Roger Goodell has received plenty of heat about how he has handled some things the last few years. But Denver Broncos general manager John Elway doesn't want to hear any complaints about the NFL draft. Elway said there were plenty of GM's and owners who didn't want to hold the draft with everything going on surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Goodell remained strong saying this is what the United States needed right now, and pushed the draft forward.

“I want you to quote me on this,” Denver GM and VP John Elway told Peter King of NBC Sports. “Roger Goodell had a lot of pressure on him entering this draft. I will tell you a lot of GMs and some owners didn’t want it to happen right now, but Roger held strong. He had forethought about what this country was going through, with people quarantined, missing sports, needing some normalcy. I just think he deserves a hell of a lot of credit for standing up and going forward with this. That’s great leadership.”

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With sports fans longing for anything involving sports, the NFL draft was viewed with record numbers. The first night of the NFL draft averaged 15.6 million views on television according to Gaming Today. The previous high was back in 2014 when there was an average of 12.4 million views. Three Ohio markets had the three highest ratings.

Who knows when the world will get back to normal or if there will ever be a normal again. But for at least a couple of nights, sports fans were able to get their minds off things watching the NFL Draft. If it wasn't for Goodell pushing the draft through, who knows when it would have taken place.