April 15, 2025 • 43 mins
General Manager Eric DeCosta and Head Coach John Harbaugh address the media ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome into the Ravens Press Pass podcast. It is Tuesday,
April fifteenth, and the Ravens held their pre draft press
conference today with general manager Eric Taicasa and head coach
John Harbaugh. The press conference has been nicknamed the Liars
Lunching over the years, but it's also a good chance
to see the team's thought process going into the draft,
which is right around the corner. So here's what we
(00:23):
heard from da Costa and Harball today.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Okay, so welcome everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Very happy to see everybody here, and one of my
favorite times of the year. We just finished last week
our third set of draft.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Meetings with the coaches.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
This time, you know, we've had a little bit of
a commotion around here with the construction, so we were
in the sound studio, which worked out really well. So
congrats to thank you to Michelle andres in her people
for allowing us to use that room last week, and
we're getting close.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I think it was a really good set of meetings.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I think the coaches did a great job helping us
kind of sort through the last few rough patches of
the draft board, and I think we'll be ready to
go next week.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Questions, especially with in free agency, it seemed like a
lot of signings on the offensive side of the ball.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Do you feel like.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
In the early rounds, on you know, day one, day two,
do you think it could be more of a defensive
heavy just because of how things panned out in free agency?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
A good question.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I think we'll stick to the board like we typically do,
you know, historically, and I know this is always a question.
We've been a best available player team and we spent
a lot of time. We spent eight months really building
the board based on the rankings of the players and
how they stack against each other, and we believe that really,
if we're going to build a team, that's the best
(01:58):
way to approach it. So, you know, I think we definitely,
you know, look at the different needs of our team.
We spend a lot of time talking about the roster
and the players that we have, and things like contract
status and all those other things that go into it,
the health of our players.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
In the end, I think this is a.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Really, really pretty good draft class with talent across the board,
and as we see the players come off the board,
we'll wait for a good one to fall to us.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Brian, You're gonna be a charge of taking the mic
around now and Plesnators might take around her.
Speaker 6 (02:41):
Yeah, Eric, I know you guys have always valued defensive line,
But with Michael Pierce retiring and the amount of defensive
line and in this draft to seemly have a lot
of talent, how does that weigh into how you're looking
at that position in this draft.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Well, I think it's certainly a priority, and I think
you're right this is a pretty a fairly deep defensive
line class. You know, We've always been a team that
wants to be big and strong and powerful on both
sides of the line, both sides of the ball. So
I think there's an opportunity for us to get better
than the defensive line for sure.
Speaker 7 (03:16):
Elevel picks this year?
Speaker 8 (03:19):
Does that?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Do you want to make eleven picks? Use having that
many make you any more likely to package them and
move up.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
What's what's your.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
View on the eleven picks and desire to use all
of it?
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Of those?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Well, you know, I think if I had a crystal ball,
I would answer that question. I think that we have
eleven picks. I've always looked at draft picks as currency.
You can either use that on a player, you can
trade up, you can trade back, you can trade for
future picks in future years.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think we're fortunate to be in this position.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I think that as we continue to sign back our
players as many as we can, our good young players,
we're going to be in a situation where, you know,
salary cap is critical, and so for us young talent,
the influx of young players every single year competing to make,
you know, make the roster, I think is really important.
Now we have a good team, we feel good about
(04:11):
our roster. It's going to be hard for eleven players
to make the team out of the gates this year.
I mean, if they do, would be incredible. History tells
us that probably not all eleven picks are going to
make the initial fifty three men roster, which is a
good problem to have. It means we're a talented team.
So I like having eleven picks. I think it gives
us a lot of flexibility in different ways. And you know,
(04:35):
I think that our goal would be to have extra
picks every single year because it just gives us a
chance to continually develop young players. And I think we
do that as good as any team in the league.
Speaker 9 (04:46):
Eric.
Speaker 10 (04:46):
Obviously, you have some really key pieces of your offensive
line back and including Roger who developed really fast last year.
With how the offensive line did as you sort of projected,
took some lumps early, then you know, really gelled together.
Does that give you confidence that you can kind of
repeat that process and if need be in certain rookies
(05:06):
in some of those open spots at guard this year.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yet, well, I mean, I think I saw a stat
the other day that I think we're allocating less salary
cap this year to the offensive line than any other
team in the league. And that tells me that we
have some good young players who are playing well. They're
on their rookie contracts. I've got a lot of faith
in those guys. I've got a lot of faith in
coach Warhop to develop and a lot of you know,
(05:32):
faith in our strength and conditioning program too that we
bring in these younger offensive linemen and typically we see
that they get better over time. I think it's a good,
strong offensive line class this year across the board, a
really really good group of tackles and guards as well,
And so you know, I think anytime you have a
(05:52):
chance to draft an offensive lineman that you think can
be a really good player, you should do that. Especially
the way we play football, you know, because we're a
team that prides itself. I'm running the bomb, being physical,
knocking people off the ball, controlling the clock, protecting the quarterback,
all those different things, and so I think that's gonna
be critical.
Speaker 9 (06:10):
Eric.
Speaker 11 (06:10):
Last year, along the same lines, you mentioned that you
guys were committing to building the line offensive line through
the draft. Just curious what made Ronnie Stanley the exception?
What was it about his season that made you decide
to bring him back instead of going with young players.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Well, left tackles don't grow on trees, you know. First
of all, Ronnie had a great season. I think he
had one of his best years last year. He's really
i think grown in to being one of the leaders
of our team. And just looking out at the draft
in free agency, we just didn't really see a lot
of guys that we felt were better than him. And
(06:46):
my experience with the draft, when you're picking it in
the twenties, in the late twenties, it's very.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Hard to get left tackles.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Those guys fly off the board, and so you think
you have a chance, and then what you realize as
you're picking twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, the five tackles,
and all five tackles get.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Picked before picked twenty.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
And so for us making that investment in Ronnie, knowing
him as a person, you know, his ability as a
left tackle to protect the quarterback and be a round
blocker and be a leader up on the offensive line,
I think was important.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
You guys lost many guys off the draft board character
and medical.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You know, we always lose some guys.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
You know, it's probably a number if I had to
just guesstimate somewhere between ten and fifteen guys total that
fail or physical or have some other other flags that
would prohibit prohibit them from being on the team.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
So it happens every year.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It's it's one of the one of the one of
the tough parts of being at the combine is waking
up in the morning and seeing the injury list under
my door and then going through that and looking at
all the players that we like and seeing some guys
are failed the physicals and have been you know, flagged
for different medical conditions, and you know, that's just unfortunately
one of the hard parts of this job, and it
happens every single year. In fact, you know, John come
(07:56):
down and say I love this guy and I'll go, ah,
he failed as physical and so it does happen. It's
a tough part of this business. We play a very
physical sport and durability matters.
Speaker 12 (08:06):
Eric when it when it comes to best player available,
particularly early round. Just curious, how do you separate when
you've got say, player X, you know, is maybe the
best player available, and then player Y maybe grades a
little bit lower, but is in a position of greater
need perhaps, how do you kind of differentiate and then
get to that decision.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, I mean, so that's you know, that's the art
of it. And if you just imagine like a bunch
of different buckets, and each bucket has a different grade,
and you know, you have these players that are all
kind of in the different buckets. So you have the
A bucket, the B bucket, the C bucket, the D bucket.
You got two players in the A bucket, they're very close,
ones at a neat position, ones not in a neat position.
(08:46):
We're probably going to take the neat position. What we're
not going to do is take the need position in
the B bucket over the best player available in the
A bucket. If that's the case. So if they're very close.
We're going to defer to the roster and other factors
as well, durability to all the other off the field
in tangible type stuff, but we're not going to jump players.
We're not going to take a player that's in the
lower bucket and jump him over a player in a
(09:07):
higher bucket.
Speaker 13 (09:08):
Eric, maybe last year you talked to us about how
the changing landscape of college athletics, the nil money players
were staying in school longer, the draft classes were getting
a little bit older. Are you sensing that? And the
other question I have related to that is with the
portal and you know, hundreds of players changing teams every year,
(09:28):
how much harder is it to evaluate a player when
they've maybe been at a two or three schools as
opposed to have been in one system for four years.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot there to answer.
I do think that this will be the last class
of players that are significantly older, in some cases partly
because of COVID. So we've got some guys in this
draft that are twenty six years old, twenty five or
twenty six that was almost unheard of, Like six or
(09:57):
seven years ago, we didn't see that. So that's going
to start to change because the rules are now going
back to what they used to be. Guys didn't get
all the extra years, as far as nil goes in
the portal and all those different things. I think it
really depends you've got to have really good scouts. You've
got to have scouts that are well connected to have
(10:19):
contacts that can network across the different colleges to get information.
In some ways, if you have really good scouts, you
have an opportunity because you can.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Trace back that player to the other schools that.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
He's been at and you can acquire more information, in
some cases very different information. So if you get a
guy that's been at three schools, you'd be amazed that
the amount of information you can get, but in some
cases how different the information might be from.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
School A, school B and school CEE.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
So I think it really goes back to just, you know,
having the best area of scouts and training those guys
to get the information, and then building it out and
processing that information, and then using your coaches, who are
another resource for us because they have all these contacts.
It's goools as well to use our coaches to then
contact their comrades at different schools to get information so
(11:07):
that we have a real clear picture of who that
player might be.
