You're listening to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. The NFL Draft has come to a close and the Ravens made six picks over the course of the weekend. They have added some serious firepower to this team and they are excited about these moves. After the draft today, the Ravens General manager Eric Tacosa, director of college scouting David Blackburn, and director of player Personnel Joe Hortiz met with the media.
Now a note here is that this press conference actually took place before the Ravens traded back into the seventh round of the draft to take offensive lineman Andrew Vorhees, so he is not mentioned at all during this podcast. But this was the only end of day recap that the Ravens did as a press conference.
Take a listen, thanks for coming, and you know, today was a good, solid day for us. Tried to in the early part of the day and drafted the defense, which was our plan. And Tavious, I think we got a guy that plays very, very hard, big you guys. You see him six foot six, two hundred sixty to fifty sixty pounds, runs well, very very physical, long reach. You know, from a comparison standpoint, you know, probably more like a guy like Zadarius Smith. That type of a player,
can kick inside, can play outside. Physical, you know, Cayu Blue Kelly is a player that we've scouted for two years. David has scouted him at length as well. Corey Fraser upstairs, our West Coast scout. A very very polished, efficient mover, good eyes, physical, has good size, can play zone, can play man, a very experienced player, durable guy. And then Salah, I'm not gonna try to pronounce his name. Here's a guy that, again we've scouted for two years. We looked
at him last year. We thought there was a chance he was coming out last year. A very very large offensive lineman.
Uh.
Has played some left guard, he's played some right guard. Primarily has been a right tackle. A very very good athlete for his size, I can pull, can play on his feet. We look at him as a real strong, developmental guy, a lot of upside potential. He's young, and uh, he fits us very very well. And you know, in most cases, we're going to try to draft an offensive
lineman every year if we can. We just think it's good and uh, you'd like to have that pipeline of guys every single year, the younger players, and Joe d does an amazing job developing offensive lineman for us. So very happy where we are right now, and uh, you know, over the next couple of hours, we will continue to build a team.
Questions the emotions.
And significance from you know, this whole week, from Sonny to Lamar to adding this rap class.
Uh, it's been emotional. I mean, it's it's it's really started, you know. I would say this month's really a lot of work has gone into this month, starting.
With Odell and.
Really going back to the owners meetings, you know in March. It's been a whirlwind of different emotions and we've worked very hard to to get going. And I think at some point we started to build some momentum, which was nice. And here we are and it's it's you know, I think we would all say we're pretty tired, but it's a good tired. You know, there's bad tired and a
good tired. This is a good tired. And I think we'll sleep well tomorrow and we'll enjoy tomorrow with our families, all the coaches and scouts, and we'll get back to work on Monday.
Eric.
In terms of cornerback right now.
Do you do you feel like you Marcus Peters is a guy that's still in your plans right now.
Metter Corner Shipping Gawn.
Yeah. So you know, as we've said, you know, the ross just never set. And I think what you'll see is in the coming weeks. Uh, there's a lot of potential moves for us to make free agents guys that we've had, guys that we that.
We like who are available.
The other point, I think, which is a fair point to make as well, as we drafted two young corners last year and both guys kind of wrestled with injuries this past year. Uh, you know, Armor Davis and uh and and Williams both and uh we we both we feel the same way. If those guys were in this year's draft, we probably would have drafted them in the
same spot, you know. Uh, and they're good young players and so but that being said, you know, would we like to add potentially add a veteran corner, Yeah, show what it's an important position, and what we've seen is that you know, you can never have enough good corners, you know, to start the season and throughout the season. That's a fast way to get beat is to not have enough corners on the field.
Eric, the fact that you did end up only making five picks, I mean, was that a statement about not seeing maybe as many total draftable players as we've seen in some past years or is it not that simple?
Was it more a function enough?
