Trenton Simpson Introductory Conference Call and Draft Day 2 Press Conference

Welcome into the Ravens Press Pass podcast. Today of the Ravens made another move in the NFL Draft, selecting linebacker Trenton Simpson with their third round pick. Trenton Simpson is a run and hit linebacker who's a versatile player. You can use them all over the field on defense and on special teams. He talked with the local media soon after the pick was announced, and you could tell that Simpson was fired up to land here in Baltimore.

Hey, Trenton, congratulations. It seems like when everybody sees you play, you play all over the field. Where do you feel is your strongest position?

I say my strongest position is in the box. But God has blessed me with so many talents to be versatile. So whatever the Ravens need me to do any given week, I'm available, and I'm a flexibility and I wouldn't adapt to any scheme and just be a playmaker.

That's all I proud myself is making plays with the university.

Ryan Mink, Trenton, we saw you, you know, emotional moment when you're drafted. What is it about the Ravens that really appeals to you? It makes you so excited? And did you have a good sense that they could be a team that was interested in you.

Oh, yes, sir.

In my heart, man, I knew that that was a great, great opportunity for me. My agent had let me know like that that was the place that was best for me. And they they're already they have a winning program. So I've come from Clemson with winning pedigree. So man, I'm just continued excited to bring my talent and my mind set to the team.

And this is just a blessing.

Man.

My emostion is poured out because I've been grinding at this football things since i was six years old. So just to be in the National Football League and have my family there and my mom by my side mit the world to definitely.

Charles Walker.

Yeah, heye, Trenton, congratulations. Obviously, the Ravens have a history of great linebackers and and two really good ones right now in ro Quand Smith and Patrick Queen. What do you what do you think about possibly fitting in with those guys?

Oh?

Man, I'm excited, man, ro Cound Smith, Patrick Queenan I watch those.

Guys highlight like I just I love the way they play. They play like me.

They play fast, physical football, and they hitting anything that's moving and that's my mindset. So I'm excited to come in the linebacker room and bring my talents, come in there willing to learn from the Vets.

And continue to just have a great career and be a Raven Kevin Richardson, Hey, Trenton, and welcome to the Baltimore Ravens.

Uh.

Going through the draft process, what is some of the criticism from some of the draft experts have talked about your game that they may have been wrong about.

I say, just just not knowing what's what scheme I can fit in. I can fit in any scheme. I'm the most versatile linebacker in this draft, and I'm ever gonna believe that. And we're gonna see this this in this career transcemption, y'all gonna y'all not gonna regret this pick, and I'm gonna maximize every opportunity man and trans Simpson gonna go down as one of the great for Baltimore Ravens.

Believe that.

Jeff Surebac, did you have a sense of where you were gonna get picked? Were you on the board longer and you expected and what was sort of it like when when you got that call.

I was definitely on the board longer than the way, longer than I expected. But it was always God's Tommy, and and I believe in God with all my heart. And this was the place he wanted me at and the pick he wanted me to go at. So I'm just blessed. Man, This this is a dream come true. I'm just blessed. I'm excited. It was definitely longer, but this is well worked the way to be a Baltimore raven going there with the guys you have, guys already have in the locker room, and.

To add me in my mindset, we're gonna be great. We're gonna we're gonna win some championships. Definitely.

Yeah.

Congratulations man, you had twelve sacks uh in your college career and really, God after the quarterback.

You feel like that's something you can bring the Ravens.

And why do you think you were so adepted being able to cause a pass rush? Oh yes, sir, I definitely feel I can bring that to the Ravens. I just say, guys, bless me with a lot of speed and ability and just with my technique and my hard work and just trusting my coaches and practicing hard.

I definitely feel I can bring that to the Ravens.

I feel like I'm gonna be a great asset to the team on the first, second, and third down. So I'm excited to see how they're gonna use me. Got a lot of talent and I'm ready to work. We'll go to Kyle Barber and congratulations. Were there any linebackers that you were looking up to growing up and who do you muddel your game after?

Man, Definitely ro CORYN. Smith Man. I grew up.

I'm from Columbus, Georgia, and just seeing him at Georgia he won a buckets tore man like it's it's gonna be a pleasure playing with him, and I know I'm gonna be able to take a lot from him and his mindset.

He's a dog. He plays hard, he plays the right way, and.

It's the reason, it's the reason why he's the highest paid lineback in the NFL right now. So, man, I'm just blessed to be in a room with a guy like that. So because i know I'm gonna pick up, I'm willing to listen and I'm gonna put the work in and whatever he do whatever workouts he's doing.

I'm willing to come and join. I'm ready to work. I'm right and round it out with Ryan MANK.

Just wondering your best as a military kid kind of bounced around a little bit with your dad being in the military. How did that shape you as a person.

