NFL and NFLPA are on verge of pushing back draft to May and moving up start of league year to before combine, per sources.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 20, 2013
Yes that is correct, the date that we all wait so anxiously for already is going to be pushed back even farther for next year. SI's Peter King is not the only person not happy about it, this I am sure. The NFL can move the draft any time they want, although to change the league year date there will have to be the approving of the NFLPA.
Looks like 2014 NFL draft will be held May 15-17. In 2015 and 2016, league year would start early March, combine mid-March.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 20, 2013
The dates for the 2014 draft appear to be changing to May 15-17, and the main reason being pointed to is that Easter falls at the end of April when the draft usually is held. No, no, no. The NFL has absolutely no agenda for this, it is all the fault of the revolving date of Easter. Absolutely no media benefit for the NFL to push the draft and all the talk associated to it back by almost a month.
After that last tweet Shefter also announced tentative dates for the 2015 draft and the 2016 draft.
Tentative dates for NFL Draft in 2015 would be May 7-9 and in 2016 it would be May 5-7.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 20, 2013
Peter King gives more reasons to dislike this move than I could come up with and states he can not find one good reason to move the draft back in this manner. There is one good thing for fans that will come out of all that waiting though, after the draft is done the season will feel like it comes up noticeably quicker.
The draft will take forever to arrive next year and that wait will be agonizing. There is no two ways around it, this is not going to be fun. There is already so much time to look at the picks and discuss who we want the Raiders to pick that by the time the draft comes at the end of April we have already ran in circles more times than your average Nascar race. Now we are going to be adding almost an entire month onto that.
However when the draft is done next year it will almost be June. Look at how much time was used to discuss the draft since it happened this past year, now all that time will be taken up at the end of May and into June instead of the end of April and into May. That means that the even longer wait of the rest of the off-season after the draft will be a month shorter than we are used to.
The players waiting to be drafted are going to have an extra month of suspense which is going to be hard on them and the players that don't get drafted are going to be even more crushed because of the longer time of hoping. The coaches and scouts preparing for the draft are going to have to work even longer hours than they already do which means less time for their families. Free agents will be waiting longer to get signed because teams will still want to see who they draft first. There are plenty more bads than that but those are just a few.
On the other hand though teams will get more time to prep and maybe that will help the teams draft smarter. Extending the draft across the entire weekend gives the coaches more time to figure out who to draft and it has helped create more late round gems, maybe moving the draft back will do the same thing. If the teams get better as a whole because of the longer wait will the fans still be as upset about waiting longer?
Maybe even a late round gem that would have given up on his dreams if he hadn't been drafted will be selected by a team that saw him because of the extra time. Or maybe a player unable to work out in time for the draft if scheduled in April will get strong enough to show worthy of a draft pick in May. Chances will be taken from some players, but other players will gain an extra chance because of it too.
Though we know that the extra wait next year is going to be agonizing, maybe it could turn out to be great for the Raiders. There is a chance that it could help our favorite team, we will have to wait and see. A whole lot of waiting before we see. Hopefully the Raiders will play well enough next year that we wont be so anxious to see who will be added to make the team better. Waiting for a new addition after a successful season isn't quite as stressful as it is after an unsuccessful one.
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