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      How to Watch the 2021 NFL Draft: Start Time, Streaming and Draft Order

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      A complete guide to some of the biggest questions surrounding the N.F.L. draft.The guessing will soon be over.After months of projections and rumors, the N.F.L. draft begins with the first round on Thursday, and with it comes a chance for all 32 teams to add new talent to their rosters. The coronavirus pandemic altered this year’s player evaluation process, but the end result will remain the same: More than 200 college players will formally be welcomed into the league during the three-day spectacle. Here’s what you need to know about it.What time is the draft?The first round of the N.F.L. draft starts Thursday at 8 p.m. Eastern time.ESPN, ABC and NFL Network will broadcast the event. It can be streamed through services like Hulu, Sling TV, fuboTV and the ESPN and N.F.L. apps.Where is the draft?Unlike in 2020, it won’t be held in N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell’s basement. The league. will convene in Cleveland this season for a hybrid model — some remote segments, some in-person — after Covid-19 forced the league last year to conduct the ceremonies virtually.Thirteen prospects will be on site to hug a vaccinated Goodell, if they so choose, after he calls their names. Others, including the presumed No. 1 pick Trevor Lawrence, a quarterback out of Clemson, will participate remotely. The N.F.L. also organized in-person musical performances and other events for fans in attendance.What’s the first round draft order?For the first 14 weeks of the 2020 season, the Jets were winless and seemed poised to inherit the No. 1 overall pick. But after winning two of their last three games, they forfeited that right and handed it to the Jacksonville Jaguars, who lost every game after the season opener.The San Francisco 49ers leapt nine spots when they acquired the third overall pick through a trade last month with the Miami Dolphins, who then traded with the Philadelphia Eagles for the No. 6 pick. The Baltimore Ravens also reshuffled the order when they received the No. 31 pick from Kansas City in a trade package that included offensive tackle Orlando Brown.Kansas City, along with the Houston Texans, Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams, does not have a first-round pick because of previous trades. The Jaguars, Jets, Dolphins and Ravens each have two.1. Jacksonville Jaguars2. New York Jets3. San Francisco 49ers4. Atlanta Falcons5. Cincinnati Bengals6. Miami Dolphins7. Detroit Lions8. Carolina Panthers9. Denver Broncos10. Dallas Cowboys11. New York Giants12. Philadelphia Eagles13. Los Angeles Chargers14. Minnesota Vikings15. New England Patriots16. Arizona Cardinals17. Las Vegas Raiders18. Miami Dolphins19. Washington Football Team20. Chicago Bears21. Indianapolis Colts22. Tennessee Titans23. New York Jets24. Pittsburgh Steelers25. Jacksonville Jaguars26. Cleveland Browns27. Baltimore Ravens28. New Orleans Saints29. Green Bay Packers30. Buffalo Bills31. Baltimore Ravens32. Tampa Bay BuccaneersWho will be picked No. 1?All signs point to the Jaguars selecting Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence. In three seasons as a starter, he led the Tigers to two national title games, winning after the 2018 season, and three consecutive College Football Playoff appearances. He lost only two games in his career at the South Carolina school.Lawrence declined the N.F.L.’s invitation to attend the draft in person and instead will watch with his wife, Marissa, and family at their home near Clemson. Along with the newly hired Coach Urban Meyer, he will be charged with improving a franchise that has historically struggled to win. Since 2008, the Jaguars have finished above .500 only once.If everyone knows who will be picked first, where is the drama?Unless the Jets drift from their expected plan of selecting Brigham Young quarterback Zach Wilson with the No. 2 pick, the suspense starts with San FranciscoThe 49ers’ trade package to the Dolphins included two future first-round picks, a steep price San Francisco felt comfortable paying to add a quarterback. Their current starter, Jimmy Garoppolo, has been sidelined with major injuries, playing in fewer than seven games in two of the last three seasons.Alabama’s Mac Jones, North Dakota State’s Trey Lance and Ohio State’s Justin Fields are the leading candidates to be picked by the 49ers. While Jones is an accurate pocket passer, Lance and Fields can throw and be effective runners, adding another stress to a defense and expanding Coach Kyle Shanahan’s playbook.But the 49ers can only pick one of them, leaving a bevy of options for the Atlanta Falcons with the fourth overall pick. Their franchise quarterback, Matt Ryan, 35, is the second-oldest quarterback in the N.F.C. South, and though he arguably has productive seasons ahead of him, Coach Arthur Smith and General Manager Terry Fontenot, who both were hired this winter, may elect to start the line of succession.Florida tight end Kyle Pitts could also make sense for the Falcons, especially since teams have reportedly tried to gauge their interest in trading the star receiver Julio Jones. Atlanta could swap picks with a team searching for a quarterback and choose from talented players later in the first round.What about players who opted out of their college seasons?More than 100 Division I players opted out of the 2020 college football season because of coronavirus concerns. Some of those players are expected to come off the board early, despite not having played a live snap in more than a year.The Bengals, with the fifth pick, are expected to be the first team to select a player who opted out since the best available non-quarterbacks align with some of the team’s many, many needs. Cincinnati could either bolster its offensive line, which surrendered the third-most sacks in the N.F.L. last season, by drafting Oregon offensive lineman Penei Sewell. Or it could reunite quarterback Joe Burrow with receiver Ja’Marr Chase, one of his teammates from Louisiana State’s national championship team.Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons, Virginia Tech cornerback Caleb Farley, Miami defensive end Gregory Rousseau and Northwestern offensive lineman Rashawn Slater are also projected first-round selections who opted out of the 2020 season. More

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      Here Are The Needs for the Biggest Movers in the NFL Draft

