Welcome into the Ravens Press Pass podcast. It is Tuesday, April fifteenth, and the Ravens held their pre draft press conference today with general manager Eric Taicasa and head coach John Harbaugh. The press conference has been nicknamed the Liars Lunching over the years, but it's also a good chance to see the team's thought process going into the draft, which is right around the corner. So here's what we heard from da Costa and Harball today.
Okay, so welcome everybody.
Very happy to see everybody here, and one of my favorite times of the year. We just finished last week our third set of draft.
Meetings with the coaches.
This time, you know, we've had a little bit of a commotion around here with the construction, so we were in the sound studio, which worked out really well. So congrats to thank you to Michelle andres in her people for allowing us to use that room last week, and we're getting close.
I think it was a really good set of meetings.
I think the coaches did a great job helping us kind of sort through the last few rough patches of the draft board, and I think we'll be ready to go next week.
Questions, especially with in free agency, it seemed like a lot of signings on the offensive side of the ball.
Do you feel like.
In the early rounds, on you know, day one, day two, do you think it could be more of a defensive heavy just because of how things panned out in free agency?
A good question.
I think we'll stick to the board like we typically do, you know, historically, and I know this is always a question. We've been a best available player team and we spent a lot of time. We spent eight months really building the board based on the rankings of the players and how they stack against each other, and we believe that really, if we're going to build a team, that's the best way to approach it. So, you know, I think we definitely, you know, look at the different needs of our team.
We spend a lot of time talking about the roster and the players that we have, and things like contract status and all those other things that go into it, the health of our players.
In the end, I think this is a.
Really, really pretty good draft class with talent across the board, and as we see the players come off the board, we'll wait for a good one to fall to us.
Brian, You're gonna be a charge of taking the mic around now and Plesnators might take around her.
Yeah, Eric, I know you guys have always valued defensive line, But with Michael Pierce retiring and the amount of defensive line and in this draft to seemly have a lot of talent, how does that weigh into how you're looking at that position in this draft.
Well, I think it's certainly a priority, and I think you're right this is a pretty a fairly deep defensive line class. You know, We've always been a team that wants to be big and strong and powerful on both sides of the line, both sides of the ball. So I think there's an opportunity for us to get better than the defensive line for sure.
Elevel picks this year?
Does that?
Do you want to make eleven picks? Use having that many make you any more likely to package them and move up.
What's what's your.
View on the eleven picks and desire to use all of it?
Of those?
Well, you know, I think if I had a crystal ball, I would answer that question. I think that we have eleven picks. I've always looked at draft picks as currency. You can either use that on a player, you can trade up, you can trade back, you can trade for future picks in future years.
I think we're fortunate to be in this position.
I think that as we continue to sign back our players as many as we can, our good young players, we're going to be in a situation where, you know, salary cap is critical, and so for us young talent, the influx of young players every single year competing to make, you know, make the roster, I think is really important. Now we have a good team, we feel good about our roster. It's going to be hard for eleven players to make the team out of the gates this year.
I mean, if they do, would be incredible. History tells us that probably not all eleven picks are going to make the initial fifty three men roster, which is a good problem to have. It means we're a talented team. So I like having eleven picks. I think it gives us a lot of flexibility in different ways. And you know, I think that our goal would be to have extra picks every single year because it just gives us a
chance to continually develop young players. And I think we do that as good as any team in the league.
Eric.
Obviously, you have some really key pieces of your offensive line back and including Roger who developed really fast last year. With how the offensive line did as you sort of projected, took some lumps early, then you know, really gelled together. Does that give you confidence that you can kind of repeat that process and if need be in certain rookies in some of those open spots at guard this year.
Yet, well, I mean, I think I saw a stat the other day that I think we're allocating less salary cap this year to the offensive line than any other team in the league. And that tells me that we have some good young players who are playing well. They're on their rookie contracts. I've got a lot of faith
in those guys. I've got a lot of faith in coach Warhop to develop and a lot of you know, faith in our strength and conditioning program too that we bring in these younger offensive linemen and typically we see that they get better over time. I think it's a good, strong offensive line class this year across the board, a really really good group of tackles and guards as well, And so you know, I think anytime you have a chance to draft an offensive lineman that you think can
be a really good player, you should do that. Especially the way we play football, you know, because we're a team that prides itself. I'm running the bomb, being physical, knocking people off the ball, controlling the clock, protecting the quarterback, all those different things, and so I think that's gonna be critical.
