EVP & GENERAL MANAGER ERIC DeCOSTA AND HEAD COACH JOHN HARBAUGH
Executive Vice President & General Manager Eric DeCosta Opening Statement:
"OK, welcome everybody. I'm very happy to see everybody here, and [it's] one of my favorite times of the year. We just finished last week our third set of Draft meetings, with the coaches this time. 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, thank you to [SVP of Ravens Media] Michelle Andres and her people for allowing us to use that room last week, and we're getting close. We had a really good set of meetings. Coaches did a great job helping us sort through the last few rough patches of the Draft board, and I think we'll be ready to go next week."
Especially in free agency, it seemed like there were a lot of signings of the offensive side of the ball. Do you feel like in the early rounds on Day One or Day Two, do you think it could be more of a defensive heavy Draft just because of how things panned out in free agency? (Jamison Hensley)
(DeCOSTA) "Good question. I think we'll stick to the board like we typically do, historically, and I know this is always a question. We've been a best available player team, and 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 if we're going to build a team, that's the best way to approach it. So, I think we definitely look at the different needs of our team. We spent 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. In the end, I think this is a 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."
I know you guys have always valued defensive linemen, but with NT Michael Pierce retiring and the amount of defensive linemen in this Draft seemingly a lot of talent, how does that weigh into how you look at that position in this Draft? (Cliff Brown)
(DeCOSTA) "Well, I think it's certainly a priority, and I think you're right. This is a fairly deep defensive line class. We've always been a team that wants to be big and strong and powerful on both sides of the line, [and] both sides of the ball. So, I think there's an opportunity for us to get better on the defensive line for sure."
You guys have 11 picks this year. Do you want to make 11 picks? Does having that many make you any more likely to package them and move up? What's your view on the 11 picks and the desire to use all 11 of those? (Garrett Downing)
(DeCOSTA) "If I had a crystal ball, I would answer that question. We have 11 picks, and 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 [and] you can trade for future picks in future years. I think we're fortunate to be in this position. 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 salary cap is critical. So, for us, young talent, the influx of young players every single year competing to make the roster is really important. Now, we have a good team; we feel good about our roster. It's going to be hard for 11 players to make the team out of the gates this year. I mean, if they do, it would be incredible. History tells us that probably not all 11 picks are going to make the initial 53-man roster, which is a good problem to have, it means we're a talented team. I like having 11 picks. I think it gives us a lot of flexibility in different ways, and 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."
Eric, obviously, you have some really key pieces of your offensive line back, including T Roger Rosengarten, who developed really fast last year. With how the offensive line did – as you sort of projected, they took some lumps early, then really jelled together – does that give you confidence that you can kind repeat that process and if need be, insert some rookies in some of those open spots at guard this year? (Kyle Goon)
(DeCOSTA) "I saw a stat the other day that 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 [offensive line] Coach [George] Warhop to develop [them] and a lot of 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. [They are] a really, really good group of tackles and guards, as well. So, anytime you have a 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, because we're a team that prides itself on running the ball and being physical, knocking people off the ball, controlling the clock, protecting the quarterback, all those different things, and so I think that's going to be critical."
Eric, along the same lines, you mentioned that you guys were committing to building the offensive line through the Draft. Just curious, what made T Ronnie Stanley the exception? What was it about his season that made you decide to bring him back instead of going with young players? (Giana Han)
(DeCOSTA) "Well, left tackles don't grow on trees, first of all. Ronnie [Stanley] had a great season. I think he had one of his best years last year. He's really grown into being one of the leaders of our team, and just looking out at the Draft and free agency, we just didn't really see a lot of guys that we felt were better than him. [From] my experience with the Draft, when you're picking in the twenties and in the late twenties, it's very hard to get left tackles. Those guys fly off the board, so you think you have a chance, and then what you realize is you're picking 25, 26, 27. There's five tackles, and all five tackles get picked before Pick 20. And so, for us making that investment in Ronnie, knowing him as a person, his ability as a left tackle to protect the quarterback and be a run blocker and be a leader on the offensive line was important."
