Arizona Cardinals and Phoenix would make great draft host
By Scott Allen
The NFL has moved the draft location around the last five years but the Arizona Cardinals would help make Phoenix a great future location
The NFL Draft has been moved around since 2015. This year the Arizona Cardinals and the rest of the NFL will travel to Nashville, Tennessee, home of the Tennessee Titans to take part in the 2019 NFL Draft.
In 2015, the NFL decided to move the draft out of New York. It was hosted in Chicago in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, the show moved to Philadelphia. Last season the Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas area hosted the event at AT&T Stadium.
In 2020, the draft moves the furthest west it has ever been. It will be held in Las Vegas, which is the new home of the Oakland Raiders. The hope is the Las Vegas Raiders will start play in their new stadium in 2020 but it may not be until 2021.
Would Phoenix make a great host? Of course it would. With many other national spotlight events such as the Super Bowl, the College Football Championship, and the Final Four taking place in the Valley and with so many different fan bases already set in the Phoenix area, it would make sense.
The facilities are available. The Cardinals would make great hosts. It would also pay homage to one of the NFL’s oldest franchises.
While there hasn’t been a lot of public talk about it, the idea certainly is intriguing. The weather still isn’t terrible and if it did get hot, they could take the draft itself inside State Farm Stadium in Glendale. They could hold it there either way.
Having it out west is new and we will have to see if the Raiders and Las Vegas comes off without a hitch. For now, we look forward to Nashville hosting it and see the Cardinals make the first pick of the draft.