Speaker 14 (11:11):
Eric from a scouting front office perspective, how would you
evaluate a two way player in the draft? And then
also John from a coaching perspective, what would the sort
of feasibility be or maybe some of the obstacles would be
for to try to get like a true two way
player on ANFL roster, particularly like the mid you know,
during the week meeting kind of perspective.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Well, I think for us, we haven't had many two
way players, and so that's the first thing.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
The second thing is.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In most cases, well, I mean in this particular case,
I think if we're talking about the galley Travis Hunter,
we would probably want to put him at one position.
So our discussions have really been if he shows up
here day one, if we ever were fortunate enough to
have a player like him, which you know, if you're
going to have a player like him, you're probably pick
in top five, so that it's not something that we
(12:00):
ever really want to do. So, but if you have
a player like him, where's he going to be on
the draft board?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
What do we think is best position is going to be?
Day one? If he's going to come in and start,
which as a rookie high pick you hope he does.
Where are we going to put him? And so that's
how we would approach it.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
We would you know, talk about his skills, but then
really try to figure out, like where's he going to
play most of his football day one?
Speaker 5 (12:23):
All right, that's a great point. I mean, it's going
to be interesting to see how they do it wherever
he goes. But to say that you're going to be
completely immersed in everything that there is a known offense
and everything there is a known defense. I don't know
if there's enough hours in the day for a player
to be able to do that and to have every
detailed lockdown, but you certainly can do it. I would
(12:44):
think on one side of the ball and then have
some sort of a package on the other side of
the ball. Which is my guess is how the team
will do it wherever he goes. But I assume we'll
be playing against him, so we're about to find out
how that team does it.
Speaker 15 (12:57):
Eric The consensus from you know, the draft knicks seems
to be that this class is light on high end talent.
If you're comfortable sharing like about how many guys, do
you guys have first round grades on And if it's
not an amount that's like, you know, feasible to get
one at twenty seven, how does that kind of change
your approach there late in the first round.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, So the way that I look at the draft
is you've you know, you've got on day one, right,
the first day of the draft is going to be
thirty two picks, So you've got to have thirty two
players that you would take in the first round. And
so I always answer the question, like, you know, I mean,
it's it's we have thirty two players in the first round.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
You have to have at least thirty two to pick. Now.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Is it the situation where maybe the totality of all
these players in the first round might not be as
talented as another year. You know, maybe that's the case.
But I see a lot of opportunity in this draft class.
Really in the middle rounds, I see more players, I
see more draftable players. We have two hundred and seventeen
(14:01):
players right now on the front board, and there have
been years where we've had a hard time getting to one,
sixty one, sixty five. So there's a lot of draftable
players that means that the mid rounds are going to
be really good. And also I think undrafted free agency
should have a chance to be really really good for us.
But I really think that if you're going to have
(14:22):
eleven picks, this is a year that reminds me a
little bit of twenty twenty two. From the standpoint of.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
The depth of the draft.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Really across the middle rounds, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth rounds.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I think it will be pretty good.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
We see a lot of talent in that range, so
that's an opportunity for us to get better as a team.
Speaker 8 (14:41):
Eric, how would you evaluate where you guys are at
edge rusher and just the options you could have. Do
you view this as a particularly strong edge rush draft class?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Well, I do.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I do.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Think it's a good draft class now.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Also, if I'm not mistaken, we've we got our entire
outside linebacker corep coming back this year.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
So that's a.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Great situation for us because we didn't lose anybody, and
so from that standpoint, I think it's good.
Speaker 13 (15:09):
Now.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Again, there are some really talented guys in this draft class,
and you know, there are guys that we'll be looking
at as first round guys, second round guys, third guys,
fourth round guys we think could come in and compete
to really play right away or develop and become really
good players. So that's exciting for us. I think that
if you're looking at the offensive line, the defensive line,
(15:32):
and the you know, outside linebackers as a whole, I
would say that three of the strongest positions in this
draft class.
Speaker 16 (15:41):
Eric, You're obviously in a pretty unique position with your
tight end group, which is one of the best groups
on the roster, but also everyone's on an expiring contract
going into this year. How do you consider that way
that with understanding the draft is also not just about
twenty twenty five but the next couple of years. I mean,
is it plausible that you add a tight end even
(16:01):
if that could, you know, on paper, create quite a
roster crunch.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I just think it depends on the player. Like there
are some really good players in this.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Same could be said about the running back position as well,
and we've talked about that, you know, we talk about
these things all the time, and.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
The reality of it is is if there's like.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
A tight end that we think is a blue chip
tight end to a running back that we think is
a blue chip running back. We're gonna take them just
because they're important and if the talent is such that
we think this guy can impact our team at some point.
We can't just eliminate positions because we're strong in the
short term. We talk about needs, and we've seen you
guys have all seen you've covered the team for a
long time.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Needs can change in one.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Week, right, We've had some years where we had a
strong running back room. Next thing, you know, like it's
a Friday afternoon and we're calling every agent in the
league because we need running backs because we just had
three catastrophic injuries and spend the seven days so that
could happen.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And so I mean, yeah, it's just a reality.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
It's just the reality of our business. Injuries happen, needs change,
and so for us, we're just gonna keep an open mind,
and if the guy is so good that we have
to take him, we're gonna take him.
Speaker 7 (17:07):
Eric, going back to the past, Russia, we've seen you
guys take I don't want to say chances, but you've
drafted guys that haven't necessarily had great stats in their
final you I think of like a Dafeo Way coming
out with no sax he just had his first double
digit SAX season this year. How do you go about,
you know, wearing the options between a guy like that
who probably has the measurables and the potential, between another
(17:30):
guy who does have that the production at least steady
production on the back end of their collegiate career.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, I just think it's it's a it's a cocktail,
it's a recipe, and you take everything into account. It's
not just production, it's not just trades, it's not just
combine workouts. It's not just the intangibles. It's not the size,
it's it's not just the durability. It's really everything, and
you layer that in and you try to get the
full depth of who that player might be. And and
so I you know, I'm a big fan of production.
(17:58):
You know, I talk about it production all the time.
I think production speaks to consistency and doing.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
It over and over again.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
It's hard to be productive if you're not playing all
the time, if you're not in a field all the time,
if you're not playing hard all the time.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
However, there are.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Some really good players that for whatever reason, might not
be productive. For instance, a corner who's so good he
isn't get targeted, or a pass rusher who gets double
teamed every single play. So you know, production can be
a little bit misleading at times. That being the case,
we want productive guys. We want tough guys, fast guys,
big guys, smart guys.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Durable guys.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
It's the totality of all that stuff that we look
at when we build out our draft board.
Speaker 17 (18:39):
I don't believe that in the history of the Ravens
you guys have ever drafted a kicker. I guess it's
a pertinent question now in light of what's going on
with Justin, But would you consider is it worth drafting
a kicker? Using a draft pick on a kicker.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Is it worth it? I think it's worth it, sure.
I mean there's been some great.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Kickers drafted, and we've drafted a couple punters.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
But it's worth it if you have the right kicker.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
It just depends on the board, it depends on the player,
it depends who's there, it depends on how you coaches
see them, you know. And also it should be said
that some of the greatest kickers of all time weren't
drafted right.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So it's no like blueprint for finding a kicker, except
you've got to be able to evaluate the kicker.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
And I think Randy Brown does a phenomenal job of
evaluating kickers, and we have a lot of other really
good coaches to do a great job of evaluating talent
along with our scouts, And so is it worth it?
I think it probably is if the right guy's there. However,
you don't have to draft a kicker. You don't have
to draft au pun, you don't have to draft a
running backer a linebacker for those guys to be great players.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
We've seen that over and over again.
Speaker 18 (19:53):
Yeah, y're kind of just following up on that, But
I mean, because of the uncertainty around you know, justin
do you you expect to draft a kicker at all?
I mean, is that a you know, a thought process
with how many picks you have on Day three?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I never have any expectations because you don't know how
the thing's gonna unfold again. You know, it's just we're
gonna be on the clock and we're gonna draft the
best available player at every spot for us as a club.
Never want to pigeonhole myself into doing this or that,
because when I do that, I usually end up being disappointed,
you create a false expectation in your mind and you
start to think about needs and other things. And I
(20:28):
like to go into that draft just like a wide
open highway with no cars on the road, and I
can drive as fast as I want, straight down the road,
unencumbered and not worry about just driving, turn the music up,
and just draft and pick the best players.
Speaker 19 (20:44):
Eric, knowing your vision going into this draft, will you
get to the other side, What are some of the
measures of success for you to where you can look
back and say we accomplished what we want to accomplish.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I just really just I just focus on wins and
losses and our season.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
You know, it's so hard.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Sometimes you have you have an impression that you had
a great draft class, and maybe it wasn't. And maybe
sometimes you think, I don't know, it wasn't the easiest year.
And you have, you know, guys emerging they end up
being great players in the end. I think what we
all aspire to is just winning a championship. And so
that's my goal and my dream and what I'm aiming for.
And so that just starts winning our first game, and
(21:23):
then winning our second game, and then winning the division,
getting a home field, you know, advantage if we can,
and then winning the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
If we do that, it'll be a success.
Speaker 12 (21:34):
Eric, Eric, and or John. Have you talked to Lamar
in terms of his list of draft picks or guys
that he's looked at and what's the conversation I guess
been with him this offseason?
