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The COVID-19 pandemic has altered many points of the NFL panorama, particularly the scouting main as much as the NFL Draft, making an already distinctive, tedious course of much more difficult.

Pittsburgh Steelers school scout Mark Bruener joined The Customary, the membership’s behind-the-scenes internet collection, and supplied some perception into the previous yr’s unprecedented scouting course of.

The pandemic has introduced Bruener along with his fair proportion of challenges, however he has not allowed these circumstances to turn out to be excuses.

“My first method was is I’m not going to make an excuse for the state of affairs that I’m in,” Bruener stated. “I’m going to determine a strategy to do my job to the very best of my capacity and know that Kevin (Colbert) will not be going to tolerate any excuses. And I wanted to get my job completed.”

Very like each side of our life over the previous yr, Bruener has needed to resort to digital discussions with coaches, as he was largely barred from scouting and assembly gamers at services.

“The power for us to make contact with the faculties, the person coaches, all needed to be completed through Zoom,” Bruener stated. “There was no private interplay that we usually would get. And you then would comply with up individually with the coaches to realize the knowledge that you just wanted.”

With out these in-person evaluations, Bruener has needed to watch on movie greater than ever earlier than to make sure his assessments are correct.

“However the bulk of my fall was spent in my workplace, watching movie on my pc,” he stated. “As an alternative of simply watching three video games on an athlete particularly to attempt to convey the analysis, I are likely to possibly watch 5 or 6 video games, if that’s out there. And since I can’t see that stay look in some points.”

That being stated, the nearly, at-home situations have granted Bruener extra flexibility in his scouting course of than ever earlier than.

“In case you’re at a college, it’s a must to get to the subsequent college the subsequent day. So it’s a must to just be sure you get all that work completed that day,” Bruener stated. “Whereas now being house, you’re a bit extra versatile. So in the event you’re not in a position to end that third sport or fourth sport by two o’clock, then you may get to it afterward that night.”

Bruener, who resides in Washington state, was in a position to attend a number of video games in particular person final school soccer season, however admits the ambiance was weird at occasions.

“I went to a handful of video games right here in Seattle and in Oregon that I used to be allowed to attend, but it surely was so eerie Andy bizarre as a result of there wasn’t any followers there.”

Chosen within the first spherical of the 1995 NFL Draft out of Washington, Bruener performed 14 seasons at tight finish. He spent the primary 9 seasons of his profession in Pittsburgh, catching 137 passes for 1,197 yards and 16 touchdowns.

Bruener started scouting for the Steelers group in 2018.