Eric.
Last year, along the same lines, you mentioned that you guys were committing to building the line offensive line through the draft. Just curious what made Ronnie Stanley the exception? What was it about his season that made you decide to bring him back instead of going with young players.
Well, left tackles don't grow on trees, you know. First of all, Ronnie had a great season. I think he had one of his best years last year. He's really i think grown in to being one of the leaders of our team. And just looking out at the draft in free agency, we just didn't really see a lot of guys that we felt were better than him. And my experience with the draft, when you're picking it in the twenties, in the late twenties, it's very.
Hard to get left tackles.
Those guys fly off the board, and so you think you have a chance, and then what you realize as you're picking twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, the five tackles, and all five tackles get.
Picked before picked twenty.
And so for us making that investment in Ronnie, knowing him as a person, you know, his ability as a left tackle to protect the quarterback and be a round blocker and be a leader up on the offensive line, I think was important.
You guys lost many guys off the draft board character and medical.
You know, we always lose some guys.
You know, it's probably a number if I had to just guesstimate somewhere between ten and fifteen guys total that fail or physical or have some other other flags that would prohibit prohibit them from being on the team.
So it happens every year.
It's it's one of the one of the one of the tough parts of being at the combine is waking up in the morning and seeing the injury list under my door and then going through that and looking at all the players that we like and seeing some guys are failed the physicals and have been you know, flagged for different medical conditions, and you know, that's just unfortunately one of the hard parts of this job, and it
happens every single year. In fact, you know, John come down and say I love this guy and I'll go, ah, he failed as physical and so it does happen. It's a tough part of this business. We play a very physical sport and durability matters.
Eric when it when it comes to best player available, particularly early round. Just curious, how do you separate when you've got say, player X, you know, is maybe the best player available, and then player Y maybe grades a little bit lower, but is in a position of greater need perhaps, how do you kind of differentiate and then get to that decision.
Yeah, I mean, so that's you know, that's the art of it. And if you just imagine like a bunch of different buckets, and each bucket has a different grade, and you know, you have these players that are all kind of in the different buckets. So you have the A bucket, the B bucket, the C bucket, the D bucket. You got two players in the A bucket, they're very close, ones at a neat position, ones not in a neat position.
We're probably going to take the neat position. What we're not going to do is take the need position in the B bucket over the best player available in the A bucket. If that's the case. So if they're very close. We're going to defer to the roster and other factors as well, durability to all the other off the field in tangible type stuff, but we're not going to jump players. We're not going to take a player that's in the lower bucket and jump him over a player in a higher bucket.
Eric, maybe last year you talked to us about how the changing landscape of college athletics, the nil money players were staying in school longer, the draft classes were getting a little bit older. Are you sensing that? And the other question I have related to that is with the portal and you know, hundreds of players changing teams every year, how much harder is it to evaluate a player when they've maybe been at a two or three schools as opposed to have been in one system for four years.
Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot there to answer. I do think that this will be the last class of players that are significantly older, in some cases partly because of COVID. So we've got some guys in this draft that are twenty six years old, twenty five or twenty six that was almost unheard of, Like six or seven years ago, we didn't see that. So that's going to start to change because the rules are now going
back to what they used to be. Guys didn't get all the extra years, as far as nil goes in the portal and all those different things. I think it really depends you've got to have really good scouts. You've got to have scouts that are well connected to have contacts that can network across the different colleges to get information. In some ways, if you have really good scouts, you have an opportunity because you can.
Trace back that player to the other schools that.
He's been at and you can acquire more information, in some cases very different information. So if you get a guy that's been at three schools, you'd be amazed that the amount of information you can get, but in some cases how different the information might be from.
School A, school B and school CEE.
So I think it really goes back to just, you know, having the best area of scouts and training those guys to get the information, and then building it out and processing that information, and then using your coaches, who are another resource for us because they have all these contacts. It's goools as well to use our coaches to then contact their comrades at different schools to get information so that we have a real clear picture of who that player might be.
