Bill Belichick’s Alaskan Klee Kai headlines the very good dogs in the 2020 NFL Draft

When the 2020 NFL Draft began Thursday, I was excited to see so many good dogs. Since teams and prospects were participating in the draft virtually from their homes, there was hope there would be plenty of canine cameos, especially when Giants head coach Joe Judge talked about prepping with his dog Abby ahead of the draft.

Instead, I was incredibly disappointed by the lack of very good dogs during the Round 1 broadcast.

Although the first night was a letdown, the great news is the very good dogs made a resurgence on the second night of the draft, headlined by Bill Belichick’s dog.

Cincy’s director of player personnel Duke Tobin (which sounds like a dog’s name) showed off his very good dog during the Bengals’ second-round pick:

The Bengals selected wide receiver Tee Higgins, and the dog probably very much approved of this pick. Higgins is one of the best wideouts in this draft, and it means the No. 1 overall pick Joe Burrow can throw to Higgins and A.J. Green!

At the start of the broadcast Thursday night, we got to meet commissioner Rodger Goodell’s dog Bruce, who was very cute. Unfortunately, Goodell used the very good boy Bruce as a prop for piped in boos:

We had another appearance from Blake on Friday — well, kinda:

Look in the middle of the screen! You almost could miss it!

Turns out, Blank has two golden retrievers — although they didn’t make an appearance on TV, they were on-hand for Round 1.

Before each team’s pick is announced, Goodell’s screen behind him has fans of each team on-camera. One fan put his dog up to the camera when the Jets took WR Denzel Mims, because why not? Look at the bottom left:

Best fan on-camera of the draft by far. Later in the night, Jets head coach Adam Gase’s family dog made an appearance, too:

You could’ve easily missed it if you weren’t paying attention:

Very happy this dog made an appearance, even if it was brief.

New Orleans selected the Wisconsin linebacker with the No. 74 pick in the draft, and Maris Taylor asked him about his dog’s Instagram. Baun’s golden retriever, named Chancelor The Yappor after Chance The Rapper, has over 3,000 followers on Instagram. Look at this very good boy:

Brb, following Chancelor on Instagram.

Towards the end of night two, it was getting close to midnight on the East Coast as the third round was winding down. This picture sums up how everyone, including Rodger Goodell, was feeling:

Same.

When the broadcast flipped the Belichick’s home setup in Nantucket, instead of coach sitting in the chair we saw his very good dog, an Alaskan Klee Kai named Nike, instead:

Eventually we did see Belichick — the very good dog earned a much-deserved treat from coach himself. This was also a rare moment that proved the Pats’ head coach isn’t a robot and he’s capable of showing human emotion!

This was the early highlight of the night, TBH.

After night two, Belichick even gave a mini scouting report on his dog:

The chances are 10/10 I would draft this very good dog.

Author’s note: In the original published version of this story, I described Belichick’s dog as a husky, which is incorrect. Nike is an Alaskan Klee Kai, which looks like a smaller breed of husky. I apologize to Nike or any other dogs or dog lovers I offended with this error. Nike is still an excellent doggie.

Every prospect and team should make this at-home draft more exciting by putting pooches in view of the cameras. We want to see your dogs, and, no, we won’t care if they disrupt anything.

We’ll update this post with more good dogs if they make the broadcast. Hopefully we see a lot more!