I feel like that's where I get my adaptability from and just being able to adapt to anything. I've learned so much from my family and just being a military kid and just understanding sacrifice and just working hard.

So I'm blessed man.

My family has instilled everything in me to be a great young man, discipline, great character, and God put a lot of talent on my boy at this football thing. So now I'm excited. I'm blessed and to be a Raven Man is truly a blessing. And I promise you we're gonna have a great career here.

Yes, sir, all right, Well, very good, Trenton, very much so appreciate your time, Thank you, and congratulations again.

We look forward to meeting you in person soon. Yes, sir, thank you so much for having me. Y'all have a good one.

Now you're listening to the Ravens Press past podcast feed. In addition to hearing from Trenton Simpson after the second and third round of the NFL Draft, we also had a chance to hear from head coach John Harbaugh, general manager Eric Decassa, and Director of player Personnel Joe Hortez.

Well, we're excited to uh to take to a draft Trenton Simpson from Clemson. We felt, like, you know, clearly for us at that time, he was the best available player, running hit linebacker, very very explosive, outstanding. I mean, Chris Horton, one of the happiest guys in the building, one of his favorite players, Zach Orr, that was his number one linebacker in the draft this year.

And so you know, we got wiped out.

To be honest, in the third It was a long day as I as I feared it would, and I just kept thinking about, you know, Roquand. In fact, at one point we actually facetimeed with Roquand, believe it or not, and that is true, we did.

So that was cool.

I was just to remind the whole room when we did have a second round pick, Yeah, yeah, here's your second round pick.

But we were very excited to get Trenton. Things going to help us in a lot of different ways. We see him as a four down linebacker eventually, tremendous potential and upside, and he's a great kid.

Questions, So, John, how do you because it seems like he's played a lot of snaps inside lineback out there, even if I'm at corner, where do you project that?

That's the point?

Kind of think he's versatile. He's a running hit linebacker, and Joe talked about that just a few minutes ago. He can play really across the board. You know, you play from the slot all the way back across to the will ading play on the edge of the line, So that's kind of nice. He's fast, He's the kind of straight line, covered ground kind of guy. He can he can actually rush. I think when we blitz will help us. And then special teams, you know, he's going

What do you mean by way when you were wiped out or you guys, your third round grades on other than Simson pretty much all gone.

Is that company?

Well, I mean you have players in every round that you you aspire to take. You know, you look at you look up there and being man, that would be a great pick, that would be a great pick. And at one point, fairly part of the third round, we probably had seven or eight names and by the end we had one.

That's you know, so you have to you know, you pick the best player. That's what we do. You know.

Uh.

Interesting, it was interesting just as an aside, you know, thinking about looking at the receiver position starting that round, there were a lot of really good receivers available, and you know, at one point this you know, this process fall, I'm thinking maybe we would have a chance to draft a wide out in the third round, and it just got annihilated in the span of about ten picks. And so we're very thankful that we got to say.

Eric, is you know drafting simpthing? Does that have any impact one on in future?

All?

Yeah, So that's something, as I said yesterday, you know, will address at some point.

We love Patrick. I love Patrick.

Patrick is in my mind one of the better will linebackers in the league. He's smart, he works his butt off, he's got a bright future. I think he's a Pro Bowl linebacker in the making. And so you know, in Trenton, we get a guy that was, honestly, I mean, the very best player available at the time. That's our philosophy, that's how we build our team.

Uh.

The fact that he's an outstanding special teams player factored in because that's you know that that that transcends positional defensive football. That guy is gonna be on the field force helping us win games, and that's a huge thing for us. We love his mentality, we love his background, his family, and it was an easy pick for us to make.

Just to be clear with the Patrick is the drafts by that two days? That line that you guys to.

Repect the deadline is what the first four pm. It's probably when we'll make it. I would say, by.

That, Joe, when when what kind of stood out when you're watching the film and throughout I'm just gutting crosses balls.

Yeah, you know it's been mentioned twice, the versatility he came in as a really an outside backer nickel type player for them. You mentioned to Jamison where he was playing some corner Even so, the athleticism, the speed when you put the film on the you watch him go from sideline to sideline. He can close ground very quickly in pursuit. He's very active on film. And then, like Eric mentioned, his characters is off the charts. The Eric Clemson,

Eric, Joe.

We've talked to you guys a lot about the cornerback.

Is that a position that there's still gonna be good value when you guys are picking in the fourth and tomorrow?

I think so, yeah, I know, we look at the board now, yeah, of course you've got to be you know, there's always an element of luck involved and team's taking other players. But as we look up there in this coming round, you know, we see some guys that we would consider taking in the fourth round. For sure, definitely,

Definitely, were you at.

All tempted to trade up?