Eric from a scouting front office perspective, how would you evaluate a two way player in the draft? And then also John from a coaching perspective, what would the sort of feasibility be or maybe some of the obstacles would be for to try to get like a true two way player on ANFL roster, particularly like the mid you know, during the week meeting kind of perspective.
Well, I think for us, we haven't had many two way players, and so that's the first thing.
The second thing is.
In most cases, well, I mean in this particular case, I think if we're talking about the galley Travis Hunter, we would probably want to put him at one position. So our discussions have really been if he shows up here day one, if we ever were fortunate enough to have a player like him, which you know, if you're going to have a player like him, you're probably pick in top five, so that it's not something that we
ever really want to do. So, but if you have a player like him, where's he going to be on the draft board?
What do we think is best position is going to be? Day one? If he's going to come in and start, which as a rookie high pick you hope he does. Where are we going to put him? And so that's how we would approach it.
We would you know, talk about his skills, but then really try to figure out, like where's he going to play most of his football day one?
All right, that's a great point. I mean, it's going to be interesting to see how they do it wherever he goes. But to say that you're going to be completely immersed in everything that there is a known offense and everything there is a known defense. I don't know if there's enough hours in the day for a player to be able to do that and to have every detailed lockdown, but you certainly can do it. I would think on one side of the ball and then have some sort of a package on the other side of
the ball. Which is my guess is how the team will do it wherever he goes. But I assume we'll be playing against him, so we're about to find out how that team does it.
Eric The consensus from you know, the draft knicks seems to be that this class is light on high end talent. If you're comfortable sharing like about how many guys, do you guys have first round grades on And if it's not an amount that's like, you know, feasible to get one at twenty seven, how does that kind of change your approach there late in the first round.
Yeah, So the way that I look at the draft is you've you know, you've got on day one, right, the first day of the draft is going to be thirty two picks, So you've got to have thirty two players that you would take in the first round. And so I always answer the question, like, you know, I mean, it's it's we have thirty two players in the first round.
You have to have at least thirty two to pick. Now.
Is it the situation where maybe the totality of all these players in the first round might not be as talented as another year. You know, maybe that's the case. But I see a lot of opportunity in this draft class. Really in the middle rounds, I see more players, I see more draftable players. We have two hundred and seventeen players right now on the front board, and there have been years where we've had a hard time getting to one,
sixty one, sixty five. So there's a lot of draftable players that means that the mid rounds are going to be really good. And also I think undrafted free agency should have a chance to be really really good for us. But I really think that if you're going to have eleven picks, this is a year that reminds me a little bit of twenty twenty two. From the standpoint of.
The depth of the draft.
Really across the middle rounds, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth rounds.
I think it will be pretty good.
We see a lot of talent in that range, so that's an opportunity for us to get better as a team.
Eric, how would you evaluate where you guys are at edge rusher and just the options you could have. Do you view this as a particularly strong edge rush draft class?
Well, I do.
I do.
Think it's a good draft class now.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, we've we got our entire outside linebacker corep coming back this year.
So that's a.
Great situation for us because we didn't lose anybody, and so from that standpoint, I think it's good.
Now.
Again, there are some really talented guys in this draft class, and you know, there are guys that we'll be looking at as first round guys, second round guys, third guys, fourth round guys we think could come in and compete to really play right away or develop and become really
good players. So that's exciting for us. I think that if you're looking at the offensive line, the defensive line, and the you know, outside linebackers as a whole, I would say that three of the strongest positions in this draft class.
Eric, You're obviously in a pretty unique position with your tight end group, which is one of the best groups on the roster, but also everyone's on an expiring contract going into this year. How do you consider that way that with understanding the draft is also not just about twenty twenty five but the next couple of years. I mean, is it plausible that you add a tight end even if that could, you know, on paper, create quite a roster crunch.
I just think it depends on the player. Like there are some really good players in this.
Same could be said about the running back position as well, and we've talked about that, you know, we talk about these things all the time, and.
The reality of it is is if there's like.
A tight end that we think is a blue chip tight end to a running back that we think is a blue chip running back. We're gonna take them just because they're important and if the talent is such that we think this guy can impact our team at some point. We can't just eliminate positions because we're strong in the short term. We talk about needs, and we've seen you guys have all seen you've covered the team for a long time.