"Have you guys lost many guys off the Draft board due to character and medical reasons? (Vinny Cerrato)
(DeCOSTA) "We always lose some guys. It's probably a number – if I had to just guesstimate – somewhere between 10 and 15 guys total that fail our physical or have some other [red] flags that would prohibit them from being on the team. So, it happens every year. It's 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 have failed the physicals and have been flagged for different medical conditions, and that's just unfortunately one of the hard parts of this job, and it happens every single year. In fact, [head coach] John [Harbaugh] will come down and say, 'I love this guy.' And I'll go, 'Ah, he failed his physical.' And so, it does happen. It's a tough part of this business. We play a very physical sport, and durability matters."
When it comes to best player available, particularly in the early rounds, just curious, how do you separate when you've got say player X 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 get to that decision? (Brian Wacker)
(DeCOSTA) "That's the art of it. And if you just imagine a bunch of different buckets, and each bucket has a different grade, and 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. [Say] you have two players in the A bucket; they're very close. One's in a need position. One's not in the need position. We're probably going to take the need 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, character, all the other off the field and 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 higher bucket."
Maybe last year, you talked to us about 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 transfer portal and hundreds of players changing teams every year, how much harder is it to evaluate a player when they've maybe been at two or three schools as opposed to been in one system for four years? (Bo Smolka)
(DeCOSTA) "Yes, there's a lot there to answer. I do think that this will be the last [Draft] class of players that are significantly older in some cases, partly because of COVID-19. So, we've got some guys in this draft that are 25 or 26 years old. That was almost unheard of six or 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 and the [transfer] portal and all those different things, I think it really depends. You have to have really good scouts. You have to have scouts that are well connected, that have 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 trace back that player to the other schools that he's been at, and you can acquire more information – and in some cases very different information – so, if you get a guy that's been at three schools, you'd be amazed at the amount of information you can get. But in some cases, how different the information might be from school A, school B and school C. So, I think it really goes back to just having the best area 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 at schools as well – to use our coaches to then contact their comrades at different schools to get information so that we have a real clear picture of who that player might be."
Eric, from a scouting or 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 or the obstacles be to try to get a true two-way player on an NFL roster, particularly from a mid-week meeting perspective? (Adam Kilgore)
(DeCOSTA) "For us, we haven't had any two-way players, so that's the first thing. The second thing is in this particular case, if we're talking about a guy like 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 if you're going to have a player like him, you're probably picking Top 5, so that's not something that we ever really want to do – but if you have a player like him, where is he going to be on the Draft board? What do we think his best position is going to be? Day One, if he's going to come in and start, which as a rookie, a high pick, you hope he does, where are we going to put him? And so that's how we would approach it. We would talk about his skills, but then really try to figure out where's he going to play most of his football Day One."
(HARBAUGH) "That's a great point. It's going to be interesting to see how they do it wherever [Travis Hunter] goes, but to say that you're going to be completely immersed in everything that there is to know on offense and everything there is to know on defense, I don't know if there are enough hours in the day for a player to be able to do that and to have every detail locked down, but you certainly can do it on one side of the ball and then have some sort of a package on the other side of the ball, which 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."
Eric, the consensus from the Draft pundits seems to be that this class is light on high-end talent. If you're comfortable sharing, about how many guys do you guys have first-round grades on? And if it's not an amount that's feasible to get one at Pick 27, how does that change your approach there late in the first round? (Jonas Shaffer)
(DeCOSTA) "The way that I look at the Draft is you have on Day one, the first day of the Draft, there are going to be 32 picks. So, you have to have 32 players that you would take in the first round. So, I always answer the question ... I mean we have 32 players in the first round. You have to have at least 32 to pick. Now, is it the situation where maybe the totality of all these players in the first round might not be as talented as another year? Maybe that's the case, but I see a lot of opportunity in this Draft class in the middle grounds. I see more players; I see more draftable players. We have 217 players right now on the front board, and there have been years where we've had a hard time getting to 160, 165 [players]. There are 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 the chance to be really, really good for us. But, I really think that if you're going to have 11 picks, this is a year that reminds me a little bit of 2022, from the standpoint of the depth of the Draft really across the middle rounds, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth rounds I think would be pretty good. We see a lot of talent in that range, so that's an opportunity for us to get better as a team."
