Brian Flores, Miami Dolphins. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
The 2020 NFL Draft will be virtual. Would it be shocking if a team’s draft plans were hacked at some point? No, and here are five teams it could happen to.
No, it’s not going to happen. But then again, it would be so rolling-on-the-floor hilarious if it does.
With the 2020 NFL Draft going virtual because of COVID-19, this means NFL franchises will have to adjust on the fly when it comes to the draft process. Organizations who are the most nimble and technologically savvy will run laps around the stubborn and the perpetually uninformed.
So will an NFL franchise get hacked during the upcoming draft online? We’ll side with no for the sake of competitiveness and fairness, but you know damn well some NFL franchise is going to screw up this thing up most horrendously.
Again, drafting players is hard, and doing so in a virtual setting without a war room might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of some bad teams.
What would hacking look like anyway? Messing up some team’s connectivity? Meddling with the timer? Doing something really devious and compromising a team’s draft board? It could be any of those things or something totally different. Either way, if some team actually goes out and harpoons an opponent in this virtual draft, there will be hell to pay if the accused are caught.
Though computer fraud and wire fraud are so illegal it’s not even funny, let’s take a look at the five franchises how are the most vulnerable to theoretically be hacked during the 2020 NFL Draft.
5
Miami Dolphins
AFC East
This feels mean, but if there is a fifth team to make this list, there is a reason it could be the Miami Dolphins. No, it doesn’t seem like Miami is inherently dysfunctional anymore. Head coach Brian Flores might be the best branch off the Bill Belichick coaching tree. He seems to have a great rapport with general manager Chris Grier. Owner Stephen Ross seems to support both of them.
The only reason the Dolphins are on this list is they have the most draft picks this spring at 14. This draft may go down as the most important draft in franchise history. It could be more impactful than the 1983 NFL Draft where Don Shula landed Dan Marino at the tail-end of round one. If Miami becomes a playoff team and an AFC threat because of this draft, it will be huge.
Because they have the most picks, this only opens up their vulnerability to be hacked. If a nefarious team or third-party hacks the Dolphins, it could re-shape the entire landscape of the draft. With three first-round picks, no team has a bigger target on its back next weekend than the Dolphins. So they need to be ready to handle a potential digital crisis. They can’t screw it up.
Messing with the Dolphins’ timer could slow down the pace of the first round, allowing teams picking after them to have more time to orchestrate deals to move up and down the draft board. Though there doesn’t seem to be a franchise with an immense amount of animus towards the Dolphins, they could be a sacrificial lamb for someone to exploit and inevitably get ahead of them.