Needs can change in one.
Week, right, We've had some years where we had a strong running back room. Next thing, you know, like it's a Friday afternoon and we're calling every agent in the league because we need running backs because we just had three catastrophic injuries and spend the seven days so that could happen.
And so I mean, yeah, it's just a reality.
It's just the reality of our business. Injuries happen, needs change, and so for us, we're just gonna keep an open mind, and if the guy is so good that we have to take him, we're gonna take him.
Eric, going back to the past, Russia, we've seen you guys take I don't want to say chances, but you've drafted guys that haven't necessarily had great stats in their final you I think of like a Dafeo Way coming out with no sax he just had his first double
digit SAX season this year. How do you go about, you know, wearing the options between a guy like that who probably has the measurables and the potential, between another guy who does have that the production at least steady production on the back end of their collegiate career.
Yeah, I just think it's it's a it's a cocktail, it's a recipe, and you take everything into account. It's not just production, it's not just trades, it's not just combine workouts. It's not just the intangibles. It's not the size, it's it's not just the durability. It's really everything, and you layer that in and you try to get the full depth of who that player might be. And and so I you know, I'm a big fan of production. You know, I talk about it production all the time.
I think production speaks to consistency and doing.
It over and over again.
It's hard to be productive if you're not playing all the time, if you're not in a field all the time, if you're not playing hard all the time.
However, there are.
Some really good players that for whatever reason, might not be productive. For instance, a corner who's so good he isn't get targeted, or a pass rusher who gets double teamed every single play. So you know, production can be a little bit misleading at times. That being the case, we want productive guys. We want tough guys, fast guys, big guys, smart guys.
Durable guys.
It's the totality of all that stuff that we look at when we build out our draft board.
I don't believe that in the history of the Ravens you guys have ever drafted a kicker. I guess it's a pertinent question now in light of what's going on with Justin, But would you consider is it worth drafting a kicker? Using a draft pick on a kicker.
Is it worth it? I think it's worth it, sure. I mean there's been some great.
Kickers drafted, and we've drafted a couple punters.
But it's worth it if you have the right kicker.
It just depends on the board, it depends on the player, it depends who's there, it depends on how you coaches see them, you know. And also it should be said that some of the greatest kickers of all time weren't drafted right.
So it's no like blueprint for finding a kicker, except you've got to be able to evaluate the kicker.
And I think Randy Brown does a phenomenal job of evaluating kickers, and we have a lot of other really good coaches to do a great job of evaluating talent along with our scouts, And so is it worth it? I think it probably is if the right guy's there. However, you don't have to draft a kicker. You don't have to draft au pun, you don't have to draft a running backer a linebacker for those guys to be great players.
We've seen that over and over again.
Yeah, y're kind of just following up on that, But I mean, because of the uncertainty around you know, justin do you you expect to draft a kicker at all? I mean, is that a you know, a thought process with how many picks you have on Day three?
I never have any expectations because you don't know how the thing's gonna unfold again. You know, it's just we're gonna be on the clock and we're gonna draft the best available player at every spot for us as a club. Never want to pigeonhole myself into doing this or that, because when I do that, I usually end up being disappointed, you create a false expectation in your mind and you
start to think about needs and other things. And I like to go into that draft just like a wide open highway with no cars on the road, and I can drive as fast as I want, straight down the road, unencumbered and not worry about just driving, turn the music up, and just draft and pick the best players.
Eric, knowing your vision going into this draft, will you get to the other side, What are some of the measures of success for you to where you can look back and say we accomplished what we want to accomplish.
I just really just I just focus on wins and losses and our season.
You know, it's so hard.
Sometimes you have you have an impression that you had a great draft class, and maybe it wasn't. And maybe sometimes you think, I don't know, it wasn't the easiest year. And you have, you know, guys emerging they end up being great players in the end. I think what we all aspire to is just winning a championship. And so that's my goal and my dream and what I'm aiming for.
And so that just starts winning our first game, and then winning our second game, and then winning the division, getting a home field, you know, advantage if we can, and then winning the Super Bowl.
If we do that, it'll be a success.
Eric, Eric, and or John. Have you talked to Lamar in terms of his list of draft picks or guys that he's looked at and what's the conversation I guess been with him this offseason?
