Michael Pittman Jr. and the Coronavirus Draft

  • 5 months ago
Michael Pittman Jr. Talks strange journey to NFL's coronavirus Draft.
Transcript
00:00 We know the NFL draft is going on as planned,
00:03 but how does a prospect prepare
00:05 with social distancing measures in place?
00:07 For more on that, I'm joined by Alex Pruitt
00:10 for today's Daily Cover,
00:12 which involves Michael Pittman Jr. out of USC,
00:14 who is preparing with invisible passes, Alex?
00:17 Yeah, you know, like the rest of us in life,
00:21 you know, measures were implemented
00:23 in where he's based down in the Los Angeles,
00:25 Southern California area,
00:26 that kind of cut into his training,
00:28 you know, his gym's closed.
00:30 And the biggest one was that they stopped
00:32 passing with quarterbacks.
00:33 They stopped actually catching passes.
00:34 I mean, this is a receiver training for the NFL draft
00:36 who, by his own estimation, hasn't touched a football thrown
00:39 by another person in over a month now.
00:42 You know, they were working with quarterbacks
00:44 like Joe Burrow, Sam Darnold, a couple other NFL guys,
00:48 but ever since his own personal position coach,
00:51 former Bengals receiver, T.J. Uchidzada,
00:53 decided that they weren't gonna actually have the risk
00:56 of, you know, catching a pass
00:57 that was thrown by someone else,
00:59 where the football was touched by someone else.
01:02 Ever since then, he's just been running routes on air
01:04 and kind of mimicking what he's eventually gonna do
01:06 for a living in the NFL.
01:08 Now, he's been preparing for the NFL draft
01:11 essentially for his whole life though, right?
01:12 Because his dad, of course, Michael Pittman,
01:15 was a running back in the NFL.
01:17 Yeah, Super Bowl winner with the Bucs,
01:19 spent 11 seasons, you know, a pretty long career.
01:21 He was indoctrinated from an early age,
01:23 certainly a lot of memories of, you know,
01:24 everything from running around the Tampa Bay
01:26 Players facility, hanging out in the Players Lounge,
01:29 you know, seeing fans come up
01:30 and asking his dad for autographs.
01:32 And, you know, he's definitely not the only legacy candidate
01:34 in this year's draft.
01:35 Thaddeus Moss, Sonny Randy, Antoine Winfield Jr.,
01:39 you know, there's so much less information, I feel like,
01:42 that teams will have to go off
01:43 because pro days have been canceled.
01:44 They don't have these in-person visits and physicals
01:46 that, you know, who knows,
01:48 maybe pedigree will be something that gives them
01:50 a little bit of a boost up the draft rankings
01:51 when they start later this week.
01:53 - And he did say in your story,
01:55 they're all sort of experiencing this together.
01:57 No one has gone through it before.
01:59 Alex, appreciate your time as always.
02:02 - Thanks.
02:02 (silence)
02:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]