Eric, how would you evaluate where you guys are in edge rusher and just the options you could have? Do you view this as a particularly strong edge rush Draft class? (Jeff Zrebiec)
(DeCOSTA) "Well, I do. I do think it's a good Draft class. Now also, if I'm not mistaken, we've got our entire outside linebacker core coming back this year, so that's a great situation for us, because we didn't lose anybody. So, from that standpoint I think it's good. Now again, there are some really talented guys in this Draft class, and there are guys that we'll be looking at as first-round guys, second-round guys, third-round guys [or] fourth-round guys we think could come in and compete to 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 and the outside linebackers as a whole, I would say they are the three strongest positions in the Draft class."
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 and weigh that with understanding the Draft is also not just about 2025, but the next couple of years? Is it plausible that you add a tight end, even if that could on paper create quite a roster crunch? (Luke Jones)
(DeCOSTA) "I just think it depends on the player. There are some really good players in this Draft class, and the same could be said about the running back position, as well, and we've talked about that. We talk about these things all the time. The reality of it is, is if there's a tight end that we think is a blue-chip tight end or a running back that we think is a blue-chip running back, we're going to 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, and you guys have all seen – you've covered the team for a long time – needs can change in one week, right? We've had some years where we had a strong running back room, next thing you know, 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 in the span of seven days, so that can happen."
(HARBAUGH) "You're bringing back a bad memory right there for everybody." (laughter)
(DeCOSTA) "It's just the reality of our business. Injuries happen; needs change, and so for us, we're just going to keep an open mind, and if the guy is so good that we have to take them, we're going to take them."
Eric, going back to the pass rusher, we've seen you guys draft guys that haven't necessarily had great stats in their final year of college. I think of OLB Odafe Oweh coming out with no sacks, but just had his first double-digit sack season this year. How do you go about weighing the options between a guy like that who probably has the measurables and the potential between another guy who does have the steady production on the back end of their collegiate career? (Cordell Woodland)
(DeCOSTA) "I just think 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 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. I'm a big fan of production. I talk about production all the time. I think production speaks to consistency and doing it over and over again. It's hard to be productive if you're not playing all the time, if you're not in the field all the time, if you're not playing hard all the time. However, there are some really good players that for whatever reason might not be productive. For instance, a corner who's so good he doesn't get targeted or a pass rusher who gets double-teamed every single play. So, 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, durable guys. It's the totality of all that stuff that we look at when we build out our Draft board."
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 K Justin Tucker, but would you consider it? Is it worth drafting a kicker or using a Draft pick on a kicker? (Jerry Coleman)
(DeCOSTA) "Is it worth it? I think it's worth it. Sure, there have been some great kickers drafted. We've drafted a couple punters, but it's worth it if you have the right kicker. It just depends on the [Draft] board. It depends on the player. It depends who's there. It depends on how your coaches see him. And also, it should be said that some of the greatest kickers of all time weren't drafted, right? So, there's no blueprint for finding a kicker, except you have to be able to evaluate the kicker. I think [senior special teams coach] Randy Brown does a phenomenal job of evaluating kickers, and we have a lot of other really good coaches who do a great job of evaluating talent along with our scouts. So, is it worth it? I think it probably is if the right guy is there. However, you don't have to draft a kicker. You don't have to draft a punter. You don't have to draft a running back or a linebacker for those guys to be great players. We've seen that over and over again."