Uh, you know, Lamar and I have texted a little bit. We had a conversation. We didn't get into any specific players. We just we talked a little bit about the roster and just what he's up to and you know, his vision and his you know, excitement for the season and all that stuff that goes into it.
But other than that, I.
Think I just probably keep the conversations private.
I haven't talked about specific prospects yet.
No.
For Eric, you know, especially with Malik and Chris Bord, you guys have lost some guys who really had value on special teams, including your defense. When you look at prospects, how much does their ability to influence that phase of the game, which is obviously very valued here kind of
factor into kind of bumping them up or down? And John sort of what is your confidence that do you need guys in this draft who they've shown talent on special teams, or do you feel like your coaching staff has the ability to make anyone a great special teams player.
Well, when you have a head coach who's one of the great special teams coaches in the NFL at one point, you spend a lot of time asking them about special teams. And I really think our scouts do a great job of that. I mean I could literally ask any scout at any time, what's this guy doing special teams and they will go back to twenty twenty and tell me.
Exactly what he did.
And it wasn't always that way, but I could literally say, hey, Chess, tell me about this guy at Oklahoma State and special teams and he would say, oh, in twenty twenty, eerk, he was the left wing and this and that, or he was a personal protract on the punt team and he did this and he did that, and then we got you know, Chris Horton and Anthony Levine. Those guys will bring their perspective as coaches, and we do it with every single player at a certain level and at
certain positions. We talk about special teams and it is a big thing, and it is the thing that can swear a guy from one bucket to the next again, because if a guy's you know, if he's in this, I'll just use the bee.
If he's in the.
Bees at the top of the bees and he's a really good Special Teams player, maybe he makes it to the bottom of the a's it's just that enough that alone can push him up a little bit. And maybe that's around, maybe that's half around, whatever it is, but that's a big deal for us.
I mean, just to echo what Eric's saying, I think our scouts and Chris and his staff do a great job. Because last week we're having our meetings, that came up on pretty much every guy that would be a special Teams type player. And it wasn't just what they've done on Special teams, it's also what kind of traits do they bring to the table. You know, type of player sometimes translates to a special Teams player, big along, a long, fast corner that can get out and run, who's tough,
maybe can be a gunner for you. So you try to project those guys in those positions and then building special teams. You know, it's important to have a good group of young, hungry guys, but you also want to have some veteran players and that know how to play. So like bringing back a Tyland Wallace who also gives us value as a wide receiver, but can give us
values a special teams guy. Some of these young developing guys that we had maybe second year guys this year, third year guys this year, they become your veterans on special teams, you know, and they've got to carry that mantle from a leadership production standpoints. So those roles are really important. I learned that from Coach Belichick probably more
than anybody. But when you put your team together, there's a lot of specific roles that you've got to try to find the right fits for to build your team, and those special team's roles are a big part of that.
Eric as you as it's changed over the years in terms of player movement and transferring, I think it used to be kind of looking a guy transferred once or twice I might be a red flag because you're not fighting through to try and win a job or whatever, looking for green or grass. But with so much player moving mount now have you had to change the way that factors in to your evaluation.
I think it just it's it's become more complicated for the scouts to get more information because we do want to talk to people that might know this player from the other locations. For me, it's just really watching the tape. It's the same, you know, we just watch the tape. Get in and watch the tape, and maybe if you go back and look at him at the other school,
you can do that as well. In some cases it is it is helpful because you might see a player that transferred to a big school from a small school, right, and so you can see how that guy played at a smaller school versus how he's planning now at a bigger school. It provides a different perspective on the player. But I think just generally speaking again I said this, but if you if you have good scouts, it gives you the opportunity to get more information because you have
more people to talk to about these players. So from that standpoint, it can be very valuable.
For Eric.
The last couple of years, you know, you've had first round guys be able to contribute.
You know, right away, just when you're looking.
At guys and evaluating are the characteristics that you look for in guys when you're giving them that first round grade that tells you that they will be able to come here and contribute right away.
Well, they got to be talented, you know. I mean this is a this is a business where talent wins, and they've got to be talented. They've got to have a unique skill set. They've got I have the traits that would indicate that they can play at our level of football first and foremost, and then I think confidence, uh, you know, uh, just dependability, you know, practicing hard competitive players. Durability is a big deal, especially for guys that play.
