Um, well, I think at the end of the day, for first and foremost, there's a lot of the a lot of our a lot of the agents of all our players are freegans are actually here at the combine, and we've scheduled meetings more or less with all of them. Um. I think that's as taught alluded to. We we have
an idea internally what we're gonna probably potentially do. Um, but at this point in time, you know, we don't really want to show our cards, show our hand and be perfectly honest before we were to do something of that lines, Like we obviously know we have the ability
to franchise tag him, put the franchise tag on him. Um, but I think in the first and foremost we would like to communicate that with the player of the agent if that is something we decided to do, so well, I would say simply, you know, mo is a very good player, and um obviously we would like to have him with the organization going forward. Um. But like I said, all options are on the table, but I don't want to I don't really want to speculate on that stuff.
But I mean, at the end of day, we like Moa very much, so we do realize the franchise, TA gets an option like every team has with their players to potentially hold on to them and um, you know, try to keep them long term. Well, I think you know, every team more or less has to go through this process when they try to figure out, like how to use the tag in terms of protecting you know, the players they really want to hold on too. We do have some good players who are gonna be free agents
this year. Damon's one of them. But I would say simply, I would say again not to really speculate anything. I'd say realistically, UM, you know they're they're both options. Um. I think at the end of the day, we probably have to decide one of the two. But I don't really want to tip our hand which one we would do that with no no, I understand, And I think at the end of the day, what we're trying to do, Um, what every team does in this period of time is
you try to make decisions. So it's like putting a puzzle together. So you're trying to make decisions are gonna be the best for the for the team long term? Um. But I think first and foremost, I think we're gonna do everything with our ability to try to keep as many good players on the team as we can. I know a lot of people are speculated can we keep all of them? Um? I don't think it's out of
the outside. It's not outside the realm of possibilities. But um, you know, it would be a very big investment in that area. But I think it's you know, right now, we're still kind of moment paused for a second to like, everybody here from the other teams, we're all trying to guess what everybody else's game plan is. So so that being said, UM no, I know, I know, and the
fans want to know. I appreciate that. Um, but but for the most part, it's a little you know, you're trying to sort of figure out what everyboy else is gonna do, and you're trying to obviously not just you know, disclose what you're gonna do. I would say simply this, we we like both mo uh and Damon and like we're gonna try to figure out a way to ideally keep both of them. Last m hm, yeah, I would say, um,
and I said this last year. I mean, ideally you want to fill your needs in free agency, um, and you don't really want to let need factor into your draft decisions, because teams do that. UM. The problems are
being it's sort of a simple logic. If you factor something in that has no bearing on whether that player is going to be successful or not your need at a position, you run the risk of skewing your process or your grades, and then um, you know, maybe passing on another player that turns out to be a much better player. UM. So what we we'd ideally like to do, UM is going to the draft ideally with every need filled and and then just draft the best player available.
I think we tried to do that a little bit last year. This year's free agencies gonna be a lot like almost like a normal NFL team's free agency. I think right now we're kind of, you know, potentially in the middle range of terms of cap space. UM, we may make some moves that create a little bit more of a cap space. We're looking at potential options of
doing that. But the UM but I think going into this year's free agency, I think what we're gonna try to do is, you know, again, as I said this before, you're trying to figure out which way you can best maximize the impact of the money you have, So I don't necessarily I think, I don't think I would say we're gonna feel some needs and free agency and then try to feel the other needs in the draft. You know.
The other thing I think teams tend to do, they forget about it's you know, it's a long time until September one and when the season starts, so we have a lot of time to potentially solve those problems going forward. So well, I don't really want to speculate where we are in terms of our negotiations and stuff like that. I mean, I think I think at the end of the day, we like Ryan. Um, I think we have a good situation for Ryan. We just have to come
to an agreement on you know, obviously a cost. What we've we've a perfect what both sides think is fair. But um, you know that's still yet to be determined here in the near future as we go forward before free agency. I always feel that when you go through and having only been a gym for one year, but watching this process, um, you know, there's a lot of times you get to the combine. You know, you're obviously looking to college players, you're talking to your own agents,
your own agents or your own free agents. Um. And then there's a little window usually before the draft, when before that, I'm sorry, before the free agency starts, that a lot of deals get done, and I would imagine we're probably in that same you know, in that same boat when uh, you know, free agency hits obviously, you know, some players get right do as your free agency, you actually want to test the market and see where it's at.