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Uh, you know, Lamar and I have texted a little bit.
We had a conversation. We didn't get into any specific players.
We just we talked a little bit about the roster
and just what he's up to and you know, his
vision and his you know, excitement for the season and
all that stuff that goes into it.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
But other than that, I.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Think I just probably keep the conversations private.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
I haven't talked about specific prospects yet.
Speaker 6 (22:15):
No.
Speaker 10 (22:18):
For Eric, you know, especially with Malik and Chris Bord,
you guys have lost some guys who really had value
on special teams, including your defense. When you look at prospects,
how much does their ability to influence that phase of
the game, which is obviously very valued here kind of
factor into kind of bumping them up or down? And
(22:39):
John sort of what is your confidence that do you
need guys in this draft who they've shown talent on
special teams, or do you feel like your coaching staff
has the ability to make anyone a great special teams player.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Well, when you have a head coach who's one of
the great special teams coaches in the NFL at one point,
you spend a lot of time asking them about special teams.
And I really think our scouts do a great job
of that. I mean I could literally ask any scout
at any time, what's this guy doing special teams and
they will go back to twenty twenty and tell me.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Exactly what he did.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
And it wasn't always that way, but I could literally say, hey, Chess,
tell me about this guy at Oklahoma State and special
teams and he would say, oh, in twenty twenty, eerk,
he was the left wing and this and that, or
he was a personal protract on the punt team and
he did this and he did that, and then we
got you know, Chris Horton and Anthony Levine. Those guys
(23:34):
will bring their perspective as coaches, and we do it
with every single player at a certain level and at
certain positions. We talk about special teams and it is
a big thing, and it is the thing that can
swear a guy from one bucket to the next again,
because if a guy's you know, if he's in this,
I'll just use the bee.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
If he's in the.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Bees at the top of the bees and he's a
really good Special Teams player, maybe he makes it to
the bottom of the a's it's just that enough that
alone can push him up a little bit. And maybe
that's around, maybe that's half around, whatever it is, but
that's a big deal for us.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
I mean, just to echo what Eric's saying, I think
our scouts and Chris and his staff do a great job.
Because last week we're having our meetings, that came up
on pretty much every guy that would be a special
Teams type player. And it wasn't just what they've done
on Special teams, it's also what kind of traits do
they bring to the table. You know, type of player
sometimes translates to a special Teams player, big along, a long,
(24:30):
fast corner that can get out and run, who's tough,
maybe can be a gunner for you. So you try
to project those guys in those positions and then building
special teams. You know, it's important to have a good
group of young, hungry guys, but you also want to
have some veteran players and that know how to play.
So like bringing back a Tyland Wallace who also gives
us value as a wide receiver, but can give us
values a special teams guy. Some of these young developing
(24:51):
guys that we had maybe second year guys this year,
third year guys this year, they become your veterans on
special teams, you know, and they've got to carry that
mantle from a leadership production standpoints. So those roles are
really important. I learned that from Coach Belichick probably more
than anybody. But when you put your team together, there's
a lot of specific roles that you've got to try
to find the right fits for to build your team,
(25:12):
and those special team's roles are a big part of that.
Speaker 20 (25:16):
Eric as you as it's changed over the years in
terms of player movement and transferring, I think it used
to be kind of looking a guy transferred once or
twice I might be a red flag because you're not
fighting through to try and win a job or whatever,
looking for green or grass. But with so much player
moving mount now have you had to change the way
that factors in to your evaluation.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
I think it just it's it's become more complicated for
the scouts to get more information because we do want
to talk to people that might know this player from
the other locations. For me, it's just really watching the tape.
It's the same, you know, we just watch the tape.
Get in and watch the tape, and maybe if you
go back and look at him at the other school,
(25:57):
you can do that as well. In some cases it
is it is helpful because you might see a player
that transferred to a big school from a small school, right,
and so you can see how that guy played at
a smaller school versus how he's planning now at a
bigger school. It provides a different perspective on the player.
But I think just generally speaking again I said this,
(26:20):
but if you if you have good scouts, it gives
you the opportunity to get more information because you have
more people to talk to about these players. So from
that standpoint, it can be very valuable.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
For Eric.
Speaker 21 (26:34):
The last couple of years, you know, you've had first
round guys be able to contribute.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
You know, right away, just when you're looking.
Speaker 21 (26:39):
At guys and evaluating are the characteristics that you look
for in guys when you're giving them that first round
grade that tells you that they will be able to
come here and contribute right away.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Well, they got to be talented, you know. I mean
this is a this is a business where talent wins,
and they've got to be talented. They've got to have
a unique skill set. They've got I have the traits
that would indicate that they can play at our level
of football first and foremost, and then I think confidence, uh,
you know, uh, just dependability, you know, practicing hard competitive players.
(27:13):
Durability is a big deal, especially for guys that play.
I mean, you want to talk about rookies that have
a hard time playing, it's usually in some way tied
to injuries during that rookie season. So I think durability
is a really big deal too in that regard. And
then just ability to learn the game. You know, it's
a different scheme and a lot of in a lot
of cases it's totally different terminology. And then just being
(27:38):
able to overcome the grind. It's a long season. The
NFL is a long season. These guys are professional athletes
to hear every single day for I don't know how
many hours, John, how many hours, eight hours a day. Yeah, So,
I mean it's a it's a it's a it's a grind,
and they've got to be able to handle that mental
hurdle as well.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
Eric asked John about this at the owners meetings. But
you have made trades before with veteran players during the draft.
Do you fully expect There's been a lot of speculations
about Mark Andrews' future in Baltimore. Do you fully expect
him to remain with the team and is he a
big part of what you plan on doing this year?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Man, I never know what's going to happen, Jeff, and
I would never want to say this with that, you know,
But I can tell you this, Mark Andrews is a
warrior and he's played his butt off for us, and
his competitiveness, his talent, his attitude, his leadership is so
valued here and he's a great player.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
And I think.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
We're in the business of keeping as many great players
as we can. So there's always a lot of unpredictability
with the draft.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You just never know.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I don't think we've traded many of our own players.
I don't know have we ever made a trade during
the draft where we traded one of our players well,
that wasn't during the draft. Well, I mean I had
done that draft. I had done that trade before the draft.
You guys didn't know.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Before the day before I had.
Speaker 8 (29:07):
I had done that.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I did that on a Monday, actually, the Monday or
the draft.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
I knew. I knew that was coming.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, that wasn't during the That wasn't actually during the draft.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
If we had one during the draft.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, it was announced in the draft. It was. That
was strategic though.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
We didn't want announce it beforehand, just in case because
the team might think we would want a receiver, so
we kept it as quiet as we could. But I
don't think we've ever traded one of our players. We've
traded four players during the draft. I know we did
Kevin Johnson way back when for a fourth round pick,
But I don't know that we've ever traded one of
our own players.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
You should know that, Jameson, I don't think. Okay, yeah,
just because I brought him up.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Just now, it came to me, how big of a
need do you view a cornerback? Obviously you took Nate
Wagans last year and always want to restock that position
at a cheeto and free agency Stevens Less. How big
of a need is corner in your mind?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
It's always a big need. Every single year. You could
ask thirty one other teams.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It all says the same thing. Corner is critical important position.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
They break down, you know, they're like bugattis and they
just break down, and you've got to have them in
reserve because that can go from being a positional strength
to being something that you know. I remember, it's a
long story. Some won't tell it, but two thousand and seven,
we played the Steelers on a Monday night and I
was flying out to USC and UCLA and we took
(30:35):
off and the game hadn't started yet, and when we landed,
it was like twenty four to nothing in the first
quarter against the Steelers. And if you look at our
corners that game. Not to be smirched anyone, but they
were all guys that were playing because other guys got hurt.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
And that's just an incredibly important position. So that's always
going to be a need for us.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Doesn't even going to take a guy in the first round,
but I feel pretty sure that we'll take at least
one corner.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Draft John, how has your.
Speaker 7 (31:05):
I guess responsibilities changed since you came here in terms
of the draft, I mean, first under Ozzie and now
and then Eric, I.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Would say, see if Eric agrees with this, But I
would say it really hasn't changed at all. I think
we've had kind of this consistent format and Ozzie and Eric,
you know, we're gracious enough to you know, allow a
young coach to come in and have input, you know,
and have a have a say, you know, and be
a part of it and be a partner.
Speaker 9 (31:33):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
And then we've got the same format now, you know,
and probably you know, eighteen drafts later, we've got even
well obviously the trust has been built over the years,
and then you know, the shared understanding the vision of
kind of what we want to build. I think we've
kind of grown together on that where it's like in
my front yard, I got these two or three trees
that kind of grew together and they're all like one
trunk right now. I feel like that's how we kind
(31:56):
of look at things in terms of, you know, building
our team with the draft.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, I would just say that, you know, not all
teams do it this way, and you know, I'm proud
I started out as a young guy in nineteen ninety
six with coach Marchibroda and Ozzy and just watching the.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Way that they work together, just that light bulb goes off.
