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Today, the Bengals and the rest of the NFL are holding a virtual mock draft to prepare for the real thing on Thursday.
Hopefully, the real draft goes better than what happened today, as the Bengals experienced technical difficulties while making the No. 1 overall selection, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Text from a participant on the NFL’s mock draft that started at 1 pm EST. “Mock draft today already technical glitch w Cincinnatis 1st pick!!! Brutal.”
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 20, 2020
ESPN’s Dianna Russini added that there were other problems with the simulation, mainly with bandwidth issues and teams forgetting to mute their microphones.
I’m texting with multiple coaches and GM’s who are on this mock draft call and everybody is saying the same thing which is band width is a problem. There are many communication issues.
— Dianna Russini (@diannaESPN) April 20, 2020
Text from a GM during this mock draft “there are early communication issues because 32 of us GMs are on conference call and we didn’t hit mute. Sounds awful”
— Dianna Russini (@diannaESPN) April 20, 2020
Thankfully, this is why the NFL is having a test run in hopes of weeding out these issues before the real thing begins Thursday night. I doubt the technical issues will cause a team to make a wrong selection or a potential trade to fall through, but it could lead to some delays that make the draft go longer than normal.
And thankfully, Russini is reporting that the draft is going along smoothly.
Just checked back in on league’s mock draft “smooth sailing!”
— Dianna Russini (@diannaESPN) April 20, 2020
Hope for the best.