Assistant GM Rex Hogan (2/27)

the New York Jets. Yeah, you know what, what about how the processes maybe changed because it's a made for TV event now the workout it's NFL Network televising these guys um in prime time and for years I'd look for you guys and at night you would be actually doing formal interviews. I gotta imagine a lot of things are flipped for you. It's exactly what it is. It's

been flipped early part of the week. It's pretty much the same schedule, but just now we've changed it so that, like you said, the prime time prime time schedule from four pm to eleven o'clock at night on Thursday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday it will be starting it too and then go to a probably nine o'clock at night. So

it's just different. We're having the interviews earlier in the morning now and on Wednesday, Thursday today it will be much more extended with the interviews throughout, So you just

adjust to it. It's part of it. And you know pressures put on the players too in terms of that having how the where they've come from, in terms of their preparation that they might have been getting up early in the morning and now all of a sudden they've got to start training a little bit differently and preparing their bodies to be ready from that four o'clock to eleven o'clock window. I remember a few years ago and

your first stint with the New York Jets. We sat in Lucas Soil watching some of the drills and I said, what do you try to get out of this? And you said, what you're trying to see here is that what they do on the field bell at dates the tape exactly. And it's part of the process. And we always call you each aspect of it is a certain piece of the puzzle, and this is obviously a major

piece of the puzzle. But it's good because you can see them, you know who the guys are kind of rise the cream to the top in terms of each one of the position groups from a competitive standpoint, and you just see those guys kind of shine and when they when they get under the lights, and it's a whole different situation for him, and all of a sudden,

you see like guys start to separate themselves. So if it's say a three horse race, a receiver defensive act, the guy who's the best usually kind of shows themselves. I was also told once that it kind of the combine can break up the clusters. To your point, if there's like a group of guys that have similar grades,

maybe the combine helps set the order. But I wanted to ask you about the interviews because now that the interviews are earlier and the bench press is going on right now behind us, So so if you hears some other noise, it's that, Um, is there a different feel to the interviews being at a different time, Like, I know the structure will remain the same, but is it at all different that the drills and everything comes later

in the day and the first thing is the interview. Yeah, I think that'll be a little different for him because in the past, on the day that they work out, they don't have interviews in the morning. But so that'll be a little bit of something from them to adjust to.

But they're traditionally the same, you know, aspect in terms of, you know, what we want to find out from over in terms of their background, what they know in terms of football, their football intelligence, type of system they were in their ability to communicate what they played in and their football knowledge overall. March eighteenth, the start of free agency. You are the assistant general manager the New York Jets.

So not only are you getting ready for the draft in late April, you guys have twenty one on restricted free agents, a couple of our phase, and of course you're looking elsewhere exploring contracts. How do you go about making a board for the draft and making a board for free agency in terms of targets is a very similar, Yeah, Just so throughout the fall we've going we do a progress in terms of, you know, the college scouts are on the road. They're doing a great job of identifying

the college prospects for us. But at the same time, the pro personnel department is doing the same thing. So we've got guys tagged and alerted that everybody know, say this guy is gonna be a u f A or an r f A, you know, potential cap cut. So somebody we need to know about and so throughout the fall, those are you know, those are taking priority in terms of what they're the pro scouts are looking at as

well as their individual teams. So it kind of sets a board for us for when we go into our January meetings and then you know, we have our January meetings with pro going to a pro personnel free agency meeting. We just had college scouts in for eleven days and so they we went over to the guys who were you know, draft prospects, priority free agent prospects. So we're setting the board. But they make a long story short. It's a delicate balance between both, you know, a good thing.

We've got a great pro staff, we've got a great college staff, and you know, helps us make our jobs easier in terms of building up to the selection process. In April. I talked to Joe Douglas about it yesterday, said that during those draft meetings UM in February prior to coming here in Indianapolis, you guys have an initial board.

We do, we do. We We've got the board initially set um just from of the scouts grades that come in from the fall and from what they what they've seen and usually there's some conflicting grades, and so when we get together as a groups and an opportunity for us to to hear the reports and to watch tape as a group and collectively discuss you know, hey, what what do you see his strengths? What do you see as weaknesses? What do we ultimately what do we see

this guy? What's his value for the Jets? So it's good it helps us having a board, you know, just an idea of going into it before we kind of mold it into to what we want as a group. What's this week been like for you coming back to Indianapolis obviously where you lived and used to be a part of the Colts, So what is it like for you to come back to this place. Yeah, it was

a little surreal, do you know? Flying in, I was like, oh man, I was in the transition back in June when I when I left there to come here, so I was other than moving out of my house and in past July, that's the first time that I've been back, so you know, it was like I felt like just yesterday, but at the same time felt like so long ago, if that makes sense. So it was cool to be back, you know, I had some buddies from the old neighborhood come down and meet me for dinner the other night.

