2023 NFL Draft Delayed After Team Draft Boards Erased by Night Janitor

By Clay Beyersdorfer

KANSAS CITY - The National Football League’s 2023 Draft, scheduled to kick off Thursday at Union Station, will now be delayed to Friday after every team’s draft board was accidentally erased by a janitor during routine cleaning Tuesday evening, End of the Bench has learned. 

The incident has left league officials scrambling, causing widespread panic among teams, coaches, and janitors across the country.

According to sources, the janitor, who was later identified as Kansas City resident Frank Flemming, mistakenly used a wet cloth on every team’s draft board, erasing all the carefully arranged player names and grades, which were written in Dry-Erase marker.

"We were shocked after learning what had happened because this entire league is essentially built on the strength and resilience of Dry-Erase markers," said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell when reached for comment. "Our coaches use them to design plays, owners use them to write inspiring messages to their teams, and even the league’s public relations department uses them to brainstorm different ways to deny Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and its connection to football. ALLEGED connection I should say.”

With their draft rankings and prep work destroyed, coaches were seen racing around the city Wednesday morning looking for Beckett Football magazines to use as references, now that they’ll have to draft “empty-handed.”

"This is the worse thing to happen [to the NFL] in many, many, years,” said one AFC assistant coach standing in line at Walgreens with his own stack of supplemental draft material. “Like it’s this, 9/11, and the hiring of Urban Meyer.”

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Meanwhile, Flemming, who inadvertently caused the draft debacle, remains apologetic, but confused. 

"I didn't know the boards were that important," the longtime custodian said. "You’re supposed to leave a Post-It note that says ‘DO NOT ERASE’ if it’s important. Everybody on Earth knows that. I was just trying to do my job."

As of press time, Goodell assured fans that the NFL was doing everything possible to rectify the situation so its premiere annual event could resume Friday “at the latest.”

"Rest assured, we'll get this sorted out," he said. "We’ve offered Sharpies to every organization that was affected by this incident, and remain committed to taking care of those who were affected most. I know our teams will come out stronger than ever after having survived this terrible incident.”

End of the Bench will have more as this story develops.

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