Did you tempt it at any point and it was just too rich or you just knew.

The draft capital that you had that was probably.

Gonna be unlikely.

Yeah, I mean, you know, in another year draft, we probably might have traded.

You know, we had twelve picks. See maybe us.

Trying to trade up potentially this year Hamstrong. By the picks that we have, it was probably prohibitive.

Uh.

You know our trade was, as I said, Roquan, that was our trade up this year.

Basically, we gave up a two and a five for an all all pull linebacker. That was our trade.

And you know, we kind of went into the process knowing that we did consider trading Back in the round, we fielded a couple of calls. The value wasn't there for us to do that, and so we decided to pick.

In that three.

You know, round two video you got to put up on a social media and you said that you guys planned a half five players in the next twenty four hours. At that point, you you only have four fixed. Was that just a plugging of the words or you expected.

Video? Did you see a video?

No, you never know, You never know.

You never know. John.

There's a lot of talk about since that's a personal linebacker, you envision him competing Bard or playing primarily inside or outside or.

Yeah, I think it started. He'll be an inside back and they probably could go out to the edge. We do move those guys out there quite a bit. You know, we'll kick we'll kick our our in our even front package, nickel package. We'll kick our week side end down to a three technique and bring the will linebacker up on the last scrimmage to do that lot with Malik. So those guys are versatile doing that. Patrick does that a lot. So it'll be involved in all those type of things in that same being.

Just how valuable is this, you know, kind of the positionless defense and being able to match up against today ends with linebackers like that, like, just how much versatility does that give you?

In light? Yeah, Mike talks about it all the time. And really when we draw our defenses up, a lot of times we put we do do excess, you know, a lot of times we do do numbers. You know, we'll talk about we number our coverages, you know, in terms of not just man coverage, but also his own coverage. So sometimes it's even defensive tackles dropping out into coverage, or it's guys blitzing in certain gaps. It can really be anybody that does it. And we try to build

Do you guys call Patrick or at this point that you guys are doing something that'll be something you could you do in the coming days maybe after the draft, or you don't think it's necessary period.

What do we mean.

We call Patrick?

Call Patrick en?

Oh yeah, I mean we talked to him, Joe, I exact, sorry, talked to him. I talked to Patrick yesterday or the day before. Patrick's good. I mean, he'll be more good players we can have on our team, the more our guys should be happy. So this guy, you know, when this guy comes in, all of our players, our linebackers is gonna love him. I know has already talked to him. I'd be surprised if Patrick hasn't talked to him yet. You know that's not Patrick. But he's he's gonna be

How was the linebacker that he looked up to? And he's a orge guy? Was that something you talk to you guys about it all?

When you know what he.

Did?

He speak to us about looking at the Roquan No to us, to me personally, no, but you know he's definitely a proud Georgia player, you know, and and most of those guys are, so I'm not surprising that he mentions that tell you, guys, Eric, I know.

You may not know this for sure, but you're on the clock over the poem rings. But would you still like to get more picks here? Do you like what's could be on the board tomorrow and feel like you need more picks to kind of take full advantage of that?

Well, you know, we just we look at the board. But yeah, we can always get more picks, I mean, getting picks. I gotta say, like it's it's not that hard to get picks, you know, I mean, but you got to have players to pick too, you know, and so you have to look at the board figure out, like you know, all the analytics guys upstairs do a great job of figuring out, you know, the range of players that we're going to be picking from. And I mean even you know today Ozzie said, you know, who

But you know, you can always trade back.

Teams are always calling, especially as you get into the third day of the draft, because other teams covet you know, they want to move up.

Teams always want to move up.

You know, it's that bias, you know, that consensus bias, and they want to move up and take and get those players, and so they want to do it. But you got to you got to have players. And as we've said, you know, we think our roster is pretty good. Jeff, it's gonna be hard for guys.

To make the team.

You know.

Uh, we've had a lot of draft picks in the last three.

Or four years, and so you know, we we went into this year really not thinking that we wanted ten picks.

Joe, do you guys.

See more value at outside quarterback or flat cornerback with the guys that are still out there for Day.

Three packs Yeah, I'd say there's a combination of both on the board right now. First, you know, again we mentioned versatility all the time, and we can project players inside that may not play outside or that may not play inside in college, but they're moving skills, their toughness or instincts. So there's some guys on the board that may not have the experience playing inside that we feel that can move inside.

Thanks again for listening to the Ravens Press Pass podcast. Make sure that you subscribe to this podcast feed. Also, if you haven't done so already, go ahead and check out the Lounge podcast for all the analysis of Draft weekend. Also make sure you rate and review both podcast feeds as well. The NFL Draft continues on Saturday, as the Ravens will make a few more picks in building this roster for the twenty twenty three season.