Well, we only had five picks, so I mean, we can only make five picks, right, So I meane we could have And then to be honest with you, you know, I have to look at that because we didn't get as many calls this year, and I think you know, when you have a lot of picks, people call you because they know you have a lot of picks. And so the way that trades work is it's based in
the combinations. Right. It's a simple math. If you have a lot of picks, teams can look at you and say we can do a trade with Baltimore because we can figure out the combination of points. When you don't have a lot of picks, it's tougher. So we didn't have a second round pick, we didn't have a seventh round pick. Sometimes we have multiple picks in a round, and so a team that may be lacking in picks can call us and the math works. We didn't get a lot of calls. I'm not really sure why did
we have some opportunities we did. We didn't like the math, you know. So it's just one of those things like I would like to have had more picks. Still, might you know, we're gonna go upstairs. The seventh round is just starting, so this might be an unusual year.
Who knows.
But the fact is we just didn't get a lot of calls. And but you know, looking at the team, we really do in most cases, we look at the roster and we like the way it looks. We don't see a lot of you know, big glaring holes, and we and we and we have solutions as well still out there in free agency potentially, So if you're not going to have a lot of picks, this is probably the year to not have picks.
We were able to fortify.
We brought some guys back that played for us last year that we like that We were excited to bring back guys like Justice Hill as an example of one guy, and there were a lot of other guys that we brought back. So as we looked at the roster, we didn't see the big holes on the roster that we felt compelled to fill.
What made an impression on you about Bluke.
Kelly when you first started, Well, my first exposure to him outside of practice was I attended a live game in twenty one. It was at USC early season game and they had Drake London and he impressed me because he basically went toe to toe with a future top ten pick and did more than hold his own, got his hands on two or three PBUs had a pick six later in the game to kind of ice it.
So that was kind of a statement game, and it stood out as far as like an exposure where a guy was able to really step out there and and make it make a lasting impression on me. So throughout that process, that's your basis, you know, that's your baseline from you like, man, well if he's doing and that he's gonna be able to do it in the league. And you know, I actually thought that if he had came out last year, he would have easily been a Day two pick in my opinion. But I'm happy to
get him in the fifth round right now. I think he's going to be a great, raven, great fit, one of those high high floor prospects gonna come in dad played in the league. He's been around ball. Stanford kid, smart, tough, competitive, can play man his own, has good ball skills.
He's gonna come in and do the right things. He loves ball.
So to get a guy like that at this stage in the draft, we considered that a value pick.
Did you see Tays is a sending player you know Canada and fills in a old Miss seem to get the course of his career league man animals, Is he look the league players to send him.
Well, I let Joe answer that.
I think Joe kind of has a better feel for for Tavis than I do. But answer your question, yes, yeah.
If you watch his progression through his career at Ole Miss and then obviously went to the Senior Bowl, had a really good Senior Bowl, his performers at Combine and Pro Day, he just he just seems to be on the rise. Eric talked about the player. Is he's very physical, He's got a great motor. I mean, you know, John preaches run to the ball with our defense, and he's always run to the ball, making plays downfield. So the
raven mentality is there, the effort is there. You know, he's a developmental player in terms of playing ball in the States versus Canada. But he's grown tremendously at Ole Miss and still see a lot more potential for.
On the tape of right what do you like about him and give a division of more as a guard or tackle the professional.
Well, I think when you watch him play at Oregon he played both positions. Some games he'd flip in during series into guard. He was primarily a right tackle for him. I think he can play both. You know, Joe'll get him and find the best spot for him in terms of starting them out, But I do. I do see flexibility with him. Things stands out with him. He's huge, He's got explosive power. Knox Sky's down on down blocks. He runs really well for a big man, and you watch him pool or get out on leads on the
front side plays. He can really cover ground plays with a great temperament. So you know, just a lot of a lot to like a big man who plays physical our brand of football.
You're listening to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. Also, if you want more analysis from this draft to go ahead and check out the Ravens Lounge podcast feed. We break down everything happening over the course of this weekend. Now let's get back to this presser.
We'll say he's sixty six.
I mean, there's not many out six to six outside a guy like multiple positions.
Yeah, yeah, and they do it with him there. He plays everywhere from like a four eye technique inside reduced down all the way to a seven technique. He can you see him? Do you see that versatility? It gives you some inside pass rush flexibility. But he can also get in the two point stance and knock back tight ends. He's really physical taking on tight ends, kind of creating a new line of scrimmage behind the existing line of scrimmage. So does offer versatility in that sense.
Kind of simone question probably, should you guys see Trent Simpson as a guy, a good cross train land backer.
Do you like him on the ball?