This is the way it's supposed to be. When you
have your coaches and.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Your scouts aligned working together on a massive project like this,
you've got ownership across the board. And I think anytime
you can build that, I think you really have something.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
I mean, if we're talking about that, you know, in
terms of an advantage that we have, it goes back
to nineteen ninety six, I would say probably when you
were here, so you saw it from the beginning with
coach Marcha Broden with Ozzy and what's kind of taking
place ever since. But coaches come in here and they'll
watch our draft process and they're kind of blown away
by the fact that it's just so merged together, and
(32:56):
the scouts do the work, they do the they do
ninety plus ninety five plus percent of the work and
lay the whole thing out. Then the coaches can kind
of come in and overlay a perspective that is taken
seriously and accounted for, you know, and then you know,
we don't spend much time anymore having conversations about you know,
what kind of a player do we want or what
(33:16):
kind of a what kind of traits we're looking for?
These kind of things are almost unspoken, and even the
new coaches they kind of like fall right in, don't
you think they just fall right in with this process?
And guys will say, man, it's just not like this everywhere,
so it's hard to describe it. But I think when
you're in it, for me, it's just the way it
would be the only way it is. You know that.
I couldn't see it being done any differently. But it
(33:39):
goes back to Ozzy and Eric all the way back
to the beginning.
Speaker 9 (33:44):
John's sort of along those lines. As a coach, once
you first get those players in from the draft, those
however many picks in here, finally seeing them in purple
and black, what are some of the things that excite
you about seeing their talents and how they're going to
fit into this team eventually?
Speaker 5 (33:59):
Well, you want to see what you thought you were
going to see. You want to see a guy that's talented,
like Eric said, but you hate to bring a guy
in and go, man, I don't think this this is
I've heard stories and I've heard stories in recruiting. Maybe
it's happened in the NFL, but yeah, it has happened
where you know you'd get a guy and you guy,
this cannot be the same guy I watched on tape.
You know, like a like there was an impostor there's
(34:21):
an impostor that was brought in here in college and
you don't want to see that. We really haven't seen that,
but I've seen it. Yeah, you have seen it.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, there's been a few well no, I'm not going
to mention the players. So this is a few times
over the years.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Where we.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Liked the guy and then we drafted him, and then
he showed up day one and we were just like,
oh my gosh. I mean, it happens right off any
you probably happened to you. I mean, it just happens,
right you just you just what you think you saw,
you didn't see, and you shows up and you're like, man,
I thought this guy was a better athlete. I thought
this guy was faster, I thought this guy was whatever.
(34:59):
And next thing you know, they're on your practice squad
or they're on somebody else's practice squad.
Speaker 10 (35:04):
Eric, you guys went through multiple returners in particular, at
punt returner last year.
Speaker 21 (35:09):
Are you hoping to come out of this draft with
someone with returnability?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
It'd be nice, it'd be nice. It'd be nice.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
I mean, I think I think we've done a good
job of sizing that up. And I think, you know, again,
Chris Horton does an awesome job. I mean, our scouts evaluate,
but it's based on the area that they scout or
the position maybe that they scout. Chris really does a
great job of taking all the returners in ranking the
returners from first to worst, and so that's a big
part of it. I think we have some guys that
(35:38):
can do it. So we've got a floor, but we
want a high ceiling. That's what we want, and we're
gonna try to find that guy.
Speaker 9 (35:46):
Eric.
Speaker 15 (35:47):
I think we're just a couple of days away from
our Darius is deadline to sign offersheets. If he's gotten those,
I guess, how confident are you and him returning? And
if you do, guys get that done, how's a felt
maybe what you want to do in the draft so
you can put him in the best position as well
as well as Kyle next year.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Well, I'm confident, you know, fairly confident that our Darius
will be back. I don't know that it affects our
decision making at the position at all.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
And I think it's a pretty deep safety crew.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And it's you know, obviously the top guys, but then
there's maybe four or five or six guys that will
probably be you know, third, fourth, fifth round guys that
are good players.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I mean, this is a really.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Nice pool of players to pick from. I think we
definitely will look at that. I think we added the
two young guys last year. Both guys play well for
us on special teams Bowen Sinoussi. But yeah, it's a
it's a good group of players this year. And again
a position I mentioned corner, I would probably guess that
(36:52):
of our eleven picks, at least one of those will
be a safety.
Speaker 21 (36:56):
Eric, you're a last four first round draft picks have
made a nim pecked right away. How do you kind
of look back at that track record and allow that
confidence to carry over year after year when drafting?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Well, I'm never super confident. I just I always want
to feel like the weight of the world is on
my shoulders. You know, I started out with the greatest
general manager of all time in Ozzie and you look
at his first round picks every single year.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I mean, it was just historic what he did.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So I feel that pressure and I'll never live up
to that, but it doesn't mean I can't try. And so,
you know, we want to hit all our picks, not
just first round picks. I mean, I'm just as hard
on myself for a fourth round pick that I might
have missed and what didn't I.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
See and what did I see?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Or you know, players that end up being really good
that we passed on for different reasons. You know, what
didn't I see in that player? And now he's a
pro bowler and you just beat yourself up over that.
So yeah, I feel that pressure every year, and I
welcome it. If I didn't feel that, i'd be concerned.
You know, if I didn't wake up in the middle
(38:01):
of the night come in and look at tape, I'd
be waited. You know me, I'm over confident, I'm not
working quite as hard, and I never want to get
to that point. So kind I relish that feeling of like,
oh man, I haven't done enough.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I gotta do more.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
I got look at more tape, I talk to more people,
you know, leaving myself notes in the middle of the
nite things.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
To check on.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
But you know, as far as like our previous picks
that we made, that doesn't give me any any confidence
that we're going to continue to do it. We just
got to go out and do it, and I'm confident
that we will at least put forth the very best
effort and get all the information and check off every
box to make sure that we get to that point.
Speaker 19 (38:40):
Eric, not specific to the draft, but with the departure
of Josh Johnson, you signed Cooper Rush. Just curious what
it was you liked about him and why you capitalize
on the opportunity to add him.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
I mean, you know, he's a guy that we've admired.
I watched a lot of football, He's won a lot
of games as a backup quarterback, a cerebral guy.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I think he's a town.
Speaker 8 (39:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
It just was the right player for us at that point,
guy that we felt like we could invest in for
a couple of years. We like the way he's been playing,
and we think he's going to really I think augment
the room really well and give us a chance to win.
If something Heaven forbid ever happened on Lamar.
Speaker 12 (39:23):
Eric. I know you said an extension for Derek Henry
something you guys are talking about. Just curious where that's
out and how that maybe impacts things, if at all,
with draft plans and running backs and such.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, so we have a lot of different balls in
the air right now. That's probably what I would say
on that. You know, I'm not going to talk about
what we're doing, what we're not doing behind the scenes
business wise with these guys.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I don't think it's good for.
Speaker 9 (39:49):
Me to do that.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
But I would say that aside from the draft, as
you all know, like we're looking at guys that are
still available free agents on the street, we're looking at
resigning our own guys. You know, we were blessed to
have a bunch of really good players, and we're going
to try and keep as many of those guys as
we can.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
It's a challenge.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
It's one of the curses I think of doing a
pretty good job drafting is you've got all these really
good players that you want to keep. Our goal is
to keep every single one of them. We're working at
doing that, and we'll also continue.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
To build a roster after the draft.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
As you guys all know, we'll be looking at guys
that haven't signed yet. We've had some success in that
aspect of team building the last few years, you know,
and I think we'll do that as well, and there's
gonna be some really good opportunities for us to fill
in some holes.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
After the draft.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
I think undrafted free agency is another area. We've talked
about ar Darius Right and it's a guy that was
an undrafted free agent just a couple of years ago,
and we see what he brought to the table, you know,
this year. So that's gonna be a big component as well,
and I'm really really comfortable that we'll do a great
job with that as well.
Speaker 22 (41:04):
Hey, Eric, I know how important is for you to
have these one oh one with the players with prospects, Well,
you don't talk about football more like personal live knowing
the player. How much of an impact has been those
conversations to make a decision for the draft.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, I think it's important to see these guys and
to meet with these guys. You know, we get a
lot of information, and sometimes that information isn't quite what
we see in an interview setting, and so just getting
to know these guys, their motivations, their drivers, what's important
to them, how they see themselves, their humility, emotional intelligence,
their competitiveness, you know, all the various things that make
(41:41):
up who these players are. They're not just statistics or
what we see on tape, and so getting to know
these guys is critical. Now, I can also tell you this,
sometimes you can get tricked right, And there's been you know,
I could write a book on players that I interviewed
and would say, oh, this is a great guy, and
then now all of a sudden, you get the guy
and you're like, oh no. And sometimes you interview a
guy and maybe he's really quiet and seems almost shy
(42:03):
or whatever that might be, and you end up picking
them and you're like, this guy's incredible.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
So question, you know, the question is I think everybody
would want to ask right now, is are you going
to write the book you said you could write a
book on that When you guys love to read that book.
Speaker 19 (42:17):
Maybe I may.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Maybe I'll have Jerry help me, you know, my ghostwriter,
Jerry Coleman.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
You've been quiet today. Jerry, you don't want to my questions.
Speaker 8 (42:27):
He's not wrong, Eric, And you said you had a
lot of balls in the air. Fifth year Option deadlines coming,
have you made you have two prominent players with that.
Have you made a decision on that front.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, there's really no updates on that front.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
You know. I think the last couple of years, I've
waited to announce that and handle that, and I think that's.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Going to be the case again this year.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Thank you you're listening to the Ravens Press Past podcast.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Also make sure you head over to the Lounge podcast
feed subscribe to that feed and this one as well.
Thank you so much for listening and we will be
back with you again soon.