And then of course if you're close and you know the market's kind of what you expected to be, sometimes deals get gotten kind of quickly. So we'll do a lot of groundwork ideally to maybe sign some of these guys are for free agency, but we'll see how this thing plays out as we get closer to it. Yeah, I don't necessarily talk and this kind of goes back
to Todd mentioned a second ago. I don't really want to talk about like what we're planning on doing, because at the end of the day, that sort of ties in with it. You know, we're trying to keep a lot of that stuff internal. So, um, So I would differ on but I would say simply, every team looks at players on their contract, players on their team. Uh, if it looks at ways to potentially they're create money if they need to do that and stuff like that,
and that's that's something that everybody does. Um and you
know we have you know, we've gone through potentially. My feeling of this free agency is gonna be more of it's gonna be kind of a fluids you free agency where we'll see how the how our free agents play out in terms of who we can sign and can't sign, and then at the end of the day, it's gonna have a lot of contingency plans to see what we can do, you know, if things don't work out and the market goes above kind of where we feel comfortable
with certain players. Market last year, why do you think that's Yeah, you know, I think the trade market um, and generally I think a lot of teams, it depends a little bit. It depends really on the contract and the players. UM. I think the big thing with trades in this league is you have to really make sure
you know what you're what you're trading for. I thought one of the things that are staffed very well last year as we really researched not just we evaluate the players in terms of ability, but we really spent a lot of time trying to figure out what they were like as people, um, to kind of figure out where
they would bring to the mix there. So I think with the reason I think a lot of teams don't trade, they're historically don't trade, is that I think everybody's you know, if they think that there's a reason the team is trying to get rid of that player, then they may not want to bring that player on. I think we sort of did our due diligence, feel very good about the potential trades we made, and feel very fortunate they
happen at the time. Well, I think I think Damon is a great example of, you know, the college draft process, not that in you know, obviously he wasn't drafted, but if you find a player of that caliber as a college free agent, that's kind of, in my mind, every time you find a player that's sort of as a college cree agtion, that really accelerates your ability to potentially
turn your team around. But I think, you know, Damon to me is a is a is an exceptionally good player versus a run and he's I think also surprisingly affect at times as a pass rusher. So, um, you know, I think to me, Damon is a very good, uh, you know player in his role. You know, I think
it's funny. I was in Houston at the time, and I remember, you know, we normally do as we go back and sort of self scout and we look at the players that kind of made it like a year or two, three years down the road, not just the draft picks. He's kind of evaluate that aspect and you do it from a self scouting standpoint. Um. But I think with Damon maybe it was a situation he was sort of off the radar a little bit and at a small level school. Um and um. I remember his
Pro day, his his numbers. You know, he's a very big guy. I don't think his numbers were you know, exceptional with the pro day in terms of his testing and timing numbers. But at the end of the day, it's not a perfect science the college draft process. And I think he's a much better player than you know, the rest of the league probably knew at that point in time. And I think the Jet staff you know at that time too, did a excellent job and sort of identifying a college free agent that came in and
played very well. Tyler Loud, Yeah, you know, I think every team probably has a different approach. I think my personal approach or my personal philosophy has always been when you take a player at a smaller school, it's a little more difficult because even within the divisions, there's obviously different level of competition from division to division, but within the divisions, there's different level of competition within the conferences.
That's why the college draft is generally is fairly tricky or difficult or you know, there's not a lot of teams that are historically always take the best player at every pick and from an opportunity cost standpoint. But um but, I think really when you focus on the smaller school kids and you know, if if they are invited to an invent like this, this is where you really get
the chance to see a measure up ability wise. The most difficult thing I think when you evaluate players at a smaller school tends to be, you know, trying to assess their their skill level, they're athletically because you're kind of watching them on tape and a lot of the inputs we are a lot of the evaluation process very subjective.
So um so I think what you what you tend to do is go back to see when you get a chance to actually work them out here at the combine or to pro day, you really focus on their athletic ability. And then the other part of it you have to factor in is like the facilities they have in terms of their development at their schools. I got
a vision one. A school, for example, in Alabama may have much better resources in terms of dietitians and meal plans and um, you know, weight room and all those in all those aspects of all those develop the player. Whereas you go to a smaller school, they may not just just not have the resources financially to do stuff like that. So that's I tend to believe the smaller
school guys. Sometimes you you you'll find guys and a lot of times you find some late round draft picks where or even college free agents in this in the case of you know, damon um that really make great jumps and as you kind of get them into your and sometimes the jumps that they make from yours one, two, and three are are much more dramatic than some of the Maybe a guy at a bigger school who's sort of reached more of his potential at that point in time. Uh,
between now and a year ago. Um. I think my thing has always been everybody who becomes a general manager has a philosophy, you know, and they have a philosophy how they want to run their departments and how they want to structure and staff things. UM, I tend to you know me personally, I you know, I'm not really a guy who's like so, I have my philosophy based on where I've done so far, and I have a system, but I'm constantly sort of looking at and trying to evaluate.