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      San Francisco traded for the No. 3 pick to select a quarterback, and Baltimore traded into the first round, sending Orlando Brown to Kansas City, to reload for the future.The top of the N.F.L. draft quaked late last month when the Miami Dolphins, the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles swung what amounted to a three-team trade. The bottom of it shuddered on Friday when the Baltimore Ravens acquired another first-round pick.In March, the Dolphins sent the No. 3 pick in the draft to San Francisco for the No. 12 pick this year, first- and third-round picks in 2022 and a first-round pick in 2023. Then they shipped the No. 12 pick and a fourth-rounder this year and a first-rounder in 2022 to the Eagles, who gave Miami the No. 6 pick and a fifth-round selection.Those teams have not tipped off their draft targets — though 49ers Coach Kyle Shanahan faces questions nearly every day about his team’s quarterback position — but here are their needs ahead of Thursday night’s first round:No. 3 Pick: San Francisco 49ers (From Miami)Both Justin Fields and Mac Jones have been speculated as targets for the San Francisco 49ers with the No. 3 pick in the 2021 N.F.L. draft.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesMichael Reaves/Getty ImagesWith Jacksonville set to pick Trevor Lawrence at No. 1 and the Jets most likely taking Zach Wilson at No. 2, this is where the draft begins and where all the speculation finally, mercifully, ceases. After trading with the Dolphins to move up nine spots last month, the 49ers are taking a quarterback to sit behind, or supplant, Jimmy Garoppolo this year. Their choice will reveal much about Kyle Shanahan’s vision.Does he value an accurate, mechanically sound pocket passer who can execute a scheme designed to yield completions and yards after receptions? If so, come on down, Mac Jones of Alabama.But after watching Patrick Mahomes toast the 49ers in the Super Bowl to cap the 2019 season and seeing Josh Allen shred them in Week 13 last season, Shanahan could be craving a mobile quarterback. He has Justin Fields of Ohio State and Trey Lance of North Dakota State to choose between. That decision will fling the rest of the top 10 into chaos.No. 6 Pick: Miami Dolphins (From Philadelphia)L.S.U. receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who opted out of the 2020 college football season, could be available when the Dolphins select sixth.David J. Phillip/Associated PressThe Dolphins want to put quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in a better position for success in his second N.F.L. season. Their trades with Philadelphia and San Francisco guarantee that they can do so with the sixth overall pick, where at least one receiver among Ja’Marr Chase of Louisiana State and Jaylen Waddle and DeVonta Smith of Alabama, or the unicorn tight end Kyle Pitts of Florida, will be available. Offensive tackle Penei Sewell of Oregon could also be available.Miami is picking here because a video surfaced minutes before the 2016 draft of the offensive tackle prospect Laremy Tunsil wearing a gas mask and appearing to smoke marijuana through a bong. To explain: Because of the video, Tunsil was selected at No. 13, lower than expected, by Miami. After developing him into one of the league’s best tackles, the Dolphins, as they stripped their roster for a rebuild, were able to trade a package that included him to the Houston Texans in 2019 for a package that included three draft picks, including the third pick in this year’s draft.No. 12 Pick: Philadelphia Eagles (From Miami, via San Francisco)Either the Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith, left, or Jaylen Waddle, right, of Alabama, would be a welcome addition to the Eagles, who are looking to upgrade the receiver position.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesBy trading back from the sixth pick and obtaining a 2022 first-round pick in the process, the Eagles signaled that they would replenish their aging roster under their new coach, Nick Sirianni. The move collects a raft of picks for 2022, when, hopefully, the college football schedule returns to normal and teams can better evaluate prospects.Maybe most important to Eagles fans, it confirmed that Philadelphia was not interested in selecting a quarterback high or displacing Jalen Hurts — at least not this year. With two first-round picks in 2022, and possibly a third if Carson Wentz reaches playing time benchmarks in Indianapolis, the Eagles are positioned to acquire a quarterback next off-season if Hurts flops.As for this year, the Eagles need receivers and upgrades at a lot of other positions. If Jaylen Waddle or DeVonta Smith from Alabama is available, General Manager Howie Roseman may be tempted. If neither is, and if he doesn’t like the talent at another need position (like, say, cornerback), he might just trade out again.No. 31 Pick: Baltimore Ravens (From Kansas City)Baltimore traded away the Pro Bowl offensive lineman Orlando Brown to gain a first-round pick in this year’s draft and stockpiled future selections.Brett Carlsen/Associated PressThe Ravens on Friday traded a player at a premium position, the Pro Bowl left tackle Orlando Brown, to Kansas City for this pick and others. It might have seemed peculiar, helping the best team in the conference get better at protecting Patrick Mahomes’s blind side, but Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta values draft choices. For unloading Brown, he got three others spread across the next two years.Baltimore, which also picks at No. 27, now has options, either to trade up, to bolster its receiving corps or to improve a pass rush that lost the free-agent defensive end Matt Judon to New England in the off-season.Full 2021 N.F.L. Draft Order1. Jacksonville Jaguars2. New York Jets3. San Francisco 49ers4. Atlanta Falcons5. Cincinnati Bengals6. Miami Dolphins7. Detroit Lions8. Carolina Panthers9. Denver Broncos10. Dallas Cowboys11. New York Giants12. Philadelphia Eagles13. Los Angeles Chargers14. Minnesota Vikings15. New England Patriots16. Arizona Cardinals17. Las Vegas Raiders18. Miami Dolphins19. Washington Football Team20. Chicago Bears21. Indianapolis Colts22. Tennessee Titans23. New York Jets24. Pittsburgh Steelers25. Jacksonville Jaguars26. Cleveland Browns27. Baltimore Ravens28. New Orleans Saints29. Green Bay Packers30. Buffalo Bills31. Baltimore Ravens32. Tampa Bay Buccaneers More

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      Kyle Pitts Is Set to Be the N.F.L.’s Next Revelation at Tight End