Welcome into the Ravens Press Pass podcast. It is Tuesday,
April fifteenth, and the Ravens held their pre draft press
conference today with general manager Eric Taicasa and head coach
John Harbaugh. The press conference has been nicknamed the Liars
Lunching over the years, but it's also a good chance
to see the team's thought process going into the draft,
which is right around the corner. So here's what we
(00:23):
heard from da Costa and Harball today.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Okay, so welcome everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Very happy to see everybody here, and one of my
favorite times of the year. We just finished last week
our third set of draft.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Meetings with the coaches.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
This time, you know, we've had a little bit of
a commotion around here with the construction, so we were
in the sound studio, which worked out really well. So
congrats to thank you to Michelle andres in her people
for allowing us to use that room last week, and
we're getting close.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I think it was a really good set of meetings.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I think the coaches did a great job helping us
kind of sort through the last few rough patches of
the draft board, and I think we'll be ready to
go next week.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Questions, especially with in free agency, it seemed like a
lot of signings on the offensive side of the ball.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Do you feel like.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
In the early rounds, on you know, day one, day two,
do you think it could be more of a defensive
heavy just because of how things panned out in free agency?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
A good question.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I think we'll stick to the board like we typically do,
you know, historically, and I know this is always a question.
We've been a best available player team and we spent
a lot of time. We spent eight months really building
the board based on the rankings of the players and
how they stack against each other, and we believe that really,
if we're going to build a team, that's the best
(01:58):
way to approach it. So, you know, I think we definitely,
you know, look at the different needs of our team.
We spend a lot of time talking about the roster
and the players that we have, and things like contract
status and all those other things that go into it,
the health of our players.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
In the end, I think this is a.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Really, really pretty good draft class with talent across the board,
and as we see the players come off the board,
we'll wait for a good one to fall to us.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
Brian, You're gonna be a charge of taking the mic
around now and Plesnators might take around her.
Speaker 6 (02:41):
Yeah, Eric, I know you guys have always valued defensive line,
But with Michael Pierce retiring and the amount of defensive
line and in this draft to seemly have a lot
of talent, how does that weigh into how you're looking
at that position in this draft.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Well, I think it's certainly a priority, and I think
you're right this is a pretty a fairly deep defensive
line class. You know, We've always been a team that
wants to be big and strong and powerful on both
sides of the line, both sides of the ball. So
I think there's an opportunity for us to get better
than the defensive line for sure.
Speaker 7 (03:16):
Elevel picks this year?
Speaker 8 (03:19):
Does that?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Do you want to make eleven picks? Use having that
many make you any more likely to package them and
move up.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
What's what's your.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
View on the eleven picks and desire to use all
of it?
Speaker 6 (03:29):
Of those?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Well, you know, I think if I had a crystal ball,
I would answer that question. I think that we have
eleven picks. I've always looked at draft picks as currency.
You can either use that on a player, you can
trade up, you can trade back, you can trade for
future picks in future years.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I think we're fortunate to be in this position.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
I think that as we continue to sign back our
players as many as we can, our good young players,
we're going to be in a situation where, you know,
salary cap is critical, and so for us young talent,
the influx of young players every single year competing to make,
you know, make the roster, I think is really important.
Now we have a good team, we feel good about
(04:11):
our roster. It's going to be hard for eleven players
to make the team out of the gates this year.
I mean, if they do, would be incredible. History tells
us that probably not all eleven picks are going to
make the initial fifty three men roster, which is a
good problem to have. It means we're a talented team.
So I like having eleven picks. I think it gives
us a lot of flexibility in different ways. And you know,
(04:35):
I think that our goal would be to have extra
picks every single year because it just gives us a
chance to continually develop young players. And I think we
do that as good as any team in the league.
Speaker 9 (04:46):
Eric.
Speaker 10 (04:46):
Obviously, you have some really key pieces of your offensive
line back and including Roger who developed really fast last year.
With how the offensive line did as you sort of projected,
took some lumps early, then you know, really gelled together.
Does that give you confidence that you can kind of
repeat that process and if need be in certain rookies
(05:06):
in some of those open spots at guard this year.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yet, well, I mean, I think I saw a stat
the other day that I think we're allocating less salary
cap this year to the offensive line than any other
team in the league. And that tells me that we
have some good young players who are playing well. They're
on their rookie contracts. I've got a lot of faith
in those guys. I've got a lot of faith in
coach Warhop to develop and a lot of you know,
(05:32):
faith in our strength and conditioning program too that we
bring in these younger offensive linemen and typically we see
that they get better over time. I think it's a good,
strong offensive line class this year across the board, a
really really good group of tackles and guards as well,
And so you know, I think anytime you have a
(05:52):
chance to draft an offensive lineman that you think can
be a really good player, you should do that. Especially
the way we play football, you know, because we're a
team that prides itself. I'm running the bomb, being physical,
knocking people off the ball, controlling the clock, protecting the quarterback,
all those different things, and so I think that's gonna
be critical.
Speaker 9 (06:10):
Eric.
Speaker 11 (06:10):
Last year, along the same lines, you mentioned that you
guys were committing to building the line offensive line through
the draft. Just curious what made Ronnie Stanley the exception?
What was it about his season that made you decide
to bring him back instead of going with young players.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Well, left tackles don't grow on trees, you know. First
of all, Ronnie had a great season. I think he
had one of his best years last year. He's really
i think grown in to being one of the leaders
of our team. And just looking out at the draft
in free agency, we just didn't really see a lot
of guys that we felt were better than him. And
(06:46):
my experience with the draft, when you're picking it in
the twenties, in the late twenties, it's very.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Hard to get left tackles.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Those guys fly off the board, and so you think
you have a chance, and then what you realize as
you're picking twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, the five tackles,
and all five tackles get.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Picked before picked twenty.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
And so for us making that investment in Ronnie, knowing
him as a person, you know, his ability as a
left tackle to protect the quarterback and be a round
blocker and be a leader up on the offensive line,
I think was important.
Speaker 8 (07:13):
You guys lost many guys off the draft board character
and medical.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You know, we always lose some guys.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
You know, it's probably a number if I had to
just guesstimate somewhere between ten and fifteen guys total that
fail or physical or have some other other flags that
would prohibit prohibit them from being on the team.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
So it happens every year.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
It's it's one of the one of the one of
the tough parts of being at the combine is waking
up in the morning and seeing the injury list under
my door and then going through that and looking at
all the players that we like and seeing some guys
are failed the physicals and have been you know, flagged
for different medical conditions, and you know, that's just unfortunately
one of the hard parts of this job, and it
happens every single year. In fact, you know, John come
(07:56):
down and say I love this guy and I'll go, ah,
he failed as physical and so it does happen. It's
a tough part of this business. We play a very
physical sport and durability matters.
Speaker 12 (08:06):
Eric when it when it comes to best player available,
particularly early round. Just curious, how do you separate when
you've got say, player X, you know, is maybe the
best player available, and then player Y maybe grades a
little bit lower, but is in a position of greater
need perhaps, how do you kind of differentiate and then
get to that decision.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, I mean, so that's you know, that's the art
of it. And if you just imagine like a bunch
of different buckets, and each bucket has a different grade,
and you know, you have these players that are all
kind of in the different buckets. So you have the
A bucket, the B bucket, the C bucket, the D bucket.
You got two players in the A bucket, they're very close,
ones at a neat position, ones not in a neat position.
(08:46):
We're probably going to take the neat position. What we're
not going to do is take the need position in
the B bucket over the best player available in the
A bucket. If that's the case. So if they're very close.
We're going to defer to the roster and other factors
as well, durability to all the other off the field
in tangible type stuff, but we're not going to jump players.
We're not going to take a player that's in the
lower bucket and jump him over a player in a
(09:07):
higher bucket.
Speaker 13 (09:08):
Eric, maybe last year you talked to us about how
the changing landscape of college athletics, the nil money players
were staying in school longer, the draft classes were getting
a little bit older. Are you sensing that? And the
other question I have related to that is with the
portal and you know, hundreds of players changing teams every year,
(09:28):
how much harder is it to evaluate a player when
they've maybe been at a two or three schools as
opposed to have been in one system for four years.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot there to answer.
I do think that this will be the last class
of players that are significantly older, in some cases partly
because of COVID. So we've got some guys in this
draft that are twenty six years old, twenty five or
twenty six that was almost unheard of, Like six or
(09:57):
seven years ago, we didn't see that. So that's going
to start to change because the rules are now going
back to what they used to be. Guys didn't get
all the extra years, as far as nil goes in
the portal and all those different things. I think it
really depends you've got to have really good scouts. You've
got to have scouts that are well connected to have
(10:19):
contacts that can network across the different colleges to get information.
In some ways, if you have really good scouts, you
have an opportunity because you can.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Trace back that player to the other schools that.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
He's been at and you can acquire more information, in
some cases very different information. So if you get a
guy that's been at three schools, you'd be amazed that
the amount of information you can get, but in some
cases how different the information might be from.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
School A, school B and school CEE.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
So I think it really goes back to just, you know,
having the best area of scouts and training those guys
to get the information, and then building it out and
processing that information, and then using your coaches, who are
another resource for us because they have all these contacts.
It's goools as well to use our coaches to then
contact their comrades at different schools to get information so
(11:07):
that we have a real clear picture of who that
player might be.