Yeah, I mean he's he's a good he's a good pass rusher, he's a good blitzer. I mean he can do some of that. You know, I think as we think about him, we probably envisioned him as moving off the ball guy. But that being said, you know, with Mike's defense, and this is kind of a growing theme in the league, you know, the defensive coaches are very multiple on what they do. So if you have guys who can do more than one thing, you can really mess with the offense. And what we like about Trenton
is just he's a very explosive blitzer. He's good with his hands, he closes very quickly. So uh, that's a great skill for a linebacker to have. And that's you know, something that both wro Kwan and Uh and Patch both have. They're all excellent blitzers. So it just gives us a lot of, you know, multiple looks on defense.
Eric just kind of one of the narratives around the draft in general, or a couple weeks ago, just around the.
S two tests.
I guess, do you guys see any value in those kind of things? I mean just kind of the picture.
We do, you know, those we don't, So we don't subscribe to that test. You know, the Ravens historically we've been independent, going back to the nineteen ninety six. We've never belonged to a scouting service. You know, we don't belong the National we don't belong to BLASTO. The reason really, honestly being is we don't want to share our information with other teams. So I think what we try to do is kind of divide, you know, create our own tests.
You know, Steve Claggett who works with us upstairs, he helps us. We use a lot of different people and analytics, We interview, we've trained our scouts. We spent a lot of time really figuring out what's most important to us when we assess these players, and we just do it our own way. And uh, you know, I think it's great because we trust our people with anybody else and h and the information stays in the house.
When you look at all.
The picks picks, is there something that kind of jumps out as you anything just as a collective class.
Uh, well, I would say.
That every single guy on this list has played starter level football and we think can be a starter in the NFL. Our scouts these players, the five of these players graded out very high. There were some years where you have a lot of picks and you sort of a little bit from your sequence because you're trying to fill specific needs. I think that the mindset for me this year was just like just try not to worry as much about the needs and just draft the best
guy that's there at every single pick. And we really I think we did it like. Honestly, I can't say that we did it exactly, but I know it's pretty damn close. And the reason we might not have is because, for instance, we might have had we might have had an outside linebacker rated slightly higher than Kyu, but we did just taking an outside linebacker. So what we try to do with our sequence is that player may not be picked because we just took a player at that position.
So but in general, I think the thing I think about this class is at that pick, as I look at the sequence, every one of these guys was the highest rated guy on our board.
Eric, And as years you've talked about how it seems like there's Yere's years where the.
Draft as a whole is seems to have a similar board, and I'm just curious did you find that to be feel like that was the case this year?
I know, company into the draft.
After some analysty felt like this is a very difficult draft to predict. How did the boardfollo in terms of your expectations of it?
I would say that this year was a little bit unusual. Uh As you got into the second, third, and fourth round, there were some uh ebbs and flows and crazy picks. You know, I I I saw more volatility, low rated guys being drafted high guys outside our sequence. It had more of a two thousand seven type of draft feel.
I think with just in general, y, you know, with the proliferation of mock drafts and the Internet and social media and information sharing, that a lot of draft boards look pretty similar, uh I, you know, and and that's why a lot of times when we're finished with the first round, second round, we see that there aren't a lot of players that we have in the top sixty four still available at the end of those two rounds. Used to be different. This year was a little different.
I would say, Joe, I don't know, but they seem to be some different picks. I think this is a tough draft to evaluate. This was an unusual draft. Were still dealing with the ramifications of COVID in some ways. There's a lot of older players in this draft class,
very unusual. But there's a lot of guys that are twenty four, twenty five, twenty six years old, and you know, so if you think about it, there are guys that are twenty years old in this draft, Guys that are twenty six years old, and it's just we haven't seen that big of a spread in terms of the numbers, so that's kind of different. But I would say yes, more of a tougher draft to predict in the second and third day with an.
Iom maybe taking away something No I'm raving. I ask, do you still see as.
Big a potential that have, you know, down the line contributors and previous years or else out of the country.
That's a great question, Jonas, I don't. I don't know how that's gonna affect undrafted free agency. I will say this that I have a lot of faith in Mark Escevedo, who's upstairs. He kind of organizes this thing for us and Joe and David and the coaches and the scouts. They'll be cranking when the time comes. They haven't started yet, but when the time comes, they will be cranking. They'll be hitting the phones. We've done a lot of prep work.