I mean, you want to talk about rookies that have a hard time playing, it's usually in some way tied to injuries during that rookie season. So I think durability is a really big deal too in that regard. And then just ability to learn the game. You know, it's a different scheme and a lot of in a lot of cases it's totally different terminology. And then just being able to overcome the grind. It's a long season. The
NFL is a long season. These guys are professional athletes to hear every single day for I don't know how many hours, John, how many hours, eight hours a day. Yeah, So, I mean it's a it's a it's a it's a grind, and they've got to be able to handle that mental hurdle as well.
Eric asked John about this at the owners meetings. But you have made trades before with veteran players during the draft. Do you fully expect There's been a lot of speculations about Mark Andrews' future in Baltimore. Do you fully expect him to remain with the team and is he a big part of what you plan on doing this year?
Oh?
Man, I never know what's going to happen, Jeff, and I would never want to say this with that, you know, But I can tell you this, Mark Andrews is a warrior and he's played his butt off for us, and his competitiveness, his talent, his attitude, his leadership is so valued here and he's a great player.
And I think.
We're in the business of keeping as many great players as we can. So there's always a lot of unpredictability with the draft.
You just never know.
I don't think we've traded many of our own players. I don't know have we ever made a trade during the draft where we traded one of our players well, that wasn't during the draft. Well, I mean I had done that draft. I had done that trade before the draft. You guys didn't know.
Before the day before I had.
I had done that.
I did that on a Monday, actually, the Monday or the draft.
I knew. I knew that was coming.
Yeah, that wasn't during the That wasn't actually during the draft.
If we had one during the draft.
Yeah, it was announced in the draft. It was. That was strategic though.
We didn't want announce it beforehand, just in case because the team might think we would want a receiver, so we kept it as quiet as we could. But I don't think we've ever traded one of our players. We've traded four players during the draft. I know we did Kevin Johnson way back when for a fourth round pick, But I don't know that we've ever traded one of our own players.
You should know that, Jameson, I don't think. Okay, yeah, just because I brought him up.
Just now, it came to me, how big of a need do you view a cornerback? Obviously you took Nate Wagans last year and always want to restock that position at a cheeto and free agency Stevens Less. How big of a need is corner in your mind?
It's always a big need. Every single year. You could ask thirty one other teams.
It all says the same thing. Corner is critical important position.
They break down, you know, they're like bugattis and they just break down, and you've got to have them in reserve because that can go from being a positional strength to being something that you know. I remember, it's a long story. Some won't tell it, but two thousand and seven, we played the Steelers on a Monday night and I was flying out to USC and UCLA and we took off and the game hadn't started yet, and when we landed, it was like twenty four to nothing in the first
quarter against the Steelers. And if you look at our corners that game. Not to be smirched anyone, but they were all guys that were playing because other guys got hurt.
And that's just an incredibly important position. So that's always going to be a need for us.
Doesn't even going to take a guy in the first round, but I feel pretty sure that we'll take at least one corner.
Draft John, how has your.
I guess responsibilities changed since you came here in terms of the draft, I mean, first under Ozzie and now and then Eric, I.
Would say, see if Eric agrees with this, But I would say it really hasn't changed at all. I think we've had kind of this consistent format and Ozzie and Eric, you know, we're gracious enough to you know, allow a young coach to come in and have input, you know, and have a have a say, you know, and be a part of it and be a partner.
Uh.
And then we've got the same format now, you know, and probably you know, eighteen drafts later, we've got even well obviously the trust has been built over the years, and then you know, the shared understanding the vision of kind of what we want to build. I think we've kind of grown together on that where it's like in my front yard, I got these two or three trees that kind of grew together and they're all like one
trunk right now. I feel like that's how we kind of look at things in terms of, you know, building our team with the draft.
Yeah, I would just say that, you know, not all teams do it this way, and you know, I'm proud I started out as a young guy in nineteen ninety six with coach Marchibroda and Ozzy and just watching the.
Way that they work together, just that light bulb goes off. This is the way it's supposed to be. When you have your coaches and.
Your scouts aligned working together on a massive project like this, you've got ownership across the board. And I think anytime you can build that, I think you really have something.
I mean, if we're talking about that, you know, in terms of an advantage that we have, it goes back to nineteen ninety six, I would say probably when you were here, so you saw it from the beginning with coach Marcha Broden with Ozzy and what's kind of taking
place ever since. But coaches come in here and they'll watch our draft process and they're kind of blown away by the fact that it's just so merged together, and the scouts do the work, they do the they do ninety plus ninety five plus percent of the work and
lay the whole thing out. Then the coaches can kind of come in and overlay a perspective that is taken seriously and accounted for, you know, and then you know, we don't spend much time anymore having conversations about you know, what kind of a player do we want or what kind of a what kind of traits we're looking for? These kind of things are almost unspoken, and even the new coaches they kind of like fall right in, don't you think they just fall right in with this process?
And guys will say, man, it's just not like this everywhere, so it's hard to describe it. But I think when you're in it, for me, it's just the way it would be the only way it is. You know that. I couldn't see it being done any differently. But it goes back to Ozzy and Eric all the way back to the beginning.
John's sort of along those lines. As a coach, once you first get those players in from the draft, those however many picks in here, finally seeing them in purple and black, what are some of the things that excite you about seeing their talents and how they're going to fit into this team eventually?
Well, you want to see what you thought you were going to see. You want to see a guy that's talented, like Eric said, but you hate to bring a guy in and go, man, I don't think this this is I've heard stories and I've heard stories in recruiting. Maybe it's happened in the NFL, but yeah, it has happened where you know you'd get a guy and you guy, this cannot be the same guy I watched on tape. You know, like a like there was an impostor there's an impostor that was brought in here in college and
you don't want to see that. We really haven't seen that, but I've seen it. Yeah, you have seen it.
Yeah, there's been a few well no, I'm not going to mention the players. So this is a few times over the years.
Where we.
Liked the guy and then we drafted him, and then he showed up day one and we were just like, oh my gosh. I mean, it happens right off any you probably happened to you. I mean, it just happens, right you just you just what you think you saw, you didn't see, and you shows up and you're like, man, I thought this guy was a better athlete. I thought this guy was faster, I thought this guy was whatever.
And next thing you know, they're on your practice squad or they're on somebody else's practice squad.
Eric, you guys went through multiple returners in particular, at punt returner last year.
Are you hoping to come out of this draft with someone with returnability?
It'd be nice, it'd be nice. It'd be nice.
I mean, I think I think we've done a good job of sizing that up. And I think, you know, again, Chris Horton does an awesome job. I mean, our scouts evaluate, but it's based on the area that they scout or the position maybe that they scout. Chris really does a great job of taking all the returners in ranking the returners from first to worst, and so that's a big part of it. I think we have some guys that can do it. So we've got a floor, but we
want a high ceiling. That's what we want, and we're gonna try to find that guy.
Eric.
I think we're just a couple of days away from our Darius is deadline to sign offersheets. If he's gotten those, I guess, how confident are you and him returning? And if you do, guys get that done, how's a felt maybe what you want to do in the draft so you can put him in the best position as well as well as Kyle next year.
Well, I'm confident, you know, fairly confident that our Darius will be back. I don't know that it affects our decision making at the position at all.
And I think it's a pretty deep safety crew.
And it's you know, obviously the top guys, but then there's maybe four or five or six guys that will probably be you know, third, fourth, fifth round guys that are good players.
I mean, this is a really.
Nice pool of players to pick from. I think we definitely will look at that. I think we added the two young guys last year. Both guys play well for us on special teams Bowen Sinoussi. But yeah, it's a it's a good group of players this year. And again a position I mentioned corner, I would probably guess that of our eleven picks, at least one of those will be a safety.
Eric, you're a last four first round draft picks have made a nim pecked right away. How do you kind of look back at that track record and allow that confidence to carry over year after year when drafting?
Well, I'm never super confident. I just I always want to feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. You know, I started out with the greatest general manager of all time in Ozzie and you look at his first round picks every single year.
I mean, it was just historic what he did.
So I feel that pressure and I'll never live up to that, but it doesn't mean I can't try. And so, you know, we want to hit all our picks, not just first round picks. I mean, I'm just as hard on myself for a fourth round pick that I might have missed and what didn't I.
See and what did I see?
Or you know, players that end up being really good that we passed on for different reasons. You know, what didn't I see in that player? And now he's a pro bowler and you just beat yourself up over that. So yeah, I feel that pressure every year, and I welcome it. If I didn't feel that, i'd be concerned. You know, if I didn't wake up in the middle of the night come in and look at tape, I'd be waited. You know me, I'm over confident, I'm not working quite as hard, and I never want to get
to that point. So kind I relish that feeling of like, oh man, I haven't done enough.
I gotta do more.
I got look at more tape, I talk to more people, you know, leaving myself notes in the middle of the nite things.
To check on.
But you know, as far as like our previous picks that we made, that doesn't give me any any confidence that we're going to continue to do it. We just got to go out and do it, and I'm confident that we will at least put forth the very best effort and get all the information and check off every box to make sure that we get to that point.
Eric, not specific to the draft, but with the departure of Josh Johnson, you signed Cooper Rush. Just curious what it was you liked about him and why you capitalize on the opportunity to add him.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, he's a guy that we've admired. I watched a lot of football, He's won a lot of games as a backup quarterback, a cerebral guy.
I think he's a town.
Yeah.
It just was the right player for us at that point, guy that we felt like we could invest in for a couple of years. We like the way he's been playing, and we think he's going to really I think augment the room really well and give us a chance to win. If something Heaven forbid ever happened on Lamar.
Eric. I know you said an extension for Derek Henry something you guys are talking about. Just curious where that's out and how that maybe impacts things, if at all, with draft plans and running backs and such.
Yeah, so we have a lot of different balls in the air right now. That's probably what I would say on that. You know, I'm not going to talk about what we're doing, what we're not doing behind the scenes business wise with these guys.
I don't think it's good for.
Me to do that.
But I would say that aside from the draft, as you all know, like we're looking at guys that are still available free agents on the street, we're looking at resigning our own guys. You know, we were blessed to have a bunch of really good players, and we're going to try and keep as many of those guys as we can.
It's a challenge.
It's one of the curses I think of doing a pretty good job drafting is you've got all these really good players that you want to keep. Our goal is to keep every single one of them. We're working at doing that, and we'll also continue.
To build a roster after the draft.
As you guys all know, we'll be looking at guys that haven't signed yet. We've had some success in that aspect of team building the last few years, you know, and I think we'll do that as well, and there's gonna be some really good opportunities for us to fill in some holes.
After the draft.
I think undrafted free agency is another area. We've talked about ar Darius Right and it's a guy that was an undrafted free agent just a couple of years ago, and we see what he brought to the table, you know, this year. So that's gonna be a big component as well, and I'm really really comfortable that we'll do a great job with that as well.
Hey, Eric, I know how important is for you to have these one oh one with the players with prospects, Well, you don't talk about football more like personal live knowing the player. How much of an impact has been those conversations to make a decision for the draft.
Yeah, I think it's important to see these guys and to meet with these guys. You know, we get a lot of information, and sometimes that information isn't quite what we see in an interview setting, and so just getting to know these guys, their motivations, their drivers, what's important to them, how they see themselves, their humility, emotional intelligence, their competitiveness, you know, all the various things that make
up who these players are. They're not just statistics or what we see on tape, and so getting to know
these guys is critical. Now, I can also tell you this, sometimes you can get tricked right, And there's been you know, I could write a book on players that I interviewed and would say, oh, this is a great guy, and then now all of a sudden, you get the guy and you're like, oh no. And sometimes you interview a guy and maybe he's really quiet and seems almost shy or whatever that might be, and you end up picking them and you're like, this guy's incredible.
So question, you know, the question is I think everybody would want to ask right now, is are you going to write the book you said you could write a book on that When you guys love to read that book.
Maybe I may.
Maybe I'll have Jerry help me, you know, my ghostwriter, Jerry Coleman.
You've been quiet today. Jerry, you don't want to my questions.
He's not wrong, Eric, And you said you had a lot of balls in the air. Fifth year Option deadlines coming, have you made you have two prominent players with that. Have you made a decision on that front.
Yeah, there's really no updates on that front.
You know. I think the last couple of years, I've waited to announce that and handle that, and I think that's.
Going to be the case again this year.
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