The 2020 NFL Draft is still scheduled to take place April 23-25, but the event will be unlike any before it in history.
The draft was initially slated to take place in Las Vegas, shutting down the strip for a raucous affair, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, teams will instead be forced to operate remotely, with owners, general managers, coaches, and scouts working from home rather than their respective "war rooms."
"We are operating in an environment unlike anything we have experienced before," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said when the league made its plan official, "one that requires flexibility, patience, and cooperation."
The new format has forced teams to work in new ways, and presents some problems front offices around the league had not had to previously consider.
According to NBC Sports' Peter King, some teams have raised concerns about the prospect of teams hacking into the telecommunications of another team, and getting a jump on their plans during the draft.
Rams chief operating officer Kevin Demoff raised the concern with King on Monday, saying that security would be the most important aspect of the draft for teams this year.
"How do you make sure your conversations are protected?" Demoff asked, while speaking with King over Zoom — one of the methods that may be used by teams to communicate throughout the draft. "Someone could hack into this Zoom, and you're probably not going to learn a lot. Hacking into a team's draft room on Zoom is probably a lot different. That would be my biggest concern just from an encryption standpoint of how do you have these conversations confidentially."
ESPN's Adam Schefter relayed similar concerns from teams heading into the draft.
"These teams are used to having great communication," Schefter said on ESPN's "Get Up" on Tuesday morning. "Now you can do it through teleconferencing, but there are already teams worried about having their Zoom teleconference hacked into by another team. That's been a question that's been raised right now."
—Get Up (@GetUpESPN) April 7, 2020
With just over two weeks until the first round of the draft kicks off, teams will have to work fast to assure that their conversations are as secure as they need to be heading into the biggest event of the NFL offseason.
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