Speaker 14 (11:11):
Eric from a scouting front office perspective, how would you
evaluate a two way player in the draft? And then
also John from a coaching perspective, what would the sort
of feasibility be or maybe some of the obstacles would be
for to try to get like a true two way
player on ANFL roster, particularly like the mid you know,
during the week meeting kind of perspective.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Well, I think for us, we haven't had many two
way players, and so that's the first thing.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
The second thing is.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In most cases, well, I mean in this particular case,
I think if we're talking about the galley Travis Hunter,
we would probably want to put him at one position.
So our discussions have really been if he shows up
here day one, if we ever were fortunate enough to
have a player like him, which you know, if you're
going to have a player like him, you're probably pick
in top five, so that it's not something that we
(12:00):
ever really want to do. So, but if you have
a player like him, where's he going to be on
the draft board?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
What do we think is best position is going to be?
Day one? If he's going to come in and start,
which as a rookie high pick you hope he does.
Where are we going to put him? And so that's
how we would approach it.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
We would you know, talk about his skills, but then
really try to figure out, like where's he going to
play most of his football day one?
Speaker 5 (12:23):
All right, that's a great point. I mean, it's going
to be interesting to see how they do it wherever
he goes. But to say that you're going to be
completely immersed in everything that there is a known offense
and everything there is a known defense. I don't know
if there's enough hours in the day for a player
to be able to do that and to have every
detailed lockdown, but you certainly can do it. I would
(12:44):
think on one side of the ball and then have
some sort of a package on the other side of
the ball. Which is my guess is how the team
will do it wherever he goes. But I assume we'll
be playing against him, so we're about to find out
how that team does it.
Speaker 15 (12:57):
Eric The consensus from you know, the draft knicks seems
to be that this class is light on high end talent.
If you're comfortable sharing like about how many guys, do
you guys have first round grades on And if it's
not an amount that's like, you know, feasible to get
one at twenty seven, how does that kind of change
your approach there late in the first round.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Yeah, So the way that I look at the draft
is you've you know, you've got on day one, right,
the first day of the draft is going to be
thirty two picks, So you've got to have thirty two
players that you would take in the first round. And
so I always answer the question, like, you know, I mean,
it's it's we have thirty two players in the first round.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
You have to have at least thirty two to pick. Now.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Is it the situation where maybe the totality of all
these players in the first round might not be as
talented as another year. You know, maybe that's the case.
But I see a lot of opportunity in this draft class.
Really in the middle rounds, I see more players, I
see more draftable players. We have two hundred and seventeen
(14:01):
players right now on the front board, and there have
been years where we've had a hard time getting to one,
sixty one, sixty five. So there's a lot of draftable
players that means that the mid rounds are going to
be really good. And also I think undrafted free agency
should have a chance to be really really good for us.
But I really think that if you're going to have
(14:22):
eleven picks, this is a year that reminds me a
little bit of twenty twenty two. From the standpoint of.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
The depth of the draft.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Really across the middle rounds, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth rounds.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I think it will be pretty good.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
We see a lot of talent in that range, so
that's an opportunity for us to get better as a team.
Speaker 8 (14:41):
Eric, how would you evaluate where you guys are at
edge rusher and just the options you could have. Do
you view this as a particularly strong edge rush draft class?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Well, I do.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I do.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Think it's a good draft class now.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Also, if I'm not mistaken, we've we got our entire
outside linebacker corep coming back this year.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
So that's a.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Great situation for us because we didn't lose anybody, and
so from that standpoint, I think it's good.
Speaker 13 (15:09):
Now.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Again, there are some really talented guys in this draft class,
and you know, there are guys that we'll be looking
at as first round guys, second round guys, third guys,
fourth round guys we think could come in and compete
to really play right away or develop and become really
good players. So that's exciting for us. I think that
if you're looking at the offensive line, the defensive line,
(15:32):
and the you know, outside linebackers as a whole, I
would say that three of the strongest positions in this
draft class.
Speaker 16 (15:41):
Eric, You're obviously in a pretty unique position with your
tight end group, which is one of the best groups
on the roster, but also everyone's on an expiring contract
going into this year. How do you consider that way
that with understanding the draft is also not just about
twenty twenty five but the next couple of years. I mean,
is it plausible that you add a tight end even
(16:01):
if that could, you know, on paper, create quite a
roster crunch.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I just think it depends on the player. Like there
are some really good players in this.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Same could be said about the running back position as well,
and we've talked about that, you know, we talk about
these things all the time, and.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
The reality of it is is if there's like.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
A tight end that we think is a blue chip
tight end to a running back that we think is
a blue chip running back. We're gonna take them just
because they're important and if the talent is such that
we think this guy can impact our team at some point.
We can't just eliminate positions because we're strong in the
short term. We talk about needs, and we've seen you
guys have all seen you've covered the team for a
long time.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Needs can change in one.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Week, right, We've had some years where we had a
strong running back room. Next thing, you know, like it's
a Friday afternoon and we're calling every agent in the
league because we need running backs because we just had
three catastrophic injuries and spend the seven days so that
could happen.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And so I mean, yeah, it's just a reality.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
It's just the reality of our business. Injuries happen, needs change,
and so for us, we're just gonna keep an open mind,
and if the guy is so good that we have
to take him, we're gonna take him.
Speaker 7 (17:07):
Eric, going back to the past, Russia, we've seen you
guys take I don't want to say chances, but you've
drafted guys that haven't necessarily had great stats in their
final you I think of like a Dafeo Way coming
out with no sax he just had his first double
digit SAX season this year. How do you go about,
you know, wearing the options between a guy like that
who probably has the measurables and the potential, between another
(17:30):
guy who does have that the production at least steady
production on the back end of their collegiate career.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, I just think it's it's a it's a cocktail,
it's a recipe, and you take everything into account. It's
not just production, it's not just trades, it's not just
combine workouts. It's not just the intangibles. It's not the size,
it's it's not just the durability. It's really everything, and
you layer that in and you try to get the
full depth of who that player might be. And and
so I you know, I'm a big fan of production.
(17:58):
You know, I talk about it production all the time.
I think production speaks to consistency and doing.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
It over and over again.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
It's hard to be productive if you're not playing all
the time, if you're not in a field all the time,
if you're not playing hard all the time.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
However, there are.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Some really good players that for whatever reason, might not
be productive. For instance, a corner who's so good he
isn't get targeted, or a pass rusher who gets double
teamed every single play. So you know, production can be
a little bit misleading at times. That being the case,
we want productive guys. We want tough guys, fast guys,
big guys, smart guys.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Durable guys.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
It's the totality of all that stuff that we look
at when we build out our draft board.
Speaker 17 (18:39):
I don't believe that in the history of the Ravens
you guys have ever drafted a kicker. I guess it's
a pertinent question now in light of what's going on
with Justin, But would you consider is it worth drafting
a kicker? Using a draft pick on a kicker.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Is it worth it? I think it's worth it, sure.
I mean there's been some great.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Kickers drafted, and we've drafted a couple punters.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
But it's worth it if you have the right kicker.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
It just depends on the board, it depends on the player,
it depends who's there, it depends on how you coaches
see them, you know. And also it should be said
that some of the greatest kickers of all time weren't
drafted right.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So it's no like blueprint for finding a kicker, except
you've got to be able to evaluate the kicker.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
And I think Randy Brown does a phenomenal job of
evaluating kickers, and we have a lot of other really
good coaches to do a great job of evaluating talent
along with our scouts, And so is it worth it?
I think it probably is if the right guy's there. However,
you don't have to draft a kicker. You don't have
to draft au pun, you don't have to draft a
running backer a linebacker for those guys to be great players.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
We've seen that over and over again.
Speaker 18 (19:53):
Yeah, y're kind of just following up on that, But
I mean, because of the uncertainty around you know, justin
do you you expect to draft a kicker at all?
I mean, is that a you know, a thought process
with how many picks you have on Day three?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I never have any expectations because you don't know how
the thing's gonna unfold again. You know, it's just we're
gonna be on the clock and we're gonna draft the
best available player at every spot for us as a club.
Never want to pigeonhole myself into doing this or that,
because when I do that, I usually end up being disappointed,
you create a false expectation in your mind and you
start to think about needs and other things. And I
(20:28):
like to go into that draft just like a wide
open highway with no cars on the road, and I
can drive as fast as I want, straight down the road,
unencumbered and not worry about just driving, turn the music up,
and just draft and pick the best players.
Speaker 19 (20:44):
Eric, knowing your vision going into this draft, will you
get to the other side, What are some of the
measures of success for you to where you can look
back and say we accomplished what we want to accomplish.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
I just really just I just focus on wins and
losses and our season.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
You know, it's so hard.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Sometimes you have you have an impression that you had
a great draft class, and maybe it wasn't. And maybe
sometimes you think, I don't know, it wasn't the easiest year.
And you have, you know, guys emerging they end up
being great players in the end. I think what we
all aspire to is just winning a championship. And so
that's my goal and my dream and what I'm aiming for.
And so that just starts winning our first game, and
(21:23):
then winning our second game, and then winning the division,
getting a home field, you know, advantage if we can,
and then winning the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
If we do that, it'll be a success.
Speaker 12 (21:34):
Eric, Eric, and or John. Have you talked to Lamar
in terms of his list of draft picks or guys
that he's looked at and what's the conversation I guess
been with him this offseason?
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Uh, you know, Lamar and I have texted a little bit.
