The NFL had quite a few communication issues during their mock draft simulations

Oh, NFL. ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweeted that he received a text from a participant on the NFL’s mock draft that “mock draft today already had a technical glitch with Cincinnati’s first pick! Brutal.” ESPN’s Dianna Russini said she was texting with multiple coaches and general managers who were on the mock draft call, and everybody is saying the same thing, which is bandwidth is a problem. There are many communication issues.” Russini didn’t stop there: I was on the phone with a head coach talking about the mock draft today, and he was losing his mind because his Internet went down...apparently, his young children were all on their iPads using up the bandwidth. Everybody get off the Internet”-in loud dad voice.”

Lastly, from Russini:

Text from a GM during this mock draft, “there are early communication issues because 32 of us GMs are on a conference call and we didn’t hit mute. Sounds awful”

I understand this is a test run to work out the kinks, but the potential disaster here is spectacular. Could you imagine a team missing their selection because of a computer issue? It all feels last minute and not very well thought out.

There were always going to be some early bugs that ended to be addressed. It sounds like there was difficulty figuring out whether the issues were on the teams’ side or on the leagues’ end. Russini said a head coach texted her and said things were running smoothly once the draft finally started, and the call was quiet, but it took time to get there. Here’s to hoping there are no technical issues when the Niners are on the clock.

Here is San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch on the same topic:

How did the mock draft with the league go today? Were there any glitches or things you learned from going through that process that can help you for Thursday?

“I think we used it as another opportunity to kind of focus internally. I think the chatter out and about from what I understand is going on and talking to [vice president, communications] Bob [Lange] before, that it really wasn’t in a good situation. I didn’t really see that. I think early there were a couple hitches, but that’s why you have practice trial runs. Like I just told you our story over the weekend we learned a lot so maybe in the very beginning there were a couple of situations, but that was kind of important stuff where two teams were talking and the whole league was hearing it, that kind of stuff. I think everyone kind of tuned in when they tell you to mute your stuff, you should probably listen. I think they worked through some bugs, but the good news was I think the technology was working fine. It was just some procedural things that you can only learn by doing a mock and that’s why we did it today. They have head coaches and GMs getting on tomorrow for another little run. The IT people will be doing that work right up to draft day. I’m really not concerned and think it will be fine.”