So always good to connect man see, and not only guys with the Colts, but you know, stadium employees and other people around the city who you've seen and gotten to know over the past two years. So I had

to connect. I know they are very different people obviously, but maybe some similarities an approach between Chris Ballard and Judge Tom Joe Douglas, because when I think of the Colts and what you guys did there is you build it from the inside out you want to and you guys formed maybe the best offensive line and all football. And now when you hear Joe talk says that's gonna be an emphasis for us, not only this year, but

moving forward forever long I'm here. Yeah. Absolutely. We always talked about that in in Indianapolis, and you know pretty much everywhere else does it as well. It's hey, you gotta build inside out. It starts with the front makes life easier on the back end for both sides of

the ball. So that's something we're gonna continue to do here and develop within the the Jets organization, develop within our our roster in in terms of a competitive situation where we're constantly bringing in guys to push those those starters and potential starters and guys we can developer down the road. So I just want to get into your background a little bit before you get going here, because

you're a very busy man as the assistant GM. So, like, where were you, Let's just say twenty years ago this time of year, probably years ago, I was at Notre Dame. UM, we had just finished up going in weird preparation, finishing up with the draft class and going into the off season for two thousand season, which it turned out to be a great season for us. We ended up going

to the Fiestavo lost unfortunately. But yeah, it twenty years ago, was right after signing day and you're already transitioned into the next class, and so yeah, it brings back good memories back in the state. Again, what stands out to you most about your long run with Chicago Bears? And maybe you could talk about a couple of our mentors along the way, Uh name Jerry Age? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So I had gotten to know Jerry when I was at Notre Dame as a pro liaison had a chance to come through, and he kind of developed relationships with guys who want to talk about you know, players, and hey, tell me a little bit about this guy. What do you think about it? And so it kind of helped you like clear your mindset in terms of an evaluator at the college level and how we had to project from high school to college. You do the same thing in in the NFL, projecting guys from college to the pros.

But Jerry really helped me with that. You know, we had a great run there. I went to the Super Bowl, lost to the Colts again. Yeah, but you know, and competed in the NFC Championship, uh second time, you know, after winning it on that year that we went to the Super Bowl. But man, it was a great run, great city, great time. We had a lot of great guys. Our our college staff was was awesome. We had you know,

Chris is now the general manager for the Colts. So I had a really good group, a lot of good guys, man, a lot of good mentors. Helped me out and get into the league. How did your roles change over time there? Um, you know, progressed from an area scout into uh, the national scout going over the top. Uh, not only west of the Mississippi for a few years, and then east of the Mississippi living in Nashville and my wife working at Vanderbilt. You know, Southeast was always a kind of

a stronghold on college football. So I was able to to stay there and live there and get a good balance of not only the SEC but all over the country. Ville. It's a great city, great city, van it was. It was a lot of fun. We were there twelve twelve years, and my wife worked there at Vanderbilt for eleven eleven years and eleven seasons. Saw a lot of good football college football players come through there. And you know, Jay Cutler was a quarterback for Vanderbilt at that point, and

then James Franklin came in and took over. They had a nice run as well. So we had we ended up having a lot of players on the on the roster in Chicago from Vanderbilt. You know, at one point we had Jay Cutler, Chris Williams, Earl Bennett, D. J. Moore, and Hunter hill Am. I yeah, nice group of guys and starting players and played well for us. You played

collegiately at Austin pe But what late. What led you to Notre Dame because you mentioned Notre Dame to start here twenty years ago you were with the Fighting Irish and Urban Meyer. But how did you lay in there? Yeah? Networking more than anything else, you know, I was I was working in private business sector in Nashville, and uh was at the point I was like, man, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life.

And so called a guy who had a connection with a family friend had a guy who was an insistant athletic director within the athletic department, and they were looking for an internship within the for an intern within the athletic department, and went up on an interview and guests did well enough to get the job and started out. You know, the wages were small, but the job was in mys was was huge and it was a great,

you know, opportunity. I grew up a huge Notre Dame fan, so I had a younger brother who was enrolled in school there at that point too, so it was good. My my whole family grew up Notre Dame fans, So it was kind of like a lifelong dream. Well what did you what did you do it Notre Dame for Urban and then later on you must have did a good job because when he went to Utah, he said, Rice,

come on, I got another position for Yeah. So I was working in the recruiting and operations aspect there with the football team, and uh, Bob Davy was our head coach, and on that staff we had, you know, tremendous staff. We had Urban Meyer head coach and as well as he's done Steven Dazio, who's been a head coach at Temple and Boston College now at Colorado State. Dan Mullin was a graduate assistant now the head coach of Florida.