We had a conversation. We didn't get into any specific players.
We just we talked a little bit about the roster
and just what he's up to and you know, his
vision and his you know, excitement for the season and
all that stuff that goes into it.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
But other than that, I.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Think I just probably keep the conversations private.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
I haven't talked about specific prospects yet.
Speaker 6 (22:15):
No.
Speaker 10 (22:18):
For Eric, you know, especially with Malik and Chris Bord,
you guys have lost some guys who really had value
on special teams, including your defense. When you look at prospects,
how much does their ability to influence that phase of
the game, which is obviously very valued here kind of
factor into kind of bumping them up or down? And
(22:39):
John sort of what is your confidence that do you
need guys in this draft who they've shown talent on
special teams, or do you feel like your coaching staff
has the ability to make anyone a great special teams player.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Well, when you have a head coach who's one of
the great special teams coaches in the NFL at one point,
you spend a lot of time asking them about special teams.
And I really think our scouts do a great job
of that. I mean I could literally ask any scout
at any time, what's this guy doing special teams and
they will go back to twenty twenty and tell me.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Exactly what he did.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
And it wasn't always that way, but I could literally say, hey, Chess,
tell me about this guy at Oklahoma State and special
teams and he would say, oh, in twenty twenty, eerk,
he was the left wing and this and that, or
he was a personal protract on the punt team and
he did this and he did that, and then we
got you know, Chris Horton and Anthony Levine. Those guys
(23:34):
will bring their perspective as coaches, and we do it
with every single player at a certain level and at
certain positions. We talk about special teams and it is
a big thing, and it is the thing that can
swear a guy from one bucket to the next again,
because if a guy's you know, if he's in this,
I'll just use the bee.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
If he's in the.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Bees at the top of the bees and he's a
really good Special Teams player, maybe he makes it to
the bottom of the a's it's just that enough that
alone can push him up a little bit. And maybe
that's around, maybe that's half around, whatever it is, but
that's a big deal for us.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
I mean, just to echo what Eric's saying, I think
our scouts and Chris and his staff do a great job.
Because last week we're having our meetings, that came up
on pretty much every guy that would be a special
Teams type player. And it wasn't just what they've done
on Special teams, it's also what kind of traits do
they bring to the table. You know, type of player
sometimes translates to a special Teams player, big along, a long,
(24:30):
fast corner that can get out and run, who's tough,
maybe can be a gunner for you. So you try
to project those guys in those positions and then building
special teams. You know, it's important to have a good
group of young, hungry guys, but you also want to
have some veteran players and that know how to play.
So like bringing back a Tyland Wallace who also gives
us value as a wide receiver, but can give us
values a special teams guy. Some of these young developing
(24:51):
guys that we had maybe second year guys this year,
third year guys this year, they become your veterans on
special teams, you know, and they've got to carry that
mantle from a leadership production standpoints. So those roles are
really important. I learned that from Coach Belichick probably more
than anybody. But when you put your team together, there's
a lot of specific roles that you've got to try
to find the right fits for to build your team,
(25:12):
and those special team's roles are a big part of that.
Speaker 20 (25:16):
Eric as you as it's changed over the years in
terms of player movement and transferring, I think it used
to be kind of looking a guy transferred once or
twice I might be a red flag because you're not
fighting through to try and win a job or whatever,
looking for green or grass. But with so much player
moving mount now have you had to change the way
that factors in to your evaluation.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
I think it just it's it's become more complicated for
the scouts to get more information because we do want
to talk to people that might know this player from
the other locations. For me, it's just really watching the tape.
It's the same, you know, we just watch the tape.
Get in and watch the tape, and maybe if you
go back and look at him at the other school,
(25:57):
you can do that as well. In some cases it
is it is helpful because you might see a player
that transferred to a big school from a small school, right,
and so you can see how that guy played at
a smaller school versus how he's planning now at a
bigger school. It provides a different perspective on the player.
But I think just generally speaking again I said this,
(26:20):
but if you if you have good scouts, it gives
you the opportunity to get more information because you have
more people to talk to about these players. So from
that standpoint, it can be very valuable.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
For Eric.
Speaker 21 (26:34):
The last couple of years, you know, you've had first
round guys be able to contribute.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
You know, right away, just when you're looking.
Speaker 21 (26:39):
At guys and evaluating are the characteristics that you look
for in guys when you're giving them that first round
grade that tells you that they will be able to
come here and contribute right away.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Well, they got to be talented, you know. I mean
this is a this is a business where talent wins,
and they've got to be talented. They've got to have
a unique skill set. They've got I have the traits
that would indicate that they can play at our level
of football first and foremost, and then I think confidence, uh,
you know, uh, just dependability, you know, practicing hard competitive players.
(27:13):
Durability is a big deal, especially for guys that play.
I mean, you want to talk about rookies that have
a hard time playing, it's usually in some way tied
to injuries during that rookie season. So I think durability
is a really big deal too in that regard. And
then just ability to learn the game. You know, it's
a different scheme and a lot of in a lot
of cases it's totally different terminology. And then just being
(27:38):
able to overcome the grind. It's a long season. The
NFL is a long season. These guys are professional athletes
to hear every single day for I don't know how
many hours, John, how many hours, eight hours a day. Yeah, So,
I mean it's a it's a it's a it's a grind,
and they've got to be able to handle that mental
hurdle as well.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
Eric asked John about this at the owners meetings. But
you have made trades before with veteran players during the draft.
Do you fully expect There's been a lot of speculations
about Mark Andrews' future in Baltimore. Do you fully expect
him to remain with the team and is he a
big part of what you plan on doing this year?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Man, I never know what's going to happen, Jeff, and
I would never want to say this with that, you know,
But I can tell you this, Mark Andrews is a
warrior and he's played his butt off for us, and
his competitiveness, his talent, his attitude, his leadership is so
valued here and he's a great player.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
And I think.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
We're in the business of keeping as many great players
as we can. So there's always a lot of unpredictability
with the draft.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
You just never know.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I don't think we've traded many of our own players.
I don't know have we ever made a trade during
the draft where we traded one of our players well,
that wasn't during the draft. Well, I mean I had
done that draft. I had done that trade before the draft.
You guys didn't know.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Before the day before I had.
Speaker 8 (29:07):
I had done that.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I did that on a Monday, actually, the Monday or
the draft.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
I knew. I knew that was coming.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, that wasn't during the That wasn't actually during the draft.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
If we had one during the draft.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, it was announced in the draft. It was. That
was strategic though.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
We didn't want announce it beforehand, just in case because
the team might think we would want a receiver, so
we kept it as quiet as we could. But I
don't think we've ever traded one of our players. We've
traded four players during the draft. I know we did
Kevin Johnson way back when for a fourth round pick,
But I don't know that we've ever traded one of
our own players.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
You should know that, Jameson, I don't think. Okay, yeah,
just because I brought him up.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Just now, it came to me, how big of a
need do you view a cornerback? Obviously you took Nate
Wagans last year and always want to restock that position
at a cheeto and free agency Stevens Less. How big
of a need is corner in your mind?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
It's always a big need. Every single year. You could
ask thirty one other teams.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It all says the same thing. Corner is critical important position.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
They break down, you know, they're like bugattis and they
just break down, and you've got to have them in
reserve because that can go from being a positional strength
to being something that you know. I remember, it's a
long story. Some won't tell it, but two thousand and seven,
we played the Steelers on a Monday night and I
was flying out to USC and UCLA and we took
(30:35):
off and the game hadn't started yet, and when we landed,
it was like twenty four to nothing in the first
quarter against the Steelers. And if you look at our
corners that game. Not to be smirched anyone, but they
were all guys that were playing because other guys got hurt.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
And that's just an incredibly important position. So that's always
going to be a need for us.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Doesn't even going to take a guy in the first round,
but I feel pretty sure that we'll take at least
one corner.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Draft John, how has your.
Speaker 7 (31:05):
I guess responsibilities changed since you came here in terms
of the draft, I mean, first under Ozzie and now
and then Eric, I.
Speaker 5 (31:14):
Would say, see if Eric agrees with this, But I
would say it really hasn't changed at all. I think
we've had kind of this consistent format and Ozzie and Eric,
you know, we're gracious enough to you know, allow a
young coach to come in and have input, you know,
and have a have a say, you know, and be
a part of it and be a partner.
Speaker 9 (31:33):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
And then we've got the same format now, you know,
and probably you know, eighteen drafts later, we've got even
well obviously the trust has been built over the years,
and then you know, the shared understanding the vision of
kind of what we want to build. I think we've
kind of grown together on that where it's like in
my front yard, I got these two or three trees
that kind of grew together and they're all like one
trunk right now. I feel like that's how we kind
(31:56):
of look at things in terms of, you know, building
our team with the draft.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, I would just say that, you know, not all
teams do it this way, and you know, I'm proud
I started out as a young guy in nineteen ninety
six with coach Marchibroda and Ozzy and just watching the.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Way that they work together, just that light bulb goes off.