Following up on that, because of the uncertainty around K Justin Tucker, do you expect to draft a kicker at all? Is that a thought process with how many picks you have on Day Three? (Jamison Hensley)
(DeCOSTA) "I never have any expectations, because you don't know how the thing is going to unfold. Again, we're going to be on the clock, and we're going to draft the best available player every spot for us as a club. I 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. I like to go into that draft like a wide-open highway with no cars on the road, and I could drive as fast as I want straight down the road unencumbered and not worry about [anything] but just driving, turn music up and just drafting and picking the best players."
Eric, knowing your vision going into this Draft, when 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 wanted to accomplish? (Carita Parks)
(DeCOSTA) "I just focus on wins and losses and our season. It's so hard. Sometimes, you have an impression that you had a great Draft class, and maybe it wasn't. Maybe sometimes, you think, 'I don't know. It wasn't the easiest year,' and you have guys emerging, and 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. So, that just starts with winning our first game and then winning our second game and then winning the division, getting a home field advantage if we can and then winning the Super Bowl. If we do that, it will be a success."
Have you talked to QB Lamar Jackson in terms of his list of Draft picks or guys that he's looked at, and what's the conversation been with him this offseason? (Brian Wacker)
(DeCOSTA) "Lamar [Jackson] and I have texted a little bit. We had a conversation. We didn't get into any specific players. We just talked a little bit about the roster and just what he's up to and his vision and his excitement for the season and all that stuff that goes into it, but other than that, I'll just probably keep the conversations private."
(HARBAUGH) "I haven't talked about specific prospects yet [with Lamar Jackson], no."
Eric, especially with LBs Malik Harrison and Chris Board, 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, factor into bumping them up or down? John, 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? (Kyle Goon)
(DeCOSTA) "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 about special teams, and I really think our scouts do a great job of that. I could literally ask any scout at any time, 'What does this guy do on special teams?' And they will go back to 2020 and tell me exactly what he did, and it wasn't always that way, but I could literally say, 'Hey [southwest area scout] Chas [Stallard], tell me about this guy at Oklahoma State in special teams,' and he would say, 'Oh, in 2020, Eric, he was the left wing,' and this and that, or 'He was the personal protector on the punt team, and he did this, and he did that.' And then, we have [special teams coordinator] Chris Horton and [assistant special teams coach] Anthony Levine [Sr.]. Those guys will bring their perspectives 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 a thing that can sway a guy from one bucket to the next. Again, because if a guy is in – I'll just use the B [bucket] – if he's in the B's, at the top of the B's, 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 a round, maybe that's half a round – whatever it is – but that's a big deal for us."
(HARBAUGH) "Just to echo what Eric's saying, I think our scouts and [special teams coordinator] Chris [Horton] and his staff do a great job, because last week we were 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. A type of player sometimes translates to a special teams player: a big, long, 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, it's important to have a good group of young, hungry guys, but you also want to have some veteran players that know how to play. So, bringing back a Tylan Wallace who also gives us value as a wide receiver, but can give us value as a special teams guy. Some of these young, developing guys that we had – maybe second year guys this year [or] third year guys this year – they become veterans on special teams. They've got to carry that mantle from a leadership and a production standpoint, so those roles are really important. I learned that from Coach [Bill] Belichick probably more than anybody. 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, and those special teams roles are a big part of that."
Eric, as if it's changed over the years, in terms of player movement and transferring, it used to be if the guy transferred once or twice, it might be a red flag because you're not fighting through to try and win a job or looking for greener grass, but with so much player movement now, have you had to change the way that factors in to your evaluation? (Pete Gilbert)
(DeCOSTA) "It's just become more complicated for the scouts to get more information, because we do want talk to people that might know this player from these other locations. For me, it is just really [about] watching the tape. It's the same. We just watch the tape. We get in and watch the tape, and maybe if you go back and look at him at the other school, you can do that, as well. In some cases, it is helpful, because you might see a player that transferred to a big school from a small school, so you can see how that guy played at a smaller school versus how he's playing now at a bigger school. It provides a different perspective on the player, but just generally speaking, again, I said this, but 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 could be very valuable."
