What Effect will COVID-19 have on NFL Scouting?

Scott Long

9/8/20

Typically, NFL teams have the entire college football season to scout potential prospects, and sleepers. This year might be a bit different as many of this upcoming draft’s projected top picks have already opted out of the 2020 season, and many divisions have cancelled their seasons. Scouting will be much different for those who are not going to play this season, as scouts will have to evaluate them off their previous body of work and attempt to project future performance even more than normally.

One of these players who opted out was Oregon offensive tackle, Penei Sewell who was a projected top five pick. Other notable opt-outs include: wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase from LSU, wide receiver Rondale Moore from Purdue, defensive lineman Gregory Rousseau from Miami, and linebacker Micah Parsons from Penn State, among others. All of these players were projected to go in the first round, and have opted to declare for the 2021 NFL Draft, and spend this season training and preparing for it, rather than playing due to the risks associated with COVID-19. This is just now too, as once college football starts the number of players who decide not to play the season could rise based on the number of positive tests that result from the first game.

Scouting and drafting is already difficult enough in attempting to figure out who will translate to the pro level, adding in this pandemic, with a significant chunk of the player pool not playing only makes this harder. Assuming the NFL Scouting Combine is still held after the season, it will likely hold even more value to coaches and scouts then it already has in the past, as will Pro Days, for the players who choose not to work out at the Combine. Although, basing much of an evaluation off how a player works out in shorts isn’t typically a smart option, the combination of that and tape from the 2019 season, may be the only true options for teams looking at players who have opted-out or have been forced to sit out as a result of the pandemic.

One possibility that could help out NFL scouts is the possibility of the cancelled seasons for some divisions to be rescheduled for the spring. There have been talks of doing this for several of the divisions, but nothing is concrete yet. Assuming this happened, it would be likely that the NFL Draft would be pushed back from it’s typical slot in late April, in order to give scouts extra time to gather all their data after the season has ended.

While not ideal, teams and scouts will be forced to make do with the tactics available to them this season. The draft is such a crucial aspect of team building in the NFL, so coaches and general managers will find a way to make things work, no matter how strange their new tactics may be. It will be interesting to see what developments come as the season goes on, assuming college football isn’t completely cancelled due to the pandemic.