A 100-year-old league birthed by a game in which humans gather in huddles and maul each other in front of 70,000 fans is about to kick off its second century with the mother of all social distancing experiments.
Meanwhile, a country in near universal lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic will tune in to ESPN, NFL Network or ABC on Thursday night as the NFL makes its annual three-day college draft the nation's first major sporting "event" in more than a month.
To say the logistics are complicated is a massive understatement. With team facilities shuttered and social distancing guidelines in place, roughly 180 remote video feeds from coast to coast must be coordinated through ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn.