Full Ravens 2023 Pre-Draft Press Conference

here's today's Ravens pre draft press conference. First and foremost, the Oils. I think open up at home this week, right Tomorrow's week tomorrow, and Bruce Springsteen's gonna be here on Friday night, so it's a big week. And I didn't do the peloton today as well, so I'm won't be sweating anyways. I think the offseason has had a set of challenges in different ways, but we're excited about where we are as a team. We're very happy that we could bring back a bunch of players that were

with us last year. I think the Combine was a really good week for us as well. Our coaches and scouts are now canvassing the country, going to Pro Day's, watching guys work out. We'll start our final set, well our almost final set of draft meetings next week with the coaches, first time the coaches have a chance to talk about the players. The board will be basically set probably next Friday or Saturday, with a few tweaks along

the way. We're excited. We see the draft there's a great opportunity for us to get better as a team. We've got five to five picks. We wish we had more. Our goal is probably to get more along the way if we can, depending on how things fall. But we see a great opportunity for us to add some quality

players and to be a better football team come September. Questions, it's been a week, remark Develops having the trade of the quest saying the body of the fans, I think the rads have you had a chance to talk to him since what was the conversation like? And you know when the player asks to saying he wants to be traded, what's your confidence level of him being able to be

in being playing this year with the Raiders? Yeah, so those are you know, I understand the need to ask those kind of questions, I think just out of respect for the process. This is a draft launching and we're gonna try to keep u as much of this discussion as we can to the draft to the coming weeks building the best football team we can build. UM. So I understand those questions. I think we've spoken about this situation probably five different times this spring in various different

press conferences and such. So we're gonna try to just kind of defer to those questions and move forward to the draft. Like corners fast, I mean, that's twenty two, you know, yeah, many it's a strong position. Probably four or five guys that you look at and say, yeah, that's the first round type of guy. That's a first round pick. Maybe six guys. So you know, us, we have a history of draft in defense in the first round. We love corners. Our defense is really built to succeed

with a great, strong secondary. UM coach Arba loves big, physical, press type guys. There's a lot of these type of guys in the draft, so for us to look at that, we think it's one of the most important positions on your football team, and it's a position that we'll always look at very closely of the draft and you're looking at your area needs beyond cornerback, the very positions where you see there's a lot of depth scenario where you're want to go shopping. Yeah, man, I think the fans

will be happy. That's a strong receiver class, you know. Um, again, we see a multitude of guys that can go in the first couple of rounds. Um, it's a great opportunity for us. I think offensive line is a strong position this year. Some defensive lineman that we like as well, So you know, we think it kind of shapes up nicely based on our needs. Of course, you have to have a little luck on draft day, but we see a lot of players that make us a better football

team at those positions for sure. Conspecting that this is about the draft, but also spec the fact that a lot of what you guys will be doing in the draft could hinge on what happened over the next weeks

with Lamar and potential offer seat. What's the I guess your stance or preferred I guess outcome over the next few weeks before we come on where things stands with themar Would you like to see kind of an outcome before round one, or what's your guys outlook regarding where he seems and where the organizations seems before the draft,

something kind of fin us. Yeah, I mean, I think the things that we control are really getting the list, the draft board set, evaluating the players as best as possible, being aware of the players the free agents that are available now post draft, who are the players that we might have a chance to bring in post draft that could make us a better football team as well, And then doing the best job we can in terms of recruiting free agents. Our scouts do a phenomenal job of that.

I think our coaches do a great job of that, and just putting ourselves in position to win draft weekend. Are you looking at quarterbacks differently because of the situation's plan? You know, I don't think we really are. I mean, we go into every draft trying to take any kind of bias out, any kind of need based situation out

of the draft equation. We really do try to build a board that's really best player available, and that process involves really nine months starting in you know, the you know, in early August, from our scouts go out on the road and they generate the profile and the evaluation to

get as much information as possible. We then segue into a set of meetings in December, and then we get into the meetings in January and the All Star Games and all those different things, really trying to assess this player versus a player, and it's really just comparisons and how these players stack up. Who do we think has the best chance to come in and make us the

best football team. And so if that's a quarterback, if that's a receiver or corner, an offensive tackle, we're gonna look at that very strongly and make the best decision we can, knowing that over time, we think building a team best available player is the right way to go. You will add, well, I think, Stan, we've done that nine times in the last four years, so I think the chances for us to be able to do it

are pretty decent. Of course, if we're in love with somebody while we're on the clock, we're gonna make the pick. You know, we always have to gauge that, you know, how strong do we feel about the prospect he's available versus a chance to go back and get additional picks. And sometimes you get lucky in that there's a guy that you might really want, you make the tough decision to trade back and you can still get them. It happens more than you think. Not all the time, though,

of course, So we have to look at that. We have to look at the capital we can get by trading back, and we'll make the best decision we can. John and Joe. When you have a coordinator change what extra work goes in should be last whole months leading up to the draft. No, you're not reinventing the wheel offensively, but maybe there are some trades, different points of emphasis

that you have now A feeding wouldn't have been the caseable. Yeah. Well, the first thing we did in scouting, uh was we got todt in there in the room and talked about his offensive philosophy, the types of players he wants at each position, and what he thought about our players and the guys that are here, how they match, what he can do. Who you know who fits his scheme, his system. The thing and talking to him that you love is he's versatile and he's going to he's just getting players

and he'll make him work. So, um, that's exciting to here's a scout. So now you just go out and try to find the best players for the Ravens and and see as we go through the process, through the pro days, through the combine, through the workouts, and then uh um next week in the meetings, if they fit our scheme and can help us. What do you deem this is your biggest need? Oh man? Uh you know, I never want to go into a draft nicking where that was said in any position. Of course, you know,

we we see a lot of times. I mean, I remember one year we thought we had a really strong tight end room and then like in the span of like a few days, we had a bunch of guys that got hurt and we were trying to find tight ends all year. Um. You know we saw that, you know a few years ago at running back, you know, with with j K and Gus in justice. So our

needs can change. I wouldn't want to, you know, pigeonhole and one specific thing, but you know, in general, I think, you know, secondary is always something that we can address. Offensive lines always something the defensive line that we should address. The receiver position, um, you know those positions where you need multiple guys to play. Um, I think those open important positions every single year to draft players. So that you have a continuous depth in terms of when guys

get hurt, you can put guys in. And I think last year, last year's team was a good example of that, where we had depth on the offensive line and in the secondary to be able to withstand some injuries. And our goal is to always be in that position. And you said you be able to add more. But how does that affect your strategy killing me into the drafts? Which is you know you had much more of that.

I was justifect the strategy into the drafts. Uh, well, you know, like last year, you know, my strategy was I had to watch as many guys as I could because we had so many picks. UM. I still want to watch as many guys as I can, but I don't feel the tremendous anxiety knowing that we have six fourth round picks. UM. Our goal would be to add

picks if we can. At some point in saying that, I think it's important to note that we've had a lot of picks over the last four or five years, and you get to a point where maybe having too many picks isn't necessarily the right thing. In any given year, you almost have to have a purge at some point because you have all these young players on the team and they can't all make the team if you have just keep stacking these huge, massive draft classes. So I

wouldn't say that it was intentional this year. But for us like to say that our second round pick was Roquan Smith, I'm pretty happy with that, you know, um, you know, i'd like to get you know, if we had five picks this year, if we only have five picks this year, I'd like to get back to nine or ten picks next year for sure. But having a smaller amount of picks this year, based on what we've done in eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two, that's

not necessarily the worst thing. I wouldn't say we've necessarily done that, Vinie. We kind of treat the prote is kind of the same. UM. We always canvas, We always send a lot of guys out. We always try to have um a position coach at almost every pro day. You can't always get that done with all the offseason stuff they're doing. We'll have an area scout in some cases an area scout, a director possibly and also a potentially a coordinator, a position coach, whatever that might be

we try to get as much coverage as possible. The other thing it's changed so much over the years is, you know, we get all the prods on digitized now, so we have all the pro days. We get all the pro days within twenty four hours. Event. Basically you don't get the hands on personal attention that you might get at the school visit, but you do get the video on tape. You get a chance to assess that as well, so it's not like it was maybe ten or fifteen years ago when you didn't have access to

that stuff. Yeah, there's so much attention about the wide receiver position as there always seems to be around character that basically benefit in this offense. You're trying to build what in particular you're looking for in terms of the wide receiver you can break in. Well, I think you look at the big picture. It's a great question. There's there's a lot of guys that we like, right Eric, I mean, in really every round, I think there's there

are guys that can make our team. In the early rounds, there are a number of guys that could start for us. You know, even so you start with that, then it's okay, who fits us? You know, in terms of what Todd's looking for, how we're building the offense, terms of the guys you already have. So I would say that, you know, between Eric and Joe, myself, Todd, Greg Lewis, you know,

all the scouts. Really you start saying, Okay, which guys do we really like for what we're trying to do for our room, and who compliment the other guys in the room, and you know that's uh, those are names, you know, so probably not sharing those with you guys right now, but we have those names you know, already targeted and we'll probably finalize that next week. In terms of the guys that we'll be looking at, we feel fit of the best and hopefully hopefully we get one

of those guys. But that being said, you never know. You know, you might up somehow you find a guy that falls your way and you really wasn't one of the names that you thought was going to be a great fitting term to be a great player. So as long as we've got you know, enough players, I think we do to get guys that can help us and we'll be in good shape. What's your ID say? It's pretty strong up top? Um, you know those four guys are best being listed in the moss going high. They're

all talented and good in their own rights. Um. You know, if you break them down, you know Bryce is extremely accurate, cerebral, intelligent, winner. They're all winners, actually, every one of them. So it was what you love, um, and then uh, you know, Richardson's got just raw physical talent, strong arm, athletic, big, physical, tough UM. Probably the least experience of the four of them, but you know, has a chance to really blossom and develop.

Will is again a physical, strong guy with a lead arm, and has gone through two different offenses the past two years, so he's adjusted to players changing around him. His whole offensive line was revamped. And then CJ. You know, he's just matured and grown and gotten better and better. It played his best game, his last game of his career, I thought, and uh, really accurate, has a great feel for the field, um, and showed off his athleticism certainly

in that Georgia game. One of your things was watching the cornerbacks. I think that was one of Eric's things that he was watching huffily of the joy Porter Junior, What would be kind of that be? Like? Considering the history of the Ravens with his father. I mean, seeing Enjoy Porter's senior Ravens fan, I think that'd be that'd be great for all of us, but all Enjoy. Of course he would you for your family first, man, I'm gonna get mc call and I'm gonna find out, you know,

but because it would be good to do. I know for me, it's family first. But Joey Porter Junior is a heck of a player, you know. And it's not just him. I mean there's a lot of good corners, like Eric said, guys that would be excited about. But this this dude knows how to play. I mean, I love the way he plays his style. Um, yeah, he's he's the Joey Porter's senior, your version in a dB for him. You know, he's got got a great mentality.

So we'll see what happens. So quarterback, because of the combine, like, oh, we got combined work out believal. Now it comes to the super sofa. You want to hear that quarterbacks? Is that different to see because the physical things he did? Yeah, gosh, it's so hard because like we go to the combine and we know what he already is a lot of times um. So I don't think any of the scouts were surprised that Richardson ran fast and looked away Dick, because we go through the school and you watch the

LSU game. You see him take off on the seventy five yard run and nobody catch him. So it's really not surprising. I think it's just so impressive and you know, awesome to see it. That was physical trays on display, so he gets the buzz um. You know, I think a lot of scouts throughout the league looked at Richardson as a first round talent, So I don't think he really jumped up in our eyes. I think it's just the display he put on was impressive. You're listening to

Ravens Press Pass. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review if you haven't already. Now let's get you back to the rest of the pre draft press conference. You select the data the JOBO last year with just one year old starting experience. How difficult is it's pruge future performance in the NFL Anthony Ridginson for example, for a player in college that hasn't limited playtime. Yeah, it's good question. Factor that in for sure. It's hard, you know, production

is really important. I think production is a great predictor of future success, but it's always talent, and so that's what we have to try to do. In some cases, you may have a very small sample size with some guys, you know, years and years and years and years ago. I remember god named Ziggyanza came out and he was basically he had one year and he might have had I think, well, I don't know how many sacks he had, but you could just see the talent. But he had

to you know, there wasn't a lot of history. Um, there was a lot of questions about them. You just didn't know much about him. Those guys are challenging to evaluate in many different ways. I think good scouts UH can can really help the process when it comes to that. And I think we're blessed here to have the continuity on staff with our scouts UM to be able to settle some of those debates, some of those questions about you know, one year of production, injuries and things like that.

But that's that's that's a challenging aspect of our business, I think. And sometimes you're gonna make mistakes. I mean, let's not forget now, this is a business that you know, if you can go seventy five percent, it's pretty good. I would say you're gonna you're betting on people. Sometimes you don't have all the answers, and uh so it's a challenge associate. Obviously, if you have a guy that's a four year starter in a in an sec uh,

you know, you have a lot to go on. When you have a one year starter or you have a small school guy, you have a guy that's injured, that makes that conversation a lot more difficult. In January said John had any interesting in rebuild? I guess class what it is you can come in and be offestional in BacT out of your want You said the quarterback? Is

that what you said? Uh? Well, I mean I think that you know, I don't want to insult anybody in the draft, Um, but you know, I would say there's probably more than four guys that can that can be significant quarterbacks in this league in this draft class. Um, you know, there's forget about where they might get big more than four. But I mean, i'm you know what, am I gonna say seven to eight? Whatever it is?

But the fact is that we think that you can get a quarterback in the first round or the third round or the fourth round, who have a chance to develop and uh, you know, go back to uh Tyrod Taylor. I don't know when we drafted him. Is that the fifth round, sixth round, whatever it was, years and years and years ago. Derek Anderson took him in with the six or seventh, right, So you can get good quarterbacks that you saw what the Niners did last year with

brock Party. It's quite possible to get a good quarterback at any point in the draft. Obviously the Goat, as my son would say, Tom Brady was a six round pick, so they were all over the place in the draft. You have to have good scouts, you've got to have conviction, and in some cases you got to get lucky too, back in the first round. Consolation, it depends on the board, Jamison, really does. I mean, I'd have to say yes because

we have quarterbacks in our top thirty one. So just based on that alone, simple math, I would have to say yes. Away from the deadline, it says, say, if you'll be picking out half off, Yeah, that'll be a discussion we'll have with Patrick. Wouldn't want to announce anything too premature. With all you guys been here, how much different reception with boss is doing and you would have been twelve years ago. Yeah, I would just say that jen joking comment, But I think coach has done a

remarkable job out and talent. You know, every year they've got a number of guys that can play at our level and play very very well at our level. So I think that speaks to the job he's really done down there. Yeah. Yeah, he's just having seen him over the years and watched him where he's been, He's always been a great evaluator of talent and recruiter. Tom has always produced players at the schools he's been at, and so he's done a great job building that program and

adding really you know NFL talent to the roster. And Maryland's you know, always put out some good players, but it seems like the group has grown as as he's been there. You know, Google, you don't all that, you know all he didn't, Yeah, exactly right. It's probably an interesting point. Uh, he's uh, he's actually worked with a number of these guys already, you know, just professionally as as a as a pass rush trainer, so he knows the personalities. That's an advantage for us. We have a

number of guys from college. Willie Taggart, you know, he's recruited a lot of these guys, knows a lot of these guys, So that's always an advantage for us, right. I know Joe Todd obviously has has been around guys last a couple of years, especially at Georgia. But Chuck, you know, Chuck's a pass rush coach and he's also a football coach. I mean he's gonna he's gonna coach all aspects of it. Continue to develop as a coach like we all do going forward. But the pass rush stuff, man,

I really haven't come across anybody better. You know, over the last many number of years. He was here all the way back in two thousand and eight working with our guys in training camp, and you don't forget that. So I know our guys are excited. Those young guys are excited to work with him, and he'll be I think, you know, yeah, like you're saying, it'll be a big addition as far as the draft, but also really coaching

our guys. Joe um Church for a second, can you come out, you know, the wide receivers coming out Jared and yeah, you know they're all a little different. But uh, you know Jared he can fly obviously, Copeland same thing. Uh. Demis has been a fun guy to watch through his career. Obviously he had the injury and he's really you know, worked hard to get it get better and he's developing. Um, so I think he's on the upswing. UM, big physical guy with size radius. And then Jared obviously they played

more slot, but you see that vertical go. I mean he can he can really accelerate, put pressure pressure on the defense. And then Copeland athletic guy transferred in. You know, was an impact special teamer at Florida while being a vertical guy. And he's done the same in Maryland. The two receivers, you got a link to a lot of

Flowers and Johnston. You talk about Flowers, Uh when he's obviously speeded there you see him with the guy can play anywhere inside outside, and Alton Johnson maybe the only day too as you yeah, um, you know, go we'll go to Johnson first. Um with the drops you just see when you see receiver drop balls, you see how they're doing it. You know, is it a tracking is it a hand placement issue? Is it just bad hands? You know, sometimes it's just he's got his hands in

the wrong spot. He's watching make outstanding catches on film. You see his ability to just go up and high point the ball, but he does drop some balls. Most receivers to drop the ball or two though. Um. But he's a big, fast, physical guy. Obviously has play making ability outside and then going to zay Um, you know he plays inside and out for BC and you see

the same ability coming up to this level. He's strong even though he's not big Um and certainly he can fly and put pressure like I said, you know, like Jared, he can put pressure on the defense quickly and so and he's got outstanding hands and rackability. So UMA's bigger than the size. Overall, it's Eric You've talked about death and the D line group is really young all across the board, but you have a couple of guys who are in the contract years plays Campbell has moved on.

Could D line be a position that you're looking at it? Well, there's no doubt, you know. I mean, we like the group we have now. They've played well, played well last year. I think they'll continue to play well. But we've also got to look at it from you know, short term, long term, what's the position is going to look like the strength of the draft class, and we think there's guys in the first three four rounds that can come

in and play well. And we've been fortunate we've taken some mid round guys in the last few years, the last four years that have played well for us. We're excited about that. You know, Justin is a talented player who's playing his best football. Brodrick again a guy that's maximized his ability, one of the hardest workers we have on the team, plays multiple spots. You know, we just know Travis is another guy already you see every day I think working out. You know, we're excited about those guys.

But it takes more than three or four guys to play and to win in the NFL. So of course we'll look at it. We'll assess those guys versus the field, and we'll see what we come up with. You've gone through fifteen years a head coach of this league. As you look a potential, is there an equation you run through it and say, okay, but how will he handle this in the NFL that you use evaluate if a guy, make sure list. Yeah, there's a lot of equations like that.

It's a great point, Jerry to me, you start with the type of player that Eric and Joe they start and all the scouts evaluate. Then you just try to look at it and say, you know, do I think do you think his skills are going to translate? You know, just what are you doing what he does in college? You think it's going to show up the same in the NFL? Or is it going to be more? You know a lot of guys are better players in the

NFL than they were in college. It's crazy enough for other guys, you just never see it in the NFL, and you wonder why. So he tried to say, is that translatable? Can I picture him in our on our team, in our defense, in or on our offense, on our special teams doing the things that you see well in college? Can you? Can you imagine that? That's more probably feel

and experience than anything else for me. Then the other part of it, you know, when you talk to those guys is just do they have what it takes out they do they have the right mindset towards success? You know, are they going to be thinking the right way as their head going to be in the right space because it's tough, you know, and can they keep it simple and keep it about what really matters and not get caught up in the things that don't matter? Uh that's

you know, how's the guy built that way? Character wise, if you want to use that word, are they going to be the type of guys you need that are going to maximize their own ability? So like anybody would with any kind of evaluation, right, you try to try to figure who the person is loss for physical character,

You're like, what do you do? You know all you do? Yeah, we certainly we know the Georgia players with Todd, but we're still going through that process and we'll have medical meetings and then we're talking over through the coach with the coaching staff. Steve Claggett does a great job with all our background investigations and research, so we kind of talked through it. We don't eliminate anyone based on a

quote unquote grade. It's a discussion and a conversation that we talked through with the coaching staff during the meetings. You've had one free agent come in from the outside of new organization so far of this off season. How difficult has it been all of the mens roster ahead of the draft. Not too much, not too bad, I would say. I mean, we we've signed a lot of free agents they just had played for us in the past.

We had a lot of guys who wanted back as what it amounts to and guys that you know, have played winning football for us. You know, We've never been a big free agency team prior to this year, were very much pick and choose. It's based on a lot of different factors, you know. So it's it's a bigger picture team building strategy that I believe in that goes back to Ozzie that John and Ozzie have developed over the years and coach Bailick and Ozzie and everything. It's

just the way that we operate. And so for us, the draft will always be paramount. It will always be our biggest and best way of improving our team for the long term. Uh, you know, So that's what we believe in. We're not done, as Ozzie has said a million times, the roster's not set till September, and we'll have a lot of different opportunities pre draft, post draft

to build a strong football team. We'll take advantage of every single mechanism that we can free agency, undrafted, free agency, trades, wave a wire, pickups, whatever that might be to build the best team we can. So this is just really the beginning, not the end. One thing I might look the kind of way we're built. We're really not a team that you'd go in and say, hey, this team was going to sign a lot of free agents because

of all the draft picks we've had. We've had eight, nine, ten, twelve, eleven draft picks in the last three years, so most of those guys are still there. Most of those guys are I'm gonna take a guy like our Darius Washington, just a guy who was a free agent. We like him as a player, just to give you one name. We think he's got a future as a player. You know, we're going to go out and sign players. You know, on top of these players that we're still developing, we're

gonna be a young team next year. Plus, like Eric mentioned, we signed a number of free agents who our own guys already coming back. So when you like the players that you have, you drafted all those guys, you're developing those guys. You're not like the cover's not bear where we need to go outside a bunch of free agents. We think we need to just to dismiss or just to cross out the guys that we're trying to grow.

So see where these guys grow and they develop, and trust our young trust our evaluation, trust our development, and give these guys a chance to go play. I think that was more of the mindset this offseason when you mentioned the son of that characteristics you look for out of receivers when it comes to some of the undersided receivers, like say Flowers. You got to draft Hollywood in the past, but some of these undersized re seas, what do you look forward to know that their size can be something

that translates at his level? Such a great question, you know and like and what does undersize mean? I mean Zay, you know Za's he may be kind of short, what is he five to nine? But he's not small, Like he's not a little guy. He can This guy's a strong guy. Plus he can accelerate. He's got great explosiveness. You know Addison at USC he's another guy. You know, he's he's you know, he's a small guy, but you watch his stride. He opens up his stride. This guy's

like ability to control his body and his balance. From Marquis, it was that explosiveness that you saw, an ability to track downfield. So what what what's the trait? You know? What is the what's our superpower? You know? So yeah, if your superpower is not size, he's got to be one or two other superpowers that are going to make, you know, help you to be successful in this league. And you try to look at that individual and say, Okay,

what's going to be the key for him? What's going to be the trait that's going to make the difference. So I don't think Zay is an undersized guy. He's off for our board. I don't think Addison's off for our board as a quote unquote undersized guy. You know, they've got superpowers that are gonna make them successful. It's just what's the best fit in our offense? And are they there? You know? And who else is there? At

that time? Eric, you've talked a lot about houn't you like your young players and you know, giving guys a chance? Would you drafted Oa in the first round and pajab Goo in the second round. Essentially he was viewed as a first round pick. Would that impact at all the pursuit of an edge rusher early in the draft, because inevitably if you added a number early round another early round guy in and would you know, impact their snaps or or so forth. Well, I mean if if Will

Anderson's they were probably gonna take them. Yet, you know, I mean, it just depends on the player. You know, I would never want to say no and then we take a guy. It just depends on the player. How good we think the player is going to be. If we think the player can be three else Sugs or Lawrence Taylor probably take the guy. At the beginning to talk about the challenges this offseason, where has that taken

you now to where you are today? Oh? Man, I just think you know the challenges For me, it's just been being able to get as much tape done as possible. You know, we've been on the go since the end of the season. Um, you know, we've signed a bunch of our guys back. We've been doing a lot of contracts. You know, we're just trying to get the boards set. Really, this is our chance. You know, we don't have a

lot of picks. I referenced the uh well, Chris mcalliser draft earlier this offseason as a really great draft because of what we're able to do with a small amount of picks. And that's our challenge this year. We don't have a lot of picks. We want to nail those picks as best as we can and find guys to make the team better. Our scouts and coaches have got to do a great job with undrafted free agency, and then we'll assess post draft players that are still there.

How can we use our money wisely? Knowing that we don't have a ton of money. You guys all know that. You can see what our cap situation is. How do we use that money wisely? How do we get creative with what we do to build the best team we can I think every year we've always ask you about wide receivers and the challenge of evaluating it, and you pretty much approv Bowl players in every position except wide receiver. I mean, doesn't get to the point where you would

the house satisfied? Would it be we would not have to ask a wide receiver questions in the future. You know what, I've been here twenty eight years. If it wasn't receiver, you guys would be asking something else. I mean, ask the reality it would be the offensive line, to be the quarterback position, to be a secondary. It's just with a nature of the beast, right, So we want to address as many positions we've There's never been a perfect team. I've never seen a perfect team yet in

the NFL. We aspire to it, but I haven't seen that team. So we're always going to have a weakness. We're always going to have a point of emphasis. We're always going to have something with trying to fix. It's like a house. Buy a house, you think, oh great, then the next year something breaks right, the next year something needs to be replaced. It's just like running a football team. There's always things that need to be replaced and fixed, rebuilt, added on, you know, whatever that might be.

And so that's where we are every single year. And so if it wasn't a receiver, it'd be something else. That's the nature of this business. Joe got another question for you. Obviously, you know a lot of them talk about his physicality. How how you can bet that might that's play round lea guess what is kind of value having a guy who do and be that kind of player? Yeah, I mean when you can get up there and disrupt the timing of the wild's release and the timing of

the play. That that's a big thing, you know, in terms of affecting an offense's ability to execute. So he does a great job that he's very physical, he takes pride in it, and it does it well. So I

think that's something that's one of his strengths. Certainly. So much focuses on the first round of the draft, but you know, where are you finding the death in this one and the third, fourth, fifth round that, um, you can attack any kind Yeah, you know, I think Eric mentioned you know, the wide receiver being a deep position, and it is. If you look at our board, it's all the way throughout. You know, there's there's targets and multiple rounds, pass rushers, another one outside back er. Um,

you know us playing the rush sam aspect. You know, I think there's just different v or variations of players. But the guys that can play in space and do more of the dropping, and certainly the edge setters and the pass rushers. So those are two deep ones. In the corners another one, you know, it's a good deep classic corner. So I think I think we'll be able

to find some day three prospects of those positions. Eric, and see all of your fiss you've been involved in plenty eight years and you've got a lot more hits than this. When you look at the missus, what have they taught you in terms of are you don't fall in love with this? When you're drafting a player, Yeah, I think, you know, I think some knee confractor into that.

You know, you feel a crunch and you see there's only one guy left at that position, and you take him at the expense of other players that might be better players or other positions. You know, and I think you can't really discount a negative report. It's easy to do. And so it's just it's kind of psychologically how your mind works. You have six guys that love a player and one guy who doesn't love the player, and you tend to think, to yourself, oh, that guy is wrong.

You know that one scout is wrong, and so you know he might be right. You know, one of our great scouts we've ever had, guys, I've heard me talk about Ron Marsenac. What made Ron great was he didn't care what anybody else thought about players. He didn't go and look at mock drafts. He didn't. He wasn't on Twitter reading all the stuff about players. He just sat in a dark room and evaluated guys. He didn't care if everybody else in the organization love the guy, he

didn't care. And you know, I could give you some incredible examples where he would take a guy that was going to be the first pick in the draft, of the fifth pick in the draft, and would give him a free agent grade and we'd all be looking at him like, and you know what. A lot of those guys never made it past the third year in the league.

And it's incredible, right, Joe, I mean incredible. So that's a mistake I think sometimes that decision maker has to avoid is to not dismiss one report at the expense of a bunch of other reports. You've got to really look into that and you've got to consider the other path, so to speak, and do your homework, and that's what we try to do right now. The Ravens currently have five picks in the twenty twenty three draft, but GM Eric de Costa said today his goal would be to

add more picks over the course of the draft. He did add, however, he actually wouldn't mind if Baltimore ended up with just five picks this year if that means the Ravens would get nine or ten draft picks next year. Now, we'll be dropping a pre draft press conference Takeaways episode of The Ravens Lounge, so make sure you check that out later today to hear what Garrett Downing and Cliff

Brown had to say after today's presser. Don't forget you can get every media availability, interview or press conference on Ravens Press Pass, so if you haven't done so already, make sure you subscribe, rate, and review. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back with you soon