Eric, the last couple of years, you've had first round guys be able to contribute right away. When you're looking at guys and evaluating, are there characteristics that you look for in guys when you're giving them that first-round grade that tells you that they'll be able to come here a*nd contribute right away?* (Caleb Nixon)
(DeCOSTA) "Well, they have to be talented. This is a business where talent wins, and they've got to be talented. They've got to have a unique skillset. They've got to have the traits that would indicate that they can play at our level of football, first and foremost, and I think [it's about] confidence, just dependability, practicing hard, [being] competitive players. Durability is a big deal, especially for guys that play. 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 the ability to learn the game. It's a different scheme. In a lot of cases, it's totally different terminology, and then just being able to overcome the grind. It's a long season. The NFL is a long season. These guys are professional athletes. They're here every single day for I don't know how many hours. John, how many hours, eight hours a day?"
(HARBAUGH) "As many as they're allowed to be." (laughter)
(DeCOSTA) "Yes, so it's a grind, and they have to be able to handle that mental hurdle, as well."
Eric, we asked John about this at the owners' meetings, but you have made trades before with veteran players during the Draft. There has been a lot of speculation about TE Mark Andrews' future in Baltimore? Do you fully expect him to remain with the team? Is he a big part of what you plan on doing this year? (Jeff Zrebiec)
(DeCOSTA) "I never know what's going to happen, and I would never want to say this or that, 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 [and] his leadership is so valued here. He's a great player, and 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. You just never know. I don't think we've traded many of our own players. Have we ever made a trade during the Draft where we traded one of our players?"
(REPORTER) "What about Marquise 'Hollywood' Brown?"
(DeCOSTA) "That wasn't during the Draft. Well, I had done that trade before the Draft. You guys didn't know about it. I did that on Monday, actually, the Monday [before] the Draft."
(HARBAUGH) "I knew that was coming." (laughter)
(DeCOSTA) "Yes, that wasn't actually during the Draft. That was announced during the Draft. That was strategic though. We didn't want to announce it beforehand just in case, because then a 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 for players during the Draft. I know we [traded for] 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."
Eric, how big of a need do you view cornerback? Obviously, you took CB Nate Wiggins last year and always want to restock at that position. You added CB Chidobe Awuzie in free agency. CB Brandon Stephens left. How big a need is cornerback in your mind? (Garrett Downing)
(DeCOSTA) "It's always a big need, every single year. You could ask 31 other teams; they'd all say the same thing. Corner is a critical, important position. They break down. 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 ... I remember – it's a long story, so I won't tell it – but in 2007, we played the Steelers on a Monday night, and I was flying out to USC and UCLA. We took off, and the game hadn't started yet, and when we landed it was like 24-0 in the first quarter against the Steelers. If you look at our corners that game, not to besmirch anyone, but they were all guys that were playing because other guys got hurt. That's just an incredibly important position, so that's always going to be a need for us. That doesn't mean we're going to take a guy in the first round, but I feel pretty sure that we'll take at least one corner in the Draft."
John, how have your responsibilities changed since you came here, in terms of the Draft, first under former general manager Ozzie Newsome and now under EVP and general manager Eric DeCosta? (Kevin Richardson)
(HARBAUGH) "I would say, let's see if [executive vice president and general manager] Eric [DeCosta] agrees with this, but I would say it really hasn't changed at all. We've had kind of this consistent format. [Former general manager] Ozzie [Newsome] and Eric were gracious enough to allow a young coach to come in and have input and have a say and be a part of it and be a partner. We've got the same format now, and probably 18 Drafts later, we've got even ... Well, obviously, the trust has been built over the years, the shared understanding [and] the vision 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've 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 of look at things, in terms of building our team with Draft."