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      After he is drafted Thursday, Pitts is expected to join the N.F.L.’s top-shelf tight ends: Rob Gronkowski, George Kittle and Travis Kelce, big-bodied pass catchers who are coveted by contending teams.In the first quarter of a game against Kentucky last November, the University of Florida coaching staff called a favorite play for a favorite player.Kyle Pitts, the bruising and balletic tight end forecast to be among the earliest selections in N.F.L. draft this week, had returned to the field that day, three weeks after being concussed on an illegal hit in a game against Georgia. The Gators’ first drive of the Kentucky game had just begun gathering momentum, nudging to Florida’s 35-yard line, when Coach Dan Mullen dialed up a “snake” pattern — a route traditionally assigned to slight, fast-twitch receivers, not to players who check in at 6 foot 6 and 245 pounds, as Pitts does.“It’s an amazingly athletic route,” Tim Brewster, Florida’s tight ends coach, said. “Really good receivers can struggle with the route.”Pitts came off the left end of the line at full speed, tilted his shoulders toward the sideline and — so quickly that video of the play seems to skip a frame — veered back inside, leaving the cornerback who covered Pitts whirling his hips and grabbing at air. Quarterback Kyle Trask hit Pitts in stride, and he did the rest, opening up to a gliding sprint. The play went for a 65-yard touchdown, the first of three for Pitts that day.“The kid freakin’ ripped it,” Brewster said. “I mean, it was absolutely gorgeous.”Pitts’s game, a blend of rare physicality and even rarer grace, tends to inspire such double-barreled language. He is poised to join the ranks of the N.F.L.’s top-shelf tight ends, players like Rob Gronkowski, George Kittle and Travis Kelce, who have given recent Super Bowl contenders offensive options that are nearly impossible to cover.Pitts and those other big-bodied pass catchers epitomize what N.F.L. teams seek in “unicorns” — parlance borrowed from a similar positional evolution in the N.B.A. These players not only excel at a given job description but also pair attributes long considered disparate. Pitts gets open like a small man and brings the ball down like a big one, high-jumping along the sideline or shoving through pairs of defenders to wrangle passes. He makes possible a new version of the sport.“It really is mismatches,” Mike Renner, a draft analyst for Pro Football Focus, said of modern offensive philosophy. “Offensive coordinators are realizing it’s not necessarily their scheme; it’s about getting the right guy on the right defender. You’re seeing more and more of that — those guys that have multiple skill sets are the ones that are more coveted.”Running backs who might once have been considered too small to carry the every-down load, such as the New Orleans Saints’ Alvin Kamara, have stepped to the position’s vanguard, catching passes almost as often as they take handoffs. Receivers who don’t fit the traditional profile — the Seattle Seahawks’ D.K. Metcalf was once thought to be too bulky to run effective routes — have become game breakers.Tight ends George Kittle (left) and Travis Kelce have helped transform the position with their combination of size, speed and balletic catches.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesJamie Squire/Getty ImagesNowhere has the shift been more pronounced than at the tight end position, once the province of dutiful blockers and complementary receiving targets. Kittle is the muscle of the San Francisco 49ers’ ground game, cracking into linebackers to clear space for outside runs, and the focal point of its aerial attack, amassing a team-high 1,053 yards during the 2019 season, which ended with the 49ers in the Super Bowl.Kansas City’s Kelce is a less renowned blocker but a bigger vertical threat; until late in the 2020 season, he led all N.F.L. players, not just tight ends, in total receiving yards. In trying to re-establish their championship bona fides, the New England Patriots added a pair of tight ends this off-season, Jonnu Smith and Hunter Henry, giving the team a chance to recreate the offensive confusion that made the pairing of Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez so successful in the early 2010s.To defend against such threats, “what you need is for someone like me to go play linebacker,” said Tony Gonzalez, the Hall of Fame tight end who in the 1990s and 2000s prefigured this age of rangy receiving threats. “But we don’t want to play linebacker; we want to score touchdowns.”At Florida’s pro-day workout for N.F.L. scouts in March, Pitts flashed the attributes that make him what Renner terms “a true modern tight end weapon,” registering a wingspan of nearly 7 feet and a 33½-inch vertical leap and running his 40-yard dash in 4.44 seconds — faster than some All-Pro wide receivers.Shortly thereafter, Pitts laid out professional aspirations that extend beyond going in the top five of this year’s draft, as many analysts predict he will: “Start at a high level and keep increasing every year and being able to do other things that other tight ends aren’t doing,” Pitts said. “I feel like I’ll be the best to ever do it.”When Pitts arrived in Gainesville in 2018 as a 17-year-old freshman, the challenge for Florida coaches lay in convincing him of all that his body could do. “It was just a learning process of him understanding how to play in his frame,” said Larry Scott, Pitts’s tight end coach for his first two years with the Gators and now the head coach at Howard University. Scott marveled at Pitts’s catch radius — his ability to adjust to passes close to his shoe tops or high above his helmet — and taught him when to outrun defenders and when to invite contact and create leverage.“Just because a guy’s on you doesn’t mean you’re not open,” Scott told Pitts. “You’re always open.”Pitts caught just three passes his freshman season, but he built a habit of studying the N.F.L. players who will soon become his peers. He watched film of Kittle and of Las Vegas Raiders tight end Darren Waller, eyeing nuances of footwork and positioning. He drilled line-of-scrimmage releases and blocking technique incessantly.Larry Scott, Florida’s tight ends coach for Pitts’s first two seasons, told his 6-foot-6, 245-pound charge, “Just because a guy’s on you doesn’t mean you’re not open. You’re always open.”Sam Craft/Associated PressAt Archbishop Wood High School outside Philadelphia, Pitts had played defense as well as tight end and receiver, once registering a pair of interceptions in a state championship game, and he grew adept at reading complex coverages and knowing how to settle into open zones.The practice-field and film-room work helped Pitts produce the finest season by a tight end in recent college football history in 2020. Lining up wherever he was needed in Florida’s formations, Pitts caught 43 passes for 770 yards and a dozen touchdowns — despite missing the better part of three regular-season games because of the concussion and a fourth with an unrelated injury, and also sitting out the Gators’ Cotton Bowl game to prepare for the draft.His 17.9 yards per reception eclipsed the 15.9-yard average of DeVonta Smith, the Alabama receiver who won the 2020 Heisman Trophy; Pitts finished 10th in the voting, higher than any other tight end in more than four decades.Even top draft prospects tend to get typecast, as talent evaluators look for skills that can reliably transfer to the next level. Coaches talk about Pitts, though, in the language not of production but of possibility.After Pitts’s pro-day workout, Mullen described a straightforward on-field calculus: If Pitts has a corner on him, he will come inside and play through contact. If he is matched up with a linebacker, he will flex out and win with speed and route running. “What are you going to do at that point?” Mullen asked.Unlike his predecessors, Pitts won’t take the league by surprise. In 2013, the Chiefs nabbed Kelce in the third round of the draft after he amassed fewer than 900 receiving yards over three seasons at the University of Cincinnati. Coming out of Iowa with just 22 catches his senior year, Kittle was not picked until the fifth round in 2017. But college offenses have become more elaborate in recent years to showcase talent like Pitts’s, on the rare occasions it comes along.“You saw him run routes like a wide receiver, you saw him block in line, you saw him run the seam, you saw him make contested catches,” Renner said. “You’ve seen everything that the guy is going to do in the N.F.L.”In the draft, N.F.L. teams divulge the skills they most value; one can trace the trends of the game in the ever-increasing glut of quarterbacks taken at the top of the first round and in the falling out of favor by running backs. If Pitts is the highest non-passer selected, he could be the first tight end chosen in the top five since Riley Odoms in 1972. (Atlanta, holding the fourth pick, may look to Pitts to replicate, and expand, Gonzalez’s role there.)“He’s pretty much an unsolvable problem,” Brewster said.Asked what Pitts might become in his N.F.L. prime, Brewster thought back to the game against Georgia, which was ranked fifth in the country at the time. Before getting hurt, Pitts was the locus of the action, throwing blocks at the burly Bulldogs front and catching two passes for 59 yards. The first was a vaulting, pirouetting snag over the sideline, the second a sheer outmuscling of his defender in the end zone. He did enough, over a quarter and a half of play, to dig No. 8 Florida out of an early two-score hole; the Gators would go on to an upset win, 44-28.“He was on a whole ’nother level,” Brewster said. “There was everybody on the field — you had Florida and you had Georgia. And above the field, you had Kyle Pitts.” More

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      Urban Meyer’s Renewal in Jacksonville

