Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for SiriusXM
The NFL Draft is going all virtual, and there is zero certainty as to when or if the NFL season can begin. On Wednesday, Santa Clara executive officer Jeffrey Smith said he doesn’t expect that sports will be able to take place until Thanksgiving, at the earliest.
49ers President Al Guido joined Papa and Lund on KNBR on Thursday to discuss that news, as well as how the 49ers are approaching this all-virtual offseason, considering the team is not allowed to work at their facilities in Santa Clara.
And yes, John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan have solid internet setups.
“Their wifi is good,” Guido said. “We’ve hardwired their house at this point to make sure that there are no glitches.”
As for the comments by Smith, Guido said there’s a great deal of uncertainty, and it’s tough to predict how the season will pan out.
“I obviously saw the comment late last night,” Guido said. “What I would say here is there’s a ton of debate regarding, frankly, like the appropriate time for the return of sports, but not just even sports for the return of any work at this point. Our intent is, let’s exercise great patience. We have time on the NFL front, we’re not like some of these other leagues that have actually had to postpone and or cancel and we’re going to make the most informed decision regarding our health and wellness.”
Guido said he’s been in contact with health officials, local leaders, like mayors, county supervisors and other team leaders like Warriors President Rick Welts, Sharks President Jonathan Becher, A’s President Dave Kaval, and Giants CEO Larry Baer. On Thursday morning, Guido said he was on a call with 10 other NFL team presidents, talking through logistics and contingency planning for the draft and the NFL season. He also had the NFL’s chief medical officer, Dr. Alan Sills, conduct an all-staff meeting with the 49ers to educate the organization.
“I would say that everything’s on the table at this point, because we’re all working from the same base of knowledge, which is, you know, right now, we don’t have a timeline,” Guido said.
As for the draft, Guido said the 49ers are lucky to have partners in Silicon Valley to ensure they can properly set up their operations at home and that the issue is not getting set up, but ensuring the protocols and systems are in place to be secure.
“Who knows how many millions and millions and millions of people are gonna be tuning in to this thing,” Guido said. “Security is a big concern, right? Because hackers are out there everywhere, we’re all reading it now. Wouldn’t somebody want to hack into an NFL Draft room? So that’s a lot of what we’re working on now it’s actually not the ability to not to pull it off, it’s making sure that we can do it in a secure way.”
Listen to the full interview below: