Bills Not Worried About Draft’s Time Crunch

[JLB]

http://buffalobills.com/news/news.jsp?news_id=6001

With the popularity of the NFL draft growing by leaps and bounds the past decade, the league and its television partners have chosen to make the two day marathon of player selections more of a prime time event. The kickoff of the draft will commence at 3pm this Saturday instead of the normal 12 noon time slot, and will likely finish at or around 10 pm.

[JLB]

Day one of the draft has also been trimmed to two rounds with rounds three through seven taking place on day two (Sunday). The biggest change for the NFL's 32 clubs however, is the reduction of time for first and second round picks to be made.

First round selections must now be made in 10 minutes instead of the original 15, and the time for second round selections has been whittled down to seven minutes instead of 10.

So will less time for teams change the timing of the draft?

"I think people will try to get more things set and ready to go early, that would be my guess," said Bills Vice President of College Scouting Tom Modrak. "I'm anxious to see … I'm anxious about it because it is a different tempo."

"When you're on the clock there is always a great sense of anxiety," said Bills COO Russ Brandon. "When you're not on the clock sometimes during the old 15-minute period you'd say, 'My gosh we've got a lot of time to wait for their pick.' So there are two sides to it."

[danamal85]

With all the prep work put into the draft. I can't imagine you need 15 minutes to make 1 pick. I think they should have cut the second round to 5 minutes as well. Also, I wish they had kept the draft at noon. It was the perfect time, wake up recover from hangover. Look over the last second draft news, and phone in an order for pizza and wings or fire up the grill. Open beer sit back and enjoy. 10 hours later get ready to go out and drink some more. With the shortened rounds it would have been done by 9 and you can get ready and go out. Now it looks like I may be force to choose between the draft and drinking that night (at times like this I wish I had friends who were football fans).

[Lateralus]

With all the prep work put into the draft. I can't imagine you need 15 minutes to make 1 pick. I think they should have cut the second round to 5 minutes as well. Also, I wish they had kept the draft at noon. It was the perfect time, wake up recover from hangover. Look over the last second draft news, and phone in an order for pizza and wings or fire up the grill. Open beer sit back and enjoy. 10 hours later get ready to go out and drink some more. With the shortened rounds it would have been done by 9 and you can get ready and go out. Now it looks like I may be force to choose between the draft and drinking that night (at times like this I wish I had friends who were football fans).

I couldn't have said it better myself.