“I think we used it as another opportunity
to focus on internally,” Lynch said. “I think
the chatter out and about that I understand
is going on, that it really wasn’t in a good
situation, I didn’t really see that. I think early
there were a couple of hitches. That’s why we
do practice trial runs.”
Added Elway: “The draft went smooth. It got off
to a little bit of a hiccup when we first started,
but other than that I thought it went really
smooth. There were no problems with it, so we
got more comfortable with it. So, it should be
fine and go on without a glitch -- I’m sure there
will be a couple of glitches here and there --
but actually for the first time I thought it went
pretty well.”
The challenges, as noted by several people
involved, included too much background
noise; team personnel talking over others;
and timing issues.
“It had its glitches, but to call it messy would
be inaccurate,” one of the people said. “There
were some sound issues and technical stuff
that seemed to get solved to the satisfaction
of the teams.”
Elway knows who the key members of each
club will be Thursday and Friday nights and
Saturday afternoon.
“The heroes in all this are the IT guys,” he said.
Goodell ordered all team facilities closed in
March, and later required club personnel to
conduct the draft from their homes. Because
of the reliance on free-flowing communication,
the league decided to stage the practice draft
to ensure all goes smoothly later this week.