From his home in suburban New York, Roger Goodell will handle perhaps his most visible annual chore — announcing draft picks.

Visible, but virtual.

Not since the NFL draft became a televised event in 1980 has it been stripped to the basics like this year.

Beginning Thursday night, as a safeguard against the coronavirus pandemic, adhering to medical and governmental advice and restrictions, selectors will work from their homes. Prospects will be at their homes, too.

Goodell, who ordered all team facilities closed on March 26 and has extended that ban indefinitely, won’t be sharing hugs with Joe Burrow or Chase Young or any of the other 32 first-rounders. He will offer congratulations remotely, but otherwise this will be the barest of drafts. And certainly not the easiest.

“Everyone is really particular about how they go through the drafts, right?” Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff says. “They want to have the draft rooms. They want to have all the technology. It takes a lot of people taking a lot of deep breaths on it, as you can imagine.”

There were some teams that wanted the draft pushed back a few weeks. The main issue naturally, has been the collection of information.

With no in-person interviews outside of the brief ones at the scouting combine, few pro days and, perhaps most essentially, no in-depth physical exams conducted by team doctors, the deep data dives have turned into snorkeling exercises.