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      They filed into the first few rows of TIAA Bank Field, 120 staffers from the Jacksonville Jaguars’ business side, sitting there like so many college boosters and alumni Urban Meyer had addressed over the years. He gathered them there on a sunny afternoon in early March, nearly two months after being hired to revive one of the N.F.L.’s more forlorn franchises, to deliver a speech similar in spirit and substance to ones he’d given as the coach at college behemoths like Ohio State and Florida.After retiring from coaching in 2018, Meyer, 56, had a cushy television gig and a secure legacy as one of the best, and most polarizing, coaches in recent college football history. But he was still unfulfilled. He wanted to coach again, and despite the N.F.L.’s history of conquering celebrated college coaches trying to recreate their glory in the pros, Meyer determined his best fit was with the worst team of the last decade.Tabbed to try to reorient this wayward organization, Meyer conjured his past as an ace recruiter. Wearing white shorts and a gray Jaguars pullover, he urged the assembled employees to “own it,” a call to action he also used at the Jan. 15 news conference introducing him as Jacksonville’s new coach. He implored them to take pride in every facet of the organization, right down to the team logo.“This, right now, is not the most respected logo in the N.F.L. — it’s not,” Meyer said that day. “If in three years it still doesn’t mean much, then you’re probably looking for a new coach and we’ve not been very successful. That’s how personally I’m taking it.”Meyer’s rah-rah message underscored that his competitive drive to own anything and everything about a program, a compulsion that produced three national titles — two at Florida and one at Ohio State — remained fierce, even after a two-year layoff.That self-imposed time away from coaching came after a string of scandals and stress- and health-related issues helped cause him to resign or retire three times in his career. Meyer’s college teams were 187-32 (.854) while, at Florida, there were 31 arrests of players during his tenure, and, at Ohio State, he protected a longtime assistant with a history of domestic abuse.As he weighed whether to re-enter a culture that glorifies workaholics, Meyer did not choose any of the more visible (and venerable) franchises that also wanted him. Instead he pursued the top job in one of the N.F.L.’s smallest markets with a team that perennially has to quell speculation that it will move to London.Jacksonville is poised on Thursday to select Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, one of the best quarterback prospects in decades, with the first overall pick in the N.F.L. draft. After years of disarray, the Jaguars, as desperate for an identity as they are for victories, have arrived at the most critical juncture since their inception in 1995, an inflection point that the team owner Shahid Khan called “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in football.” The union between Meyer and Khan is meant to make good on it.“Now, we get a fresh start,” Khan said in an interview in mid-April. “Everybody gets that this isn’t rebuilding. I mean, we need to win now.”Jaguars fans at a Bold City Brigade tailgate during the 2019 season. The 2020 season, the worst in franchise history, yielded its most promising moment: the right to draft Trevor Lawrence. Dustin HegedusSince Khan’s first season as owner in 2012, no team has a worse record than the Jaguars (39-105), who until last year’s 1-15 debacle somehow never managed to be quite putrid enough to earn the No. 1 draft pick. They have outspent every other team in free agency over that period, but recorded only one winning season, in 2017, during which they lost the A.F.C. title game at New England. Since that apex, Jacksonville is 12-36.John Caputo, the president of Bold City Brigade, a Jaguars supporters club with chapters around the country and overseas, likes to say that fair-weather Jacksonville fans cannot exist. For years, they have endured taunts about their team, their city, their own perceived apathy, and still they fork over discretionary income to watch bad football in person.The darkness lifted in December when the worst season in franchise history yielded its most promising moment: The winless Jets beat the Los Angeles Rams in Week 15, vaulting one-win Jacksonville ahead on tiebreakers for the right to draft Lawrence. “The last month of the season was the most fun we’ve had since 2017 even though we were setting a franchise record for being terrible,” Caputo said. “Because of the Trevor watch.”As the Jets edged Los Angeles, Caputo sat, riveted, at a bar near his home in Jacksonville Beach. Patrons chanted, “J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!” Afraid the Jets would lose if he left, Caputo stayed until the end.“For the last 10 years all we want is for the Jaguars to win, but they lose,” Caputo said in a video call. “And so now we’re actually cheering for them to lose, which was kind of liberating.”His friend Pat Donnell, the Brigade’s vice president, chimed in: “And they didn’t let us down.”In light of the team’s rebuilding fortune, fans are rallying to newfound ambitions. Since Meyer arrived, deposits for season tickets have poured in so fast — and from so many new customers — that the Jaguars hired 20 new sales representatives. Traffic on the team’s website and social media accounts has soared, with much of it coming from locations outside Florida, including the Midwest, where Meyer last coached.Coach Urban Meyer, far right, watched Trevor Lawrence, foreground, work out at Clemson’s pro day in February.David Platt/Clemson Athletics, via USA Today Sports, via ReutersA bonanza of fan-designed apparel has cropped up. “Urban Renewal” merchandise is for sale along with T-shirts blaring “Hope,” beneath Lawrence’s photo, a nod to the popular Shepard Fairey-designed poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.Scores of Jaguars fans contributed $9.04, a homage to Jacksonville’s area code, and bought Lawrence and his new wife, Marissa, a $299.95 toaster from their wedding registry. The fans’ gifts, combined with $20,000 Lawrence said he’d chip in and other donations, added up to more than $54,000 that will be given to charities. “Thanks again, we hope to be a part of your community soon,” Lawrence responded on Twitter.Lawrence’s pending arrival has reinvigorated a franchise that has tried and failed to find a quarterback to outshine Mark Brunell, who started eight playoff games for Jacksonville in the late 1990s. But Meyer’s hiring has given the Jaguars immediate credibility as a team that might also responsibly manage a talented star’s rise.Khan and Meyer had chatted at a few functions over the years, but it wasn’t until Khan bumped into Meyer at an invitation-only N.F.L. party before the Super Bowl in February 2020 in Miami Gardens, Fla., that they shared an extended conversation. As they discussed each other’s backgrounds, Khan found that Meyer’s leadership traits were similar to those he’d acquired immigrating to the United States from Pakistan at age 16 and becoming a global auto parts magnate: relentless ambition, a hands-on temperament, trust in his staff.Though Meyer fielded interest from other teams, he was drawn in by Khan’s offer to remake the franchise in his image. If he succeeds, Meyer can become only the fourth coach to win both a national college championship and a Super Bowl, after Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and Pete Carroll.“If you know Urban, I mean, he doesn’t do much on quick decisions or on a whim,” said Florida Coach Dan Mullen, a close friend and former assistant of Meyer’s. “Everything he does is extremely well thought out with a very detailed plan of why he would do it.”Prepping for coaching interviews, Meyer had canvassed his former players in the N.F.L. and contacted, among others, Johnson to learn how he rebuilt the Dallas Cowboys three decades ago after leaving the University of Miami.The conversations with Khan moved swiftly, and Meyer called his decision to accept the job — and the bounty of benefits that accompanied it, from the weather to the lack of state income tax to Jacksonville’s swell of Florida Gators fans — an easy one.“They got the first pick, a chance to start fresh, start with some salary-cap advantages,” Meyer said in an interview. “Really, if you look at the team, there’s some very good core players here.”Khan, after having experimented (and failed) with various front office power-sharing models, reworked the organizational hierarchy to give Meyer maximum leeway and a big role in the general manager search.“This, right now, is not the most respected logo in the N.F.L. — it’s not,” Meyer said in an address to team personnel, vowing to change that.Jacksonville JaguarsN.F.L. owners have long been fascinated with innovative or triumphant college coaches, and although some flourished at the pro level, many, including Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier, struggled to adapt. In the N.F.L., recruiting prowess is neutralized. Motivational tactics that might work with 19- and 20-year-olds might not work on grown men. Roster limitations and the salary cap, intended to foster parity, wrest control from control freaks. So can injuries and meddlesome owners.Spurrier was 56, same as Meyer now, when he — regrettably, he says — rushed into accepting a head coaching job in Washington, where he came to learn that the owner, Daniel Snyder, would be rather involved in personnel matters. In their first year together, in 2002, Snyder pushed Spurrier against his objections to play the rookie quarterback Patrick Ramsey, and the next year released the second-stringer Danny Wuerffel, who played for Spurrier at Florida. Unable to pick even his backup, Spurrier later told his wife, Jerri, that he’d be done after that season.“I was offered a bunch of money, and I did not use an agent, and I wasn’t probably as careful as getting things in writing as I should have,” Spurrier said. “I did a poor job also, and I’ll admit to that. But the situation ran me out.”Neither Spurrier nor Saban — nor any of their college brethren, really — inherited a situation quite as favorable as Meyer’s in Jacksonville, where he can develop a franchise quarterback while continuing to stockpile talent with four other 2021 draft selections in the top 65.Khan’s words might teem with optimism, but the Jaguars are still going to lose — more often, perhaps, than Meyer, whose worst season as a college head coach was 8-5, ever has. Meyer’s ability to cope with defeat may determine his longevity in the N.F.L.“That’s the first thing I talked to him about when he took the job,” Mullen said. “I mean, ‘How are you going to handle that?’ Ten-and-six is a great year, and I don’t know if he would ever view 10-6 as a great year.”Meyer had far more success than the last two N.F.L. hires plucked from the college ranks, Matt Rhule (hired by the Panthers) and Kliff Kingsbury (Cardinals), but he recognizes that he must adapt on a number of fronts.Already he seemed to misjudge the extent of the backlash generated by the hiring of a strength coach, Chris Doyle, who left Iowa’s staff after several current and former players said he had promoted a culture of bullying and racism. Within hours of the Fritz Pollard Alliance’s condemning the decision, calling it “simply unacceptable,” Doyle resigned.Recruiting players is one of Meyer’s strengths, but unlike in college, where he often had several face-to-face conversations with potential players, he didn’t speak with any prospective free agents until after they signed. The Jaguars signed more than a dozen free agents, including several veterans who played for Meyer and his coaches, like running back Carlos Hyde, who said it was a “no-brainer” to rejoin him.“We’ve been lucky,” Meyer said. “A lot of guys are here training. But we haven’t had a team meeting yet. In college, you probably would have had 50 by now.”But as he is fast learning, Meyer is not in college anymore. More