This is the way it's supposed to be. When you
have your coaches and.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Your scouts aligned working together on a massive project like this,
you've got ownership across the board. And I think anytime
you can build that, I think you really have something.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
I mean, if we're talking about that, you know, in
terms of an advantage that we have, it goes back
to nineteen ninety six, I would say probably when you
were here, so you saw it from the beginning with
coach Marcha Broden with Ozzy and what's kind of taking
place ever since. But coaches come in here and they'll
watch our draft process and they're kind of blown away
by the fact that it's just so merged together, and
(32:56):
the scouts do the work, they do the they do
ninety plus ninety five plus percent of the work and
lay the whole thing out. Then the coaches can kind
of come in and overlay a perspective that is taken
seriously and accounted for, you know, and then you know,
we don't spend much time anymore having conversations about you know,
what kind of a player do we want or what
(33:16):
kind of a what kind of traits we're looking for?
These kind of things are almost unspoken, and even the
new coaches they kind of like fall right in, don't
you think they just fall right in with this process?
And guys will say, man, it's just not like this everywhere,
so it's hard to describe it. But I think when
you're in it, for me, it's just the way it
would be the only way it is. You know that.
I couldn't see it being done any differently. But it
(33:39):
goes back to Ozzy and Eric all the way back
to the beginning.
Speaker 9 (33:44):
John's sort of along those lines. As a coach, once
you first get those players in from the draft, those
however many picks in here, finally seeing them in purple
and black, what are some of the things that excite
you about seeing their talents and how they're going to
fit into this team eventually?
Speaker 5 (33:59):
Well, you want to see what you thought you were
going to see. You want to see a guy that's talented,
like Eric said, but you hate to bring a guy
in and go, man, I don't think this this is
I've heard stories and I've heard stories in recruiting. Maybe
it's happened in the NFL, but yeah, it has happened
where you know you'd get a guy and you guy,
this cannot be the same guy I watched on tape.
You know, like a like there was an impostor there's
(34:21):
an impostor that was brought in here in college and
you don't want to see that. We really haven't seen that,
but I've seen it. Yeah, you have seen it.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, there's been a few well no, I'm not going
to mention the players. So this is a few times
over the years.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Where we.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Liked the guy and then we drafted him, and then
he showed up day one and we were just like,
oh my gosh. I mean, it happens right off any
you probably happened to you. I mean, it just happens,
right you just you just what you think you saw,
you didn't see, and you shows up and you're like, man,
I thought this guy was a better athlete. I thought
this guy was faster, I thought this guy was whatever.
(34:59):
And next thing you know, they're on your practice squad
or they're on somebody else's practice squad.
Speaker 10 (35:04):
Eric, you guys went through multiple returners in particular, at
punt returner last year.
Speaker 21 (35:09):
Are you hoping to come out of this draft with
someone with returnability?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
It'd be nice, it'd be nice. It'd be nice.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
I mean, I think I think we've done a good
job of sizing that up. And I think, you know, again,
Chris Horton does an awesome job. I mean, our scouts evaluate,
but it's based on the area that they scout or
the position maybe that they scout. Chris really does a
great job of taking all the returners in ranking the
returners from first to worst, and so that's a big
part of it. I think we have some guys that
(35:38):
can do it. So we've got a floor, but we
want a high ceiling. That's what we want, and we're
gonna try to find that guy.
Speaker 9 (35:46):
Eric.
Speaker 15 (35:47):
I think we're just a couple of days away from
our Darius is deadline to sign offersheets. If he's gotten those,
I guess, how confident are you and him returning? And
if you do, guys get that done, how's a felt
maybe what you want to do in the draft so
you can put him in the best position as well
as well as Kyle next year.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Well, I'm confident, you know, fairly confident that our Darius
will be back. I don't know that it affects our
decision making at the position at all.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
And I think it's a pretty deep safety crew.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And it's you know, obviously the top guys, but then
there's maybe four or five or six guys that will
probably be you know, third, fourth, fifth round guys that
are good players.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I mean, this is a really.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Nice pool of players to pick from. I think we
definitely will look at that. I think we added the
two young guys last year. Both guys play well for
us on special teams Bowen Sinoussi. But yeah, it's a
it's a good group of players this year. And again
a position I mentioned corner, I would probably guess that
(36:52):
of our eleven picks, at least one of those will
be a safety.
Speaker 21 (36:56):
Eric, you're a last four first round draft picks have
made a nim pecked right away. How do you kind
of look back at that track record and allow that
confidence to carry over year after year when drafting?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Well, I'm never super confident. I just I always want
to feel like the weight of the world is on
my shoulders. You know, I started out with the greatest
general manager of all time in Ozzie and you look
at his first round picks every single year.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I mean, it was just historic what he did.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
So I feel that pressure and I'll never live up
to that, but it doesn't mean I can't try. And so,
you know, we want to hit all our picks, not
just first round picks. I mean, I'm just as hard
on myself for a fourth round pick that I might
have missed and what didn't I.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
See and what did I see?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Or you know, players that end up being really good
that we passed on for different reasons. You know, what
didn't I see in that player? And now he's a
pro bowler and you just beat yourself up over that.
So yeah, I feel that pressure every year, and I
welcome it. If I didn't feel that, i'd be concerned.
You know, if I didn't wake up in the middle
(38:01):
of the night come in and look at tape, I'd
be waited. You know me, I'm over confident, I'm not
working quite as hard, and I never want to get
to that point. So kind I relish that feeling of like,
oh man, I haven't done enough.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
I gotta do more.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
I got look at more tape, I talk to more people,
you know, leaving myself notes in the middle of the
nite things.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
To check on.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
But you know, as far as like our previous picks
that we made, that doesn't give me any any confidence
that we're going to continue to do it. We just
got to go out and do it, and I'm confident
that we will at least put forth the very best
effort and get all the information and check off every
box to make sure that we get to that point.
Speaker 19 (38:40):
Eric, not specific to the draft, but with the departure
of Josh Johnson, you signed Cooper Rush. Just curious what
it was you liked about him and why you capitalize
on the opportunity to add him.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
I mean, you know, he's a guy that we've admired.
I watched a lot of football, He's won a lot
of games as a backup quarterback, a cerebral guy.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I think he's a town.
Speaker 8 (39:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
It just was the right player for us at that point,
guy that we felt like we could invest in for
a couple of years. We like the way he's been playing,
and we think he's going to really I think augment
the room really well and give us a chance to win.
If something Heaven forbid ever happened on Lamar.
Speaker 12 (39:23):
Eric. I know you said an extension for Derek Henry
something you guys are talking about. Just curious where that's
out and how that maybe impacts things, if at all,
with draft plans and running backs and such.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, so we have a lot of different balls in
the air right now. That's probably what I would say
on that. You know, I'm not going to talk about
what we're doing, what we're not doing behind the scenes
business wise with these guys.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I don't think it's good for.
Speaker 9 (39:49):
Me to do that.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
But I would say that aside from the draft, as
you all know, like we're looking at guys that are
still available free agents on the street, we're looking at
resigning our own guys. You know, we were blessed to
have a bunch of really good players, and we're going
to try and keep as many of those guys as
we can.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
It's a challenge.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
It's one of the curses I think of doing a
pretty good job drafting is you've got all these really
good players that you want to keep. Our goal is
to keep every single one of them. We're working at
doing that, and we'll also continue.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
To build a roster after the draft.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
As you guys all know, we'll be looking at guys
that haven't signed yet. We've had some success in that
aspect of team building the last few years, you know,
and I think we'll do that as well, and there's
gonna be some really good opportunities for us to fill
in some holes.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
After the draft.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
I think undrafted free agency is another area. We've talked
about ar Darius Right and it's a guy that was
an undrafted free agent just a couple of years ago,
and we see what he brought to the table, you know,
this year. So that's gonna be a big component as well,
and I'm really really comfortable that we'll do a great
job with that as well.
Speaker 22 (41:04):
Hey, Eric, I know how important is for you to
have these one oh one with the players with prospects, Well,
you don't talk about football more like personal live knowing
the player. How much of an impact has been those
conversations to make a decision for the draft.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, I think it's important to see these guys and
to meet with these guys. You know, we get a
lot of information, and sometimes that information isn't quite what
we see in an interview setting, and so just getting
to know these guys, their motivations, their drivers, what's important
to them, how they see themselves, their humility, emotional intelligence,
their competitiveness, you know, all the various things that make
(41:41):
up who these players are. They're not just statistics or
what we see on tape, and so getting to know
these guys is critical. Now, I can also tell you this,
sometimes you can get tricked right, And there's been you know,
I could write a book on players that I interviewed
and would say, oh, this is a great guy, and
then now all of a sudden, you get the guy
and you're like, oh no. And sometimes you interview a
guy and maybe he's really quiet and seems almost shy
(42:03):
or whatever that might be, and you end up picking
them and you're like, this guy's incredible.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
So question, you know, the question is I think everybody
would want to ask right now, is are you going
to write the book you said you could write a
book on that When you guys love to read that book.
Speaker 19 (42:17):
Maybe I may.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Maybe I'll have Jerry help me, you know, my ghostwriter,
Jerry Coleman.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
You've been quiet today. Jerry, you don't want to my questions.
Speaker 8 (42:27):
He's not wrong, Eric, And you said you had a
lot of balls in the air. Fifth year Option deadlines coming,
have you made you have two prominent players with that.
Have you made a decision on that front.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
Yeah, there's really no updates on that front.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
You know. I think the last couple of years, I've
waited to announce that and handle that, and I think that's.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Going to be the case again this year.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Thank you you're listening to the Ravens Press Past podcast.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Also make sure you head over to the Lounge podcast
feed subscribe to that feed and this one as well.
Thank you so much for listening and we will be
back with you again soon.
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