(DeCOSTA) "Yes, I would just say that not all teams do it this way, and I'm proud. I started out as a young guy in 1996, with Coach [Ted] Marchibroda and Ozzie, and just watching the way that they worked together, just that light bulb goes off. This is the way it's supposed to be. When you have your coaches and 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, you really have something."
(HARBAUGH) "If we're talking about that, in terms of an advantage that we have, it goes back to 1996, I would say probably. You were here, so you saw it from the beginning with Coach Marchibroda and with Ozzie and what's taken place ever since. 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. The scouts do the work. They do 95-plus percent of the work and lay the whole thing out. Then, the coaches can come in and overlay a perspective that is taken seriously and accounted for. We don't spend much time anymore having conversations about what kind of a player we want or what kind of traits we're looking for. These kind of things are almost unspoken, and even the new coaches, they kind of fall right in, don't you think? They just fall right in with this process. 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 would be the only way it is. I couldn't see it being done any differently, but it goes back to Ozzie and Eric, all the way back to the beginning."
John, as a coach, once you first get those players in from the Draft, 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? (Valerie Preactor)
(HARBAUGH) "Well, you want to see what you thought you were going to see. You want to see a guy that's talented, like [executive vice president and general manager] Eric [DeCosta] said. Boy, you'd hate to bring a guy in and go, 'Man." I've heard stories." (DeCosta: "It's happened.") "I've heard stories in recruiting. Maybe it's happened in the NFL, but yes it has happened, where you get a guy, and [you're like], 'This cannot be the same guy I've watched on tape. There was an imposter.' There's an imposter that was brought in here in college, and you don't want to see that. We really haven't seen that."
(DeCOSTA) "I've seen it. No, I'm not going to mention any players, but there's been a few times over the years where we liked the guy, and then we drafted him, and he showed up Day One, and we were just like, 'Oh my gosh.' It happens, right? What you think you saw you didn't see, and it just 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,' and next thing you know, they're on your practice squad, or they're on somebody else's practice squad."
Eric, you guys went through multiple returners, in particular at punt returner, last year. Are you hoping to come out of this Draft with someone with returnability? (Tim Barbalace)
(DeCOSTA) "It'd be nice."
(HARBAUGH) "I am [hoping]." (laughter)
(DeCOSTA) "It'd be nice. I think we've done a good job of sizing that up, and I think, again, [special teams coordinator] Chris Horton does an awesome job. Our scouts evaluate, but it's based on the area that they scout or the position that they scout. Chris really does a great job of taking all the returners and ranking the returners from first to worst, and so that's a big part of it. I think we have some guys that can do it, so we've got a floor, but we want a high ceiling. That's what we want, and we're going to try to find that guy."
Eric, I think we're just a couple of days away from S Ar'Darius Washington's deadline to sign offer sheets if he has gotten those. How confident are you in him returning? If you guys do get that done, how does it affect what you want to do in the Draft, so you could put him in the best position as well as S Kyle Hamilton next year? (Jonas Shaffer)
(DeCOSTA) "Well, I'm confident, fairly confident, that Ar'Darius [Washington] will be back. I don't know that it affects our decision-making position at all. I think it's a pretty deep safety crew, and there are obviously the top guys, but then there's maybe four or five or six guys that will probably be third-, fourth- [or] fifth-round guys that are good players. This is a really 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 played well for us on special teams – Beau [Brade] and Sanoussi [Kane] – but yes, it's a good group of players this year. Again, a position I mentioned [is] corner. I would probably guess that of our 11 picks, at least one of those will be a safety."
