NFL draft TV schedule, Eagles’ picks and other nuggets
Plenty of ways to watch the three-day event, which will be the most unusual one since Bert Bell hosted the first on South Broad Street.
The first NFL draft was in 1936 and it took place at what was then the Ritz-Carlton at Broad & Walnut. There’s a Wawa there today.
The clubs relied mostly on newspaper accounts and All-America lists back then. For this year’s draft, every team will only be good as the IT guys who installed their communications connections.
The Bengals go first. What could possibly go wrong? Here’s a breakdown of the event.
When: Thursday-Saturday, April 23-25
TV: ESPN, 6ABC, NFL Network
Streaming: ESPN app, ESPN.com, NFL app, NFL.com
Round 1: Thursday, April 23, 8 p.m.
Rounds 2-3: Friday, April 24, 7 p.m.
Rounds 4-7: Saturday, April 25, 12 p.m.
Draft order: Cincy, Washington and Detroit at the top of the board.
Time limits: Ten minutes between picks in the first round; 7 minutes in second round; 5 minutes for Rounds 3-6; 4 minutes for seventh round picks.
Announcing the selections: Roger Goodell will announce the selections from his home in Bronxville, N.Y.
Eagles’ needs: Wide receiver, cornerback, edge rusher, linebacker.
Inquirer.com mock drafts: Les Bowen | Paul Domowitch | EJ Smith
Triviality
The Bengals are almost surely going to take LSU quarterback Joe Burrow with the first pick. Cincy has drafted a quarterback in the first round just five times. None of them had a winning record for the Bengals. Carson Palmer was 46-51. The other guys went 12-44-1. Ugh.
Tight end Adam Trautman will become just the second player ever drafted out of the University of Dayton. Offensive lineman Mike Wilson was a 14th-round pick of the Bengals in 1969.
If University of Minnesota safety Antoine Winfield Jr. is drafted on Thursday, he’ll become part of the 10th father-son combo to be selected in the first round. The most famous is Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning.
Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb wears a necklace with the No. 32 to commemorate the number his beloved late uncle, Chester Ramirez, wore at the Air Force Academy. Lamb wore No. 3 in high school and No. 2 at Oklahoma. “He was one guy who saw a vision in me before I even did,” Lamb told the Daily Oklahoman in September, "before I even knew what a vision was.”
The majority of mock drafts sampled have St. Joe’s Prep product D’Andre Swift going to the Dolphins in the first round.
And finally
“You can kind of get whatever flavor you like. If you like smaller, quicker guys, those guys are there. If you like the big guys that can move, those guys are there. If you like speed, that’s there. If you like separators - so I think the whole league’s kind of smiling about that.”
– 49ers general manager John Lynch on this year’s crop of wide receivers