I come to these environments sometimes and when you see a lot of your friends and you can have a chance to be kind of visiting and socially, I'm constantly picking my friends brands about what they do, trying to find nuances that maybe an interesting idea going forward. I think in particular now, um, you know, obviously there's been some things in Cleveland with some you know, people outside of football have coming to Cleveland outside of you know,
the traditional NFL route. Um, so it's interesting to you know, to kind of look at it from that standpoint to see what they may do. And UM, you know, we're very competitive business, so we're constantly of valuing each other and trying to find an edge to be competitive. Um well, I'm trying to drink less coffee. Um. Other than that, I know, UM, I think the one thing I think it's, um,
I know, this year and this year's free agency. I think it's, you know, from my own standpoint, Um, you know, last year, we it was a little different because we you know, we really vetted free agency fairly thoroughly. We've done the same thing this year, but this year it's more of you know, you're it's in a different it's a different playing field almost because we were in a
different cap situation. So I think, really what I think this year in particular, it's it's gonna be very fluid because it's even if we you know, maybe don't get certain players you want to get back from our current free asent group. Um, it's just trying to make sure
you make the right decisions. That. The one thing I also kind of thought going through this process is, you know, it's an interesting job in the sense that you're constantly making decisions, but you really have to predict the future and that's a very difficult thing to do sometimes. Yeah what yeah, Um, well, I think I think it's philosophically, Um, you know, I know everybody wants to kind of said, you know, standards and go hey, you guys, what are you What are you guys gonna do this year? Um?
You know, our goal going into this thing is to try to figure out the best way we can utilize the money we have. Um, do you have the most impact in terms of, you know, making ourselves a better team? I mean it's a longer process trying to turn a team around. Um, we had a lot of success last year, but to me, it's this is still very much a work in progress. And then, as Todd alluded to, there,
you know we're you know that we have some good players. Um, but we're but it's such a competitive industry that you're constantly have to kind uh you know, figure out where you're weak at and then you know, to in a perfect world, try to figure out some way to improve upon that. Well. I think you know we do. We do some Every team I would imagine does some degree of analytics, some of us intrinsic and what we do, um, because we're constantly looking at players trying to project into
the future. And then what you end up doing a lot of times is you look for common train you know, you almost have your model of what you have, your predictability of how you think that player is gonna succeed. So you're constantly looking at past experience and that's how you have to base it on really. Um and especially with people you're dealing with such a variable that, um, you know, it's not just the physical aptitude and how
they physically especially when the college, are they physically developed. Um, it's also the intangible aspect of the character and stuff like that. And and was made mentioned before about the trades we made last year. Obviously Brandon Marshall was a player we vetted very thoroughly, and um, you know, when we had a chance to bring in Brandon, we we probably analyze Brandon as much from a um you know, what he would bring to the organization from an intangible standpoint,
and feel very good about it. And um, you know, so to me, it's you're you're constantly looking at things and trying to figure that out. But we do, we do, we do analytics in our process, and and to me, it's you know, going forward, as we get more you know again more information to kind of work with, that's
something we'll definitely do more with. Well, I think when I always tell the scouts is we start this process literally last spring, and you go through the the you know, the colleges and the fall, you go through the All Star games, you go through um, you know, the Combine, the pro days, and eventually back to our April meetings. What I stressed to the scouts all the time is that your evaluation is never really finished till you walk into that draft meeting in April, because that's the most
important meeting of the whole process we do it. We have a lot of meetings along the way. We kind of put the board up and you know, start trying to figure out who you know, stacking them one from one to three fifty. Basically, Um, what I always stressed to the scouts is that, hey, every time you have an opportunity to be around a player, get exposure to a player, utilize that to hopefully increase the probability you're actually accurate in terms of what you're predicting that player
to be. So that's my thing to them is you know that the process doesn't really end. Some of our scouts actually work here at the Combine and some of the drills and around the players and working with the groups. Um the ones that aren't doing that obviously. They're here to literally watch every drill and every every event to kind of you know, judge the player and make sure they've got them accurately, you know, evaluated,