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      After Trevor Lawrence, Pick Another Quarterback

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      With no shortage of teams looking for a passer to build around, Zach Wilson, Justin Fields, Trey Lance and Mac Jones figure to shape the draft’s top 10 picks.There is no drama as to who will be the No. 1 pick in this year’s N.F.L. draft. The only question had been which team would get the chance to draft Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence. The Jacksonville Jaguars secured that honor by way of the Jets’ seemingly not understanding that they were supposed to keep losing.So with the knowledge that Lawrence, a Peyton Manning-like sure thing of a quarterback prospect, is going to Jacksonville to be paired with Coach Urban Meyer in a college-meets-pros marriage, here is a look at the other four quarterbacks likely to go in the top 10 of this year’s draft, which will begin on Thursday with the first round held in Cleveland.Zach Wilson: The GunslingerZach Wilson’s devil-may-care attitude and prolific numbers endeared him to college fans and to the Jets, which pick second in Thursday’s N.F.L. draft.Steve Conner/Associated PressCollege: Brigham Young (two-plus seasons as a starter)Size: 6 feet 2 inches, 214 pounds2020 Passing: 3,692 yards, 33 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, 196.4 rating2020 Rushing: 254 yards, 10 touchdownsThe reason Wilson is considered the consensus No. 2 pick: Aaron Rodgers. The reason the Jets, who hold the selection, might want to show at least a little caution: Johnny Manziel. Wilson has a strong and accurate arm, improvises well outside the pocket and has off-the-charts confidence — all the charisma and competitiveness that Rodgers and Manziel have in common.But that approach yielded different outcomes for those two gunslingers in the pros, where Rodgers’s size and off-field steadiness were among the traits that made him more successful. Wilson’s daring did not work all that well against top competition in college, where he went 2-4 against top-25 teams, and it’s an open question whether it will work against disciplined N.F.L. defenses.Wilson, 21, missed games in 2019 for surgeries on his shoulder and thumb, but if his 2020 season was a true reflection of his skill, the team drafting Wilson is getting a truly special quarterback.Outlook: The Jets traded Sam Darnold to the Carolina Panthers in early April and it is considered nearly certain that they are set on Wilson as his replacement.Justin Fields: The Dual ThreatJustin Fields led Ohio State’s romp over Clemson in the Sugar Bowl. He and Alabama’s Mac Jones are both rumored to be the target of the San Francisco 49ers, which traded up to the No. 3 pick.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesCollege: Ohio State, transferred from Georgia (two seasons as a full-time starter)Size: 6-2, 228 pounds2020 Passing: 2,100 yards, 22 touchdowns, 6 interceptions, 175.6 rating2020 Rushing: 383 yards, 5 touchdownsFields grew up a few towns over from Lawrence in Georgia and has been in his shadow at each step along the way, especially after Lawrence won the national championship as a freshman. Fields transferred from Georgia to Ohio State for his sophomore season in 2019 and was a Heisman Trophy finalist (Lawrence didn’t make the cut). Lawrence and Clemson beat Fields and Ohio State in that season’s College Football Playoff semifinal, but Fields got his revenge the next season as the Buckeyes trounced the Tigers in another semifinal matchup.Now Fields’s easiest comparison is to the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott, another big-bodied pocket passer who can surprise with his running if there’s an opening. There is no question that Fields regressed in 2020 compared to his breakout 2019 season, when he threw for 3,273 yards with 41 touchdowns against three interceptions. His labored release and tendency to hold onto the ball resulted in his taking sacks, but his arm strength and versatility, along with his strong effort against Clemson in a pressure-packed game, have turned the volume down on any questions. So did his head-on handling of publicly detailing his epilepsy diagnosis, which he has managed since his childhood.Outlook: While not in the mix for the top two picks, Fields is the overwhelming favorite to be the third quarterback drafted Thursday, as his accuracy, his arm strength and his ability to run all make him an ideal fit for Coach Kyle Shanahan’s system in San Francisco.Trey Lance: The Unproven StarAfter a breakout sophomore season, North Dakota State’s Trey Lance played in only one game in 2020.Bruce Kluckhohn/Associated PressCollege: North Dakota State (one season as a full-time starter)Size: 6-4, 226 pounds2019 Passing: 2,786 yards, 28 touchdowns, 0 interceptions, 180.6 rating2019 Rushing: 1,100 yards, 14 touchdownsLance hasn’t lost a football game since Nov. 10, 2017, when his Marshall (Minn.) Tigers were topped by the South St. Paul Packers in Minnesota’s high school state quarterfinals. He hasn’t thrown an interception in a game since Oct. 13, 2017. After throwing only one pass at North Dakota State in his freshman year, he won the Walter Payton Award as the top player in the Football Championship Subdivision and led North Dakota State to an undefeated championship season in his lone year as a starter.N.D.S.U. played its only fall game on Oct. 3, 2020, before Lance declared for the draft, meaning six months have gone by since anyone has seen him throw a competitive pass. Little matter for the right team. Lance is known as a film room addict with atypical passing mechanics abetted by a quick-enough release. His array of devastating play fakes, combined with his speed and power as a runner, give Lance a skill set that should translate at the pro level.Outlook: Seemingly assured of being a top-10 pick, Lance is the fourth quarterback off the board in most mock drafts. His back story of people doubting his ability to handle the quarterback position is reminiscent of Lamar Jackson, his style of play is a little closer to Josh Allen, and Carson Wentz has proved that a player from N.D.S.U.’s program can succeed in the N.F.L. That is good company to keep.Mac Jones: The Question MarkMac Jones quarterbacked Alabama to a 13-0 record and the national championship with an offense that boasted an embarrassment of riches at every position.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesCollege: Alabama (one season as a full-time starter)Size: 6-3, 217 pounds2020 Passing: 4,500 yards, 41 touchdowns, 4 interceptions, 203.1 rating2020 Rushing: 14 yards, 1 touchdownsHaving come to Alabama in the same recruiting class as Tua Tagovailoa, and with Jalen Hurts entrenched at starter upon his arrival, it took a while before Jones got onto the field. It didn’t take Jones long to prove himself. As a fill-in starter in the 2019 season he led the Crimson Tide to a 2020 Citrus Bowl win, and in his lone season as the full-time starter he set a Football Bowl Subdivision single-season record for completion percentage with an eye-popping 77.4 percent.Jones’s accuracy, his strong-enough arm and his ability to move around in the pocket (even if he almost never runs) make him an attractive prospect. There are questions, though, about the frantic nature of his play, his slow release, how he will improvise when his first option isn’t available and how much of his success was a result of his team having been comically loaded at every position on offense.Outlook: Jones, 22, has been linked in some reports to San Francisco, which traded up to the No. 3 pick in late March. Shanahan watched his second pro day workout, as did New England’s Bill Belichick. The Patriots (who have the No. 15 pick) would have to trade into the top 10 to grab Jones before the quarterback-coveting Panthers (No. 8) and Broncos (No. 9) are on the clock. More