Eric, your last four first-round Draft picks have made an impact right away. How do you look back at that track record and allow that confidence to carry over year after year when drafting? (Xavier Wherry)
(DeCOSTA) "Well, I'm never super confident. I always want to feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I started out with the greatest general manager of all time in Ozzie [Newsome], and you look at his first-round picks every single year. It was just historic what he did, so I feel that pressure, and I'll never live up to that, but it doesn't mean I can't try. We want to hit on all our picks, not just first-round picks. I'm just as hard on myself for a fourth-round pick that I might've missed and what didn't I see and what did I see? Or players that end up being really good that we passed on for different reasons, [and] what didn't I see in that player? And now, he's a Pro Bowler, and you just beat yourself up over that. So yes, I feel that pressure every year, and I welcome it. If I didn't feel that, I'd be concerned. If I didn't wake up in the middle of the night and come in and look at tape, I'd be worried. Maybe I'm overconfident, or I'm not working quite as hard, and I never want to get to that point. So, I relish that feeling of like, 'Oh man, I haven't done enough. I got to do more. I got to look at more tape. I have to talk to more people. I'm leaving myself notes in the middle of the night [on] things to check on,' but as far as our previous picks that we've made, that doesn't give me any confidence that we're going to continue to do it. We just have to go out and do it, and I'm confident that we will, at least put forth our very best effort and get all the information and check off every box to make sure that we get to that point."
Eric, not specific to the Draft, but with the departure of QB Josh Johnson, you signed QB Cooper Rush. I'm just curious what it was you liked about him, and why you capitalized on the opportunity to add him? (Carita Parks)
(DeCOSTA) "[Cooper Rush is] a guy that we've admired [and] watched a lot of [his] football. He's won a lot of games as a backup quarterback. [He's] a cerebral guy. I think he's talented. He was the right player for us at that point, a guy that we felt like we could invest in for a couple years. We liked the way the way he's been playing, and we think he's going to really augment the room really well and give us a chance to win if something – heaven forbid – ever happened to Lamar [Jackson]."
You said an extension for RB Derrick Henry was something that you guys are talking about. I'm just curious where that's at, and how that maybe impacts things if at all with Draft plans and running backs? (Brian Wacker)
(DeCOSTA) "Yes, so we have a lot of different balls in air right now. That's probably what I would say on that. I'm not going to talk about what we're doing [or] what we're not doing behind the scenes business-wise with these guys. I don't think it's good for me to do that, but I would say that aside from the Draft, as you all know, we're looking at guys that are still available, free agents on the street. We're looking at re-signing our own guys. We're 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. It's a challenge. 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 to build the roster after the Draft, 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 [in] the last few years, and I think we'll do that, as well. There's going to be some really good opportunities for us to fill in some holes after the Draft. I think undrafted free agency is another area. We talked about Ar'Darius [Washington], right? He's a guy that was an undrafted free agent just a couple of years ago, and we see what he brought to the table this year, so that's going to be a big component, as well. I'm really, really comfortable that we'll do a great job of that, as well."
Eric, I know how important it is for you to have these one-on-one interviews with the prospects, but you don't talk about football, more like personal life, getting to know the player. How much of an impact have those conversations been to make a decision for these Drafts? (David Andrade)
(DeCOSTA) "Yes, I think it's important to see these guys and to meet with these guys. We get a lot of information, and sometimes that information isn't quite what we see in the interview setting, 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 [and] all the various things that make up who these players are. They're not just statistics or what we see on tape, so getting to know these guys is critical. Now, I can also tell you this, sometimes you can get tricked, and there's been ... I could write a book on players that I interviewed and I would say, 'Oh, this was a great guy' and then 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 or whatever that might be, and you end up picking him and you're like, 'This guy is incredible.'"
(HARBAUGH) "The question I think everybody would want to ask now is are you going to write the book? You said you could write a book on that. Wouldn't you guys love to read that book? So, are you going to write that book?"
(DeCOSTA) "Someday, maybe."
Eric, you said you had a lot of balls in the air. The fifth-year option deadline is coming. You have two prominent players with that. Have you made a decision on that front? (Jeff Zrebiec)
(DeCOSTA) "There's really no updates on that front. I think the last couple of years I've waited to announce that and handle that, and I think that's going to be the case again this year."