And then John D. Philippo was a graduate assistant who's gone on and had been successful in the in the NFL. Is an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. So really good staff, and uh, you know he had a good ability with not only him, but Greg Madison was another guy who served it, you know, mentor in terms of evaluations and the way they saw players. And so, yeah, Urban and I hit it off. He went to Bowling Green with Dan Mullin. From that aspect. He went for two years

and then trans transitioned into the University of Utah. So gaming an opportunity to go with him as director of operations and recruiting coordinator. So I went out there, but or transition to Chicago. Yeah, did you think you're gonna be in the college game for a while? Yeah, yeah, I thought so with the change in in the recruiting aspect, and and Jerry Angelo, you know, made a great point to me, Hey, what do you what do you want

to do see yourself doing five years from now? You know, let's see you light up when you start talking about player evaluations as opposed to the operations aspect. So he was right on, spot on with it and then talk to me into making the transition, making the change to to the NFL, and seventeen seasons later, Man, it's been a great run. Go ahead. I was gonna say, for somebody that's been in the college game now the pro game, and you have so many different roles, and clearly you

love football. Anyone that's sitting where you are as an it'sistant GM loves football. But what is it about the sport that you just makes you that originally made you want to be a part of it and still to this day you love about it. Yeah, it's the competition and the camaraderie and in the relationships that you build because it's everybody. You know, it's a very unique sport as we all know that. You know, there's a eleven

guys in one common goal of winning. And you know it's so much different from the basketball from baseball that you can have some individual you know, accolades in terms of performance and one guy can carry five guys in basketball, but it's tough for one guy to carry eleven in football.

But more than anything else, I think it's the common goal and the common drive that it's winning above everything when you get down to it, and if everybody's focused on that and has competitive drive in the passion for it, then everything's gonna you know, progress. Well for you organization, What do you think about this group that you're working with now? Uh, Joe up at the top, but then Jed Alexander, we talked to him yesterday. Um Phil Savage

and the experience he brings to the team. John Carr, I mean, we can go to the pro side and talked about Greg Nama, but well, what can you what can you say about these guys behind the scenes? I mean, because Joe obviously at the forefront. Yeah, it's a it's

a great group. Man. We've you know, I knew everybody previously from being on the road, and you know, the scouting community is a small world when you get out on the road and you make school visits and you develop relationships and along the way, and you know, I got to know Joe, I guess you know, Chad, I got to know phil Um. Didn't really know Greg until my first run run with the Jets. But it's been great, man.

You know, the three guys who we talked about first, they each one of them has over twenty years of experience in the NFL, and they were all in Baltimore and had won Super Bowls. And Joe's transitioned from you know, Baltimore with Chicago before he went to Philly and won another Super Bowl. So, you know, just just leaning on those guys and their perspective of how they did it, how they won super Bowls, and hopefully collectively as a group, we can bring all that together and mean good things

for the Jets down the road. You know, real quick, before we let you go, you've been on the road a lot. Let's your go to snack uh almonds or cash us or protein bars, Okay, fair enough, that's all. That's all protein. That's the e A diet. You know that. Um, So you're excited for what's ahead over the next couple of months. Here is before you know it, you're gonna be back. You're gonna have your final free agency meetings. Then you can be hosting people, talking to people, negotiating

and yeah, filling some holes. Because Joe said it clearly, Hey, listen, we got some holes to fill and we know that we're gonna attack them, but we're not going to be reckless with our decisions. And then I gotta imagine you and your position would echo the sentiments is maybe free

agency is where you plug those holes. So you never want to go into a draft where you're reaching for a need, right, but one uf as, like you talked about in three r f A s, that's you know, twenty four spots that you're gonna have to take care of. The free agencies is gonna be tough. We've got we have a draft picks, so you know, not only that, we also have the you know, undrafted free agents after the draft as well, in terms of guys to add to to our roster and the competition to add so yeah,

it's it's a it's an awesome, awesome moment. When you sit down and think about it, you're like, man, we got a chance to turn this roster over and to add add new life, younger, younger players. Guys are going to contribute and make us better as a team. So it's really exciting. We talked about it as a group all the time of Hey, each day we've got to go out and look for jets. How nice of a feeling is it to come to Indianapolis and the quarterbacks

always drive things with the Colts. You guys had Andrew Luck for a while, so you knew you were set there. Now you have a quarterback in San Donald as a Sunday player who's just twenty two years old. How nice is it to be in that position as you try to continue to build this team. Yeah, it's it's a comforting feeling, especially with twenty two and and and Sam and and how good he's been for us and how

he's gonna continue to get better. So he's just scratching the surface in terms of what he can be as a player. Yeah, like you said, he's twenty two years old. I think there's guys who are quarterbacks in this year's draft too, are older Row six months older than right, So you know, it's it's a very comforting fact to know that that we can add pieces around him and build around him. And we've got our franchise quarterback of the future so are currently presently so we're going to

continue to build around him. So yeah, it's a it's a great feeling to have and we'll just add pieces, all right. Rox Well, thanks for coming on the Official Jet Podcast powered by Amazon Web Services. We'll see him running down the hallway exactly. We'll see you do your fort r dash down the skywalk here in forever. Thanks appreciate guys. Thanks