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      After Opting Out, Micah Parsons Prepares for the 2021 NFL Draft

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      Players and scouts adjusted their methods to account for the absence of a traditional combine in Indianapolis.Micah Parsons relaxed his 246-pound body as he decelerated from running the 40-yard dash in front of N.F.L. scouts at a predraft showcase hosted by his college, Penn State, in late March.When Parsons, a linebacker projected to be one of the first defensive players selected in the 2021 N.F.L. draft, learned he clocked in at 4.39 seconds — a time comparable to receivers and running backs — he pounded his chest and pointed upward.“It’s like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” he said afterward. “Now I can finally relax.”Parsons, 21, is one of over 100 Division I players who opted out of the 2020 college football season because of coronavirus concerns, leaving N.F.L. talent evaluators precious little current information to go on in a year further hindered by the absence of a traditional scouting combine. Parsons knew that his data offered his strongest argument for why a franchise should still draft him a year after his last in-game action.Prospects and N.F.L. teams are adapting to having to rely on university-hosted workouts, teleconference interviews and video analysis, data that isn’t standardized and, in most cases, wasn’t collected in person, to make their draft cases.College-hosted workouts, or pro days, took on added importance after the N.F.L. canceled the in-person workout portion of its draft scouting combine, typically hosted in Indianapolis every spring. That decision meant players would conduct their 40-yard dashes, bench presses and vertical jumps — among other physical tests that can sway draft slotting drastically — at their college facilities, rather than at a neutral site with standardized measures.Many players who had opted out spent the college football season and beyond prepping specifically for that testing, as many draft eligible players do each spring. Without a college season, they had longer than usual to train. Parsons signed with an agency, Athletes First, and moved to Santa Ana, Calif., in September to train full time and focus on how he would perform in front of scouts in March.Along with some other star players who opted out, such as Louisiana State receiver Ja’Marr Chase and Oregon offensive lineman Penei Sewell, Parsons is among the potential first-round picks who are trying to remind N.F.L. teams of the promise and acumen they haven’t been able to display publicly in over a year.L.S.U. receiver Ja’Marr Chase spent the 2020 season training for the draft. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds at the school’s pro day workout in March.Matthew Hinton/FR 170690AP, via Associated PressChase, who in 2019 set Southeastern Conference records with 1,780 receiving yards and 20 touchdowns on the way to a national championship and undefeated season, enrolled with Exos, a company that trains professional athletes, in October and temporarily relocated to Texas. There, his packed days mimicked his collegiate peers’. Starting at 8 a.m., he rotated through positional workouts, speed drills, weight training and physical therapy until around 3:30 p.m., six days a week.“We wanted him to be in a predictable situation,” said Brent Callaway, the company’s director of sport performance. “We wanted to put him in the best situation possible to be able to maximize his strength and change direction with speed whenever the stopwatches came out.”Still, being at his best for L.S.U.’s pro day on March 31 meant timing his gains to the testing. Chase entered Exos at 207 pounds and swelled to 213 pounds, so Callaway pulled him off upper-body lifts ahead of the pro day. Chase weighed 201 pounds by his workout, where he ran a 4.38-second 40-yard dash, faster, by nearly three-tenths of a second, than when he first got to Exos in October. Chase’s 41-inch vertical jump was an increase of seven inches.“I would say I kind of surprised myself,” Chase told reporters.As important as pro days have been to this year’s scouting process, those involved acknowledged that the circumstances were less than ideal. Prospects at one school may work out or test on grass while others run on FieldTurf or another surface, creating an unequal comparison.“I think also we’re trying to compensate for what we see on tape and matching what we see in the player,” said Howie Roseman, the Philadelphia Eagles’ general manager.With pro days scattered across the country and Covid-19 protocols still in effect for team staffs, scouting departments had to choose which workouts, if any, to attend in person. The Los Angeles Rams, who hold six total picks in this year’s draft, none in the first round, sent scouts to about a dozen pro day workouts, J.W. Jordan, the team’s director of draft management, said. Because of coronavirus concerns, the team instructed scouts to travel only by car and prohibited overnight stays, which limited them to regional workouts.“From a scouting perspective, it’s getting less and less necessary for you to go in person,” Jordan said. “Everything you’re trying to accomplish they already give it to you.”Rams staff relied mostly on videos and data of pro days provided to them by the league. To verify prospects’ times that seemed a tad fast, Jordan said their scouts would watch the drill onscreen and clock it themselves.This year’s limits on draft evaluations have also meant changes to the more subjective parts of the scouting process. Players recovering from injuries, like Syracuse’s Andre Cisco, whose knee injury early last season prompted him to opt out, got a chance to reassure N.F.L. teams of their health with in-person examinations in Indianapolis conducted by team doctors in April. While the top 100 athletes, plus 44 others who had an eligible medical history, received an additional physical checkup in Indianapolis, all of the draft prospects were given checkups by their local doctors, either virtually or in over-the-phone visits, which were then shared with teams that couldn’t evaluate those players in person.For players who opted out of playing the 2020 college season, prepping for video interviews with potential employers has been as important as training for drills.Parsons had 109 tackles and was an all-American as a sophomore in 2019, so he trusted that film of his game performance would show him as an elite competitor. But he said he faced questions about why he opted out last August as well as lingering character concerns stemming from a 2018 hazing accusation against him and other Penn State players made by a former teammate. Parsons’s accuser filed a lawsuit against Coach James Franklin and the university, claiming the coach ignored the claims. The university investigated the claims and took them to the Centre County, Pa., district attorney, who declined to bring charges. Penn State has filed for the suit to be dismissed.In his video interviews with teams, Parsons sometimes talked with just one person and at other times with a team’s entire defensive unit. He told evaluators that the health of his 2-year-old son, Malcolm, was his biggest concern in opting out, a response he said some teams easily accepted, while others pushed harder.Parsons said he had been more adamant, though, in addressing concerns over his character, emphasizing that once a team drafts him and interacts with him in person daily those concerns will be resolved.“It made me want to show how much of a hard worker I am and how good of a father I am,” said Parsons, who will attend the draft in Cleveland on April 29 with Malcolm in tow. “I’m going to make sure I never put myself in a situation that is going to dictate my future or put the team in jeopardy.” More

