The NFL Draft continues to be a traveling circus, and the next stop could be in Green Bay.
Beer. Cheese. Draft picks.
That could be what the NFL Draft looks like in a few years when it adds Green Bay to the list of the cities it has toured to.
One of the best ideas the league has come up with recently is to take the draft and move it around the country rather than hold it at Radio City Music Hall each year. While the bright lights of New York served as a perfect backdrop to football dreams being realized, there’s something a little bit better about including and honoring individual football cities as part of the NFL’s biggest offseason weekend.
After holding the Draft in Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Nashville, it appears that Green Bay is on the list next. Packers president Mark Murphy recently told shareholders in a virtual meeting today that Green Bay is a finalist to host the 2024 NFL Draft.
The NFL Draft was supposed to be held in Las Vegas this year, with the traditions of the Vegas strip being incorporated into elements of the selection process. Newly drafted players were set to make a small boat trip to the main stage under the Bellagio fountains. Going Full Vegas never felt so incredible than seeing the layouts of how that would have played out.
But the COVID-19 pandemic nixed that plan, with the NFL announcing that Vegas would get a second shot at hosting the Draft in 2022. The year after Vegas will be held in Kansas City — an iconic AFL city and home of the best team in the league — while Cleveland will get to host the NFL Draft next season in 2021, assuming we will be in a place where such a thing is possible.
Green Bay has a long tradition of football pride, with Vince Lombardi being the namesake for the Super Bowl trophy. There’s something old school and authentic about Green Bay as a football city, with its blue-collar neighborly setup that oozes capital-M Midwest energy.
The NFL is onto something with making the Draft a traveling circus, and if honoring historic football cities is the theme of choosing where to host, Green Bay should have been much higher on the list than having to wait until 2024.