We started recruiting guys weeks ago, and we'll be in a great place and we'll get a good class of guys. It's going to be fierce competition to make the team. You know, it's gonna be hardly It's not like you know, back in like nineteen ninety eight, nineteen ninety nine, or four or five undrafted guys would make it every year. I mean, Jamison, you're the old statesman. Uh, you know, you remember those days, the historian, Remember those days when
those guys. We had a lot of those guys make it, and now it's like maybe one guy or two guys a year.
I think.
So it is challenging, but we take a lot of pride in it. Jonas, I think, you know, we think we do it better than anybody else. I think probably other teams think that too, but we have we take a lot of pride in the way that we do it. Marcus highly organized in what he does in our scouts, and the coaches do an amazing job. And I do think we haven't advantage this year because we've got some
college coaches that we brought in. And with that is the recruiting aspect of the job, which is a big advantage.
Going into the draft.
A lot of analysts that you know, Eric lakes to trade so much, there's no way that you would just stick and make the five picks.
The rigants love drafting so many players. There's no way it's just a five player class. How did it feel to you to just stay and take a by.
Yeah, you know, we just zagged. We didn't want to zig this year, I guess, you know, like we we always trade, and we didn't trade this year. And I would expect people would think that we would trade this year. But we like the players, we like the roster, you know. And as I said, you know, the phones didn't ring. I mean as actually honestly we use we have new phones, as you know, Brian, We've got new phones, right, and they weren't ringing. And I'm like, are these damn things working?
Because they want the old phones that were used to using in the draft room. They brought these new like internet things, digital phones, and I'm like, are they really working, Joe, Like honestly, and we're calling them, they're ringing. The only people calling us.
We would literally the strangest dynamic.
But it's one of those years, you know.
But I will say this, like what was good about this year was that in most cases the player that we wanted or a player that we wanted was there when we could pick. Some year that's not the case. That's a helpless feeling. So it was okay that the phones didn't ring quite as much.
You too, more, David, you know we didn't get chance went and say Flowers was stracted.
But what kind of stood out to you about him? And kind of the whole skept I mean everything. He's just a fun evaluation. He's electric.
He can't help but keep your eyes off of him when you're watching watching the tape. And it's even better in person, as Joe and I saw in Vegas at the East West game. Explosive, fast, sudden, dangerous. He can hurts you on all three levels. He can get deep, he's great after the catch. He's a tough tackle, he's physical, he can play through contact. He can make more contested catches than most guys' size can make. He's very productive,
and he doesn't shy away from the moment. And again, I think when you're five to nine one hundred and eighty some pounds, you know, coming from a you know, shorter guy, you know you have to be wired a certain way to dominate, especially in the National Football League. You know, you can't be meek. And he has that mentality.
He's got that raven mentality that we desire and it shows on the field and it's infectious, and you know you want that guy on your team, and we're extremely lucky to have him here and we look forward to seeing him play on Sundays.
A couple like a week ago, there were a lot of questions about what this team may look like going into the season. I know, you guys aren't done with the Lamar signing and the draft now over, How do you feel about the view of this team going.
Into this next season.
I think I think we all feel pretty good, but we also understand and realize we have more work to do. So, you know, we've got you know, four or five months and whatever it is. And you know, I remember last year being on the beach with my dad when we signed justin Houston in July. So there's gonna be opportunities along the way to sign players, and we'll do that if we can. If we have the opportunity and we have the resources to do it, and the you know
it exists the potential, we'll do it. You know. So the roster is going to look different than it does now. Hopefully you know better, but it is going to look different. And uh, you know, we're going to keep building and building and building until we can build a team that can go as far as possible.
Thank you, thank you.
Thanks guys.
This is the Ravens Press Pass podcast and there were lots of things happening over the course of the last few days. Every press conference that took place at the Castle and Owings Mills, and also the conference calls that the players did with the local media. All of those pressers live here in this feed, so go ahead and check them out, and if you want more analysis, then head over to the Lounge podcast feed. Subscribe to both
feeds and leave a rating and a review. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back with you again soon.