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      Chelsea Dungee Was Ready for Her W.N.B.A. (and Yacht?) Moment

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      Dungee, a guard from the University of Arkansas, was drafted fifth overall by the Dallas Wings after a whirlwind few days (that’s the yacht) and a lifetime in the gym.Chelsea Dungee was flying on Thursday, the day of the W.N.B.A. draft. She wasn’t on the court, where the ambidextrous guard is used to getting airtime on both sides of the basket. She was getting on a plane, returning to Fayetteville, Ark. She was also euphoric.“I don’t even know how to describe it,” Dungee said in a telephone interview during her layover in Atlanta. “I worked my entire life for today.”The 23-year-old star Arkansas guard was returning from Florida, where she had posed for her first photo shoot as one of the female athletes endorsed by Nike’s Jordan Brand. The shoot required Dungee to sip champagne on a yacht with an assortment of her soon-to-be-peers, W.N.B.A. players like Kia Nurse and Crystal Dangerfield, who won the Rookie of the Year Award last season. The Instagram chronicles of the glamorous evening became Dungee’s de facto announcement of her first endorsement.WNBA Prospect Chelsea Dungee is currently hanging out with Te’a Cooper (Sparks), Aerial Powers (Lynx), Jordin Canada (Storm), Dearica Hamby (Aces), Crystal Dangerfield (Lynx), and Kia Nurse (Mercury) on a boat. 👀 #WNBA pic.twitter.com/4Xa7HngE6X— Women’s Hoopz (@WomensHoopz) April 15, 2021
      From there, she was heading to her own draft party to celebrate making it to the league — and being a first-round draft choice, if the mock draft consensus held up. It made sense that she was so excited that she’d forgotten to eat breakfast. What she didn’t realize, though, was just how much better her day was going to get.Dungee was one of the players for whom the draft’s unpredictability meant good news, instead of a long, painful wait to hear her name called. She was the fifth overall pick, going higher than expected to the Dallas Wings — a squad full of compelling young stars that happens to be the closest W.N.B.A. team to both Dungee’s hometown Okmulgee, Okla., and her school, the University of Arkansas.“My mom has never missed a home game,” Dungee told reporters after celebrating her pick. “I’m only about three-and-a-half hours from her and about five from Arkansas, so it couldn’t be a better situation.”Her mother, Chi Dungee, a social worker, raised her alone in their tiny town of less than 12,000. Chi played basketball and softball in high school, and introduced Chelsea to sports.“We lived in the country,” Chi said as she sat with her daughter in the Arkansas athletics conference room where they, the women’s basketball coaches, Chelsea’s teammates and a few fans would watch the draft. “We had the outdoor hoop that was just old school. It was a 10-foot pipe with a basket welded to it, and you played on dirt.”The W.N.B.A., now heading into its 25th season, was new when Chelsea was learning the game, but she can’t recall a time when she didn’t want to make it to the league. Unlike so many of her predecessors, Dungee is younger than the league itself. It was nearby, too: The Detroit Shock became the Tulsa Shock when she was in middle school. Now, they’re the Dallas Wings.Dungee’s ability was evident early. An Oklahoma journalist at her draft night news conference, for example, recalled covering her when she was just 14 years old. Though that meant Chi had to take her to more and more games and tournaments, the mother said she found comfort in the grind of parenting a high-level athlete. “From this month to this month, you’re going to see these people, your kids are going to compete,” Chi said. “There was a lot of support system in that.”Dungee was the Southeastern Conference’s leading scorer last season, averaging more than 20 points per game.Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports, via ReutersShe beamed at her daughter as she spoke of all the work it took for both of them to get to this place, clad in television-ready outfits picked a few days before while waiting to hear life-changing, history-shaping news. “Whatever we decided to do, we did together — and we were all in, I mean 100 percent,” Chi said, her voice shaking slightly. “Here we are, again.”Chelsea Dungee is now preparing to meet a whole new group of teammates, and spent much of her time on set with her Jordan Brand colleagues asking them about life in the league. “Like, what’s training camp look like? What’s housing look like? What’s traveling look like?” Dungee said of the questions she asked some of the W.N.B.A. veterans. “Just getting a lot of knowledge from them, and asking about what to expect.”It was only right that she watched the draft at Arkansas, next to the gym where she spent so many hours trying to make sure that she would have her draft moment. Dungee’s mother and her Arkansas coach, Mike Neighbors, were by her side. Neighbors kept track of all 12 team hats the W.N.B.A. sent her, so that the right one would be handy for Dungee to put on as soon as she got picked. The three of them watched the broadcast quietly, until Dungee’s name was called. Neighbors handed her the Wings hat, Dungee hugged her mother, and then she did her national television interview.“I was surprised,” she said afterward. “I don’t think anyone would have thought that, coming from a small town, I’d be the fifth pick.”She went around the room, taking selfies with the teammates, coaches and fans. Arkansas, where she transferred after spending her freshman year at Oklahoma, was where she found her identity — a relentless shooter whose offensive creativity made her the leading scorer in the Southeastern Conference in the 2020-21 season, averaging 22.3 points per game. Then there’s her razor-sharp crossover, the move that she hopes will become her W.N.B.A. signature.“I think this system has absolutely been great for me,” Dungee said of Neighbors’ program. “It’s fast paced, there’s a lot of pick-and-rolls, a lot of screening actions, and you see that a lot in the W.N.B.A.”The draft night party served as a more fitting conclusion to her time with the Razorbacks than their last game, in which Arkansas became the seventh No. 4 seed ever to be upset by a No. 13 seed in the first round of the N.C.A.A. women’s tournament. “It was disappointing,” Dungee said. “I had to come to terms with that, let it go and move on.”The coaching she received at Arkansas, and the community that was as willing to encourage her to shoot her shot as it was supportive of her on draft night, may have helped raise her draft stock. Before the draft, Chicago Sky Coach James Wade said that both she and her Arkansas teammate Destiny Slocum had “progressed a lot in their maturity and the way they approach the game, playing for a coach that gives them a lot of freedom and that plays a W.N.B.A. style.” Slocum was drafted in the second round by the Las Vegas Aces.After seemingly endless rounds of interviews on Thursday, Dungee finally had time to digest her wild 24 hours. “My dream actually just came true,” Dungee said. “I’m still in shock.” She pledged that she would be back in the gym the next day, getting ready for training camp on April 25, and hopefully her first W.N.B.A. season on May 15.“This is a celebration,” she added, not ruling out the possibility of having a little more champagne. “Afterwards, I’ll have my mind right and be ready to work.” More

