to it (can set that up on anyones laptop), lock down the stream to only be coming from one source (wherever Roger Goodell is) controlled by a Tricaster or something, and the teams just watch him the whole time. The teams communicate with each other the same ways they always have. Emails, phone calls, etc to make trades. The picks are sent to Goodell via some secure channel like an encrypted chat or email. Done.

Well, the difference here is that we're normally talking about only 32 remote locations and situations where team personnel could communicate with each other by simply walking across a room.

Now, everybody has to be at a remote location, all those lines of communication have to be secure, and who knows how many people we're even talking about here?

Heck, it doesn't even have to be a technical glitch. It could be as simple as some guy mistakenly emailing the wrong person.

[hepcat]

Just now, Mr. Scot said:

Well, the difference here is that we're normally talking about only 32 remote locations and situations where team personnel could communicate with each other by simply walking across a room.

Now, everybody has to be at a remote location, all those lines of communication have to be secure, and who knows how many people we're talking about?

Heck, it doesn't even have to be a technical glitch. It could be as simple as some guy mistakenly emailing the wrong person.

Teams are going to have to have their own private conference call going on separately with internal folks from the one with the league announcing picks. Honestly they don't need to have any sort of video conference with Goodell. ESPN could just set up a feed and teams could watch that. No reason to need to see Goodell at all. Everything else can be done with phone calls and emails. 

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, hepcat said:

Teams are going to have to have their own private conference call going on separately with internal folks from the one with the league announcing picks. Honestly they don't need to have any sort of video conference with Goodell. ESPN could just set up a feed and teams could watch that. No reason to need to see Goodell at all. Everything else can be done with phone calls and emails. 

They also have to be able to communicate with other teams regarding trades and such.

This has plenty of potential for snafus.

[stbugs]

18 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

They also have to be able to communicate with other teams regarding trades and such.

This has plenty of potential for snafus.

Why does the communication with other teams create an issue? That was just a telephone all or text before. That doesn’t change. The only thing changing is the war room being virtual. That’s it. Let’s not over complicate the issues.

Call up one of the damn FF sites that creates FF drafting software and have only rookies loaded with our rankings. Then you know who’s gone, who’s not and what other teams have selected with a click. Should be able to monitor the draft as if you had a war room with a board of players.

[jfra78]

Why cant the team just be on a conference call then the GM phones in the pick?

[Mr. Scot]

28 minutes ago, stbugs said:

Why does the communication with other teams create an issue? That was just a telephone all or text before. That doesn’t change. The only thing changing is the war room being virtual. That’s it. Let’s not over complicate the issues.

Call up one of the damn FF sites that creates FF drafting software and have only rookies loaded with our rankings. Then you know who’s gone, who’s not and what other teams have selected with a click. Should be able to monitor the draft as if you had a war room with a board of players.

For one, because as anyone in any form of IT or tech support will tell you, there's always one thing you just can't fix.

The user.

You're gonna be going from maybe one or two people on a phone to who knows how many people on the phones. A lot can happen.

Mind you, all of this could wind up going smoothly and without a hitch.

Though admittedly, as long as it didn't have a negative impact on the Panthers, it might be more entertaining if it didn't 

[hepcat]

56 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

They also have to be able to communicate with other teams regarding trades and such.

This has plenty of potential for snafus.

Shouldn’t be any different than other years with the exception teams won’t have onsite reps to talk to each other. Teams can still call and email each other trade offers, many of which might even be done before the draft even starts