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      Charli Collier Is the No. 1 Pick in the W.N.B.A. Draft

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      Collier, a 6-foot-5 center from the University of Texas, was selected by the Dallas Wings, which also picked Awak Kuier and Chelsea Dungee in the first round.Charli Collier, a center from the University of Texas, was selected No. 1 over all by the Dallas Wings in the W.N.B.A.’s virtual draft on Thursday, fulfilling the dream of her late father that she be the top pick. Collier, who is from Texas and was widely projected to be the first pick, averaged 19 points and 11.3 rebounds per game in the 2020-21 season.Collier, surrounded by her mother, brother and boyfriend, pointed to the sky as she was announced as the first pick.“We sat down in the hospital bed, and we wrote down goals,” she said, referring to her father, Elliott. “This was one of them. He’s here with me.”The Wings also had the No. 2 overall pick and used it to select Awak Kuier, who plays professionally for Virtus Eirene Ragusa in Italy. She will be the W.N.B.A.’s first Finnish player and, because of her defensive skills, has been compared to Chicago’s Candace Parker, who won last season’s Defensive Player of the Year Award with Los Angeles. This was the first time in league history that one team had the top two picks.The Wings also selected Chelsea Dungee of Arkansas, the Southeastern Conference’s leading scorer, with the No. 5 overall pick, and started the second round by selecting Dana Evans, a 5-foot-6 guard from Louisville who twice won the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year Award.The Atlanta Dream, which were sold to new ownership in February, selected Aari McDonald of Arizona with the No. 3 pick. McDonald, a 5-foot-6 guard, emerged as a star for the Wildcats in the 2020-21 season, leading them to the N.C.A.A. title game for the first time in program history. McDonald scored more points than anyone in the tournament and helped keep UConn to its lowest-scoring game of the season in the national semifinals to advance to the championship, which the Wildcats lost to Stanford.The player-driven fight to oust the Dream’s now-former owner, Kelly Loeffler, because of the former Georgia senator’s disparaging comments about the Black Lives Matter movement was a defining effort during the W.N.B.A.’s 2020 season. The league, which has been ahead of others in discussions about social justice, plans to continue sparking discussions about advocacy this season, W.N.B.A. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters on Tuesday.“The players want to be about change, and they want to have their hand in that change,” she said. “Whether it’s civic engagement or voting rights or health equity or other issues that many of them are passionate about, I really look forward to seeing what they do this year and handling any crises that come our way.”The draft came as the spotlight had turned toward inequities between men’s and women’s athletics, with a focus on differences in facilities, coronavirus testing and meals at the men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments. Engelbert addressed the disparities in an opinion piece on the league’s website earlier this month.“Sports is only one of the vast number of industries, markets, and forums where we need to drive more equitable representation,” she wrote, adding that the most important areas to change were “the number of female athletes sponsored by a company, the amount of money spent promoting the women’s game, and the breadth and depth of coverage dedicated to women’s sports.”Engelbert also said on Tuesday that the league was open to expanding, as women’s sports have gained more attention in recent years. Viewership of the 2020 W.N.B.A. finals was up 15 percent year over year, according to ESPN, and viewership of the title game was up 34 percent. The college championship between Stanford and Arizona was the most viewed title game since 2014, according to ESPN, which broadcast this year’s women’s tournament.During Thursday’s draft, which was held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, many draftees, like Collier, were shown celebrating their selections while surrounded by friends and family.The Las Vegas Aces picked the 19-year-old Iliana Rupert, a 6-foot-4 center from France, with the No. 12 pick and Destiny Slocum of Arkansas with the No. 14 pick. An emotional Rupert spoke with ESPN’s Holly Rowe with her mother and brother at her sides.“It’s really a family affair,” Rupert said of her late father, Thierry Rupert, who died in 2013 and played professionally in France. “And I am really happy to continue this and to continue to honor his name in the U.S. now.”Stanford’s Kiana Williams, who was drafted with the sixth pick of the second round by the Seattle Storm, spoke about the transition to the W.N.B.A.“I have the opportunity to learn from Sue Bird, one of the best point guards to play the game,” Williams said. “I’m leaving one winning atmosphere going into another winning atmosphere.”The season, the league’s 25th, will be played in teams’ home cities, some arenas with a limited number of fans in the stands, in accordance with local health officials’ recommendations. Each team will play 32 games in the regular season, down from the planned 36, with reduced travel because of the pandemic. The 2020 season was played in a bubble environment at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., because of the pandemic.The 2021 season tips off on May 14, when the Liberty host the Fever at Barclays Center. On Thursday, the Fever chose Kysre Gondrezick of West Virginia with the No. 4 overall pick in the first round, and the Liberty chose Michaela Onyenwere from U.C.L.A., at No. 6. Both teams are hoping to bounce back after down seasons last year.The Liberty used last year’s No. 1 overall pick to select Sabrina Ionescu, who severely sprained her ankle in her third game and missed the rest of the season.“I’m just glad were on the same side now,” Onyenwere said of Ionescu, who also played in the Pac-12, with Oregon. The Liberty also chose DiDi Richards, a guard from Baylor, in the second round.Arella Guirantes, a New York native who averaged 21.3 points per game in the 2020-21 season for Rutgers and told The New York Times that she hoped to play for the Liberty, fell to the second round. The Los Angeles Sparks selected her with the No. 22 overall pick. More