Chris Grier and Mike McDaniel – April 25, 2024
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Thursday, April 25, 2024
General Manager Chris Grier and Head Coach Mike McDaniel
Chris Grier:
(Why LB Chop Robinson?) – “He was a player that we identified early that we liked. We spent some time with him throughout the whole process and watching him work with the coaches and the scouts, he was someone we felt could impact our team and had a lot of traits we liked as a person and a player, which was important to us. So for us, the opportunity for us to get him, we couldn’t pass up. We were very excited – the defensive coaches, scouts, ownership, all of us were fired up we could get him.”
(What traits are you particularly intrigued by?) – “The one part is he plays hard. He plays his ass off, and that’s what we like. Then obviously the athletic traits and what he has, you see the first step quickness, the explosion, his ability to bend and do stuff. He’s done a lot of good things in college. We think with our coaching staff and his work ethic, we think he can even take it to another level. We’re very excited to have him.”
(I know you hate when we bring this up but his stat numbers from college don’t exactly jump off the page. What do you attribute the disconnect between the stat numbers and the actual ability for him to play?) – “Since you guys have known me over the years, we’ve talked about the stats part. For us, it’s an important part, but we’ve always talked about the ability to disrupt the passer. His disruption stuff numbers are all very high. For us, working through the analytics, watching him and what he does and contributes, sacks people always want to – the guy that comes to mind for me would be Danielle Hunter had four career sacks coming out of college, and he’s become a really good player in this league. I’m not putting that pressure on him to be Danielle Hunter, but it’s not just him; there are other players throughout the league that if you look at what their college numbers are compared to how they’ve had success in the pros – we think a lot of traits and the things you see on film translate. He has things he has to work on. He knows that. And the exciting part is the kid, and who he is, his work ethic, how much he loves ball and his toughness. We’re excited to work with him and we think he has a really good chance to be a really good player.”
Mike McDaniel:
(Mike McDaniel once told us that edge rusher is your favorite position in football, so really it is a true to form pick, I guess?) – “Absolutely. The coolest thing about the opportunity that we had at that pick is that if you have a player contributing in pass rush, those are things that you feel very fortunate to not pass up. As passing games become more and more of a focus, those players are a really, really big part of the driving force of your defense. To double down on Chris (Grier)’s point –if you’re more used to receivers, we’re not just drafting the guy with the highest amount of production goes first or next. I’m not sure if anyone can even rattle off the order of the production of the players. Disrupting the passer, there are a lot of compounding variables to a sack, whether a quarterback sees it and holds onto it or not. But disrupting the passer and taking the rhythm off the pass game, that’s a stat for him but it’s also for teammates and production comes off of that too. It’s exciting to not have to block him.”
Chris Grier:
(How close were you to making a trade?) – “We were active on the phones; I’ll just say that. So I don’t know how close we got, but we were active probably through the backend of the draft.”
(How close did the board fall that you guys had set up to what actually happened in Round 1?) – “It was pretty close. (laughter) We were sitting there, there were a couple players at the end we were excited for, so we were active even trying to get back in to get another one here in the late first.”
(There was a stretch that seven picks before you guys were on the clock, it seemed like every single one of those guys would have made sense for you. I’m not going to ask you how LB Chop Robinson compared to them, but were you kind of sweating, “Hey, player after player after player that might be a good fit here are going. Are we going to get our guy?”) – “It’s not sweat. It’s just Chop (Robinson) was someone that we identified and thought he might be there. If he wasn’t, there were other players we liked there as well. But he was our targeted player, so for us, we’re very excited to have him.”
Chris Grier:
(You guys went through some terrible luck with edge rushers at the end of last year, including your top two guys who were lost for the season. How much, if at all, did that play into selecting LB Chop Robinson?) – “No, I mean obviously you always look at your roster for what it is, but for us it was, like we’ve talked about, just adding the best players in the draft at that point. He was rated as one of the top players in this draft for us, so adding him, especially rushing the passer in this league with all the great quarterbacks and the skill, the ability to rush with four and not have to blitz every down and stuff, that creates an advantage for the defense. So for us, he was a player that we had in high regard with high grades, for us to add him, we were again very excited to have him.”
Mike McDaniel:
(Is there a scenario where you see LB Chop Robinson, LB Jaelan Phillips and LB Bradley Chubb on the field at the same time? Or do you imagine more of a rotation? I see Head Coach Mike McDaniel looks like he’s in the kitchen right now.) – “All scenarios are alive. I think it’s key to remember, man that team, ‘They just had too many pass rushers, that was their problem,’ that’s never been said. So I think that’s the common denominator, is you know that you’re adding to your team, you feel great about that and you let the players kind of set the orchestration of all the multiple things that you can do. I know our coordinator is not afraid of outside the box, so he might be playing corner, who knows?”
Chris Grier:
(To that point you had mentioned that Defensive Coordinator Anthony Weaver had brought visuals to you about some of the players you guys added in free agency. I was curious his involvement in this process and kind of how he brought his interest in LB Chop Robinson to you guys?) – “It’s been very collaborative and you’ve always heard us talk about it; that’s important because you can’t just have whether it’s just scouts or just coaches saying, ‘This is our guy.’ It’s working together, working through it, whether you see players the same or differently. And for us the collaboration, working through it with not just (Anthony) Weaver but Ryan Crow, the outside linebackers coach, was fantastic and the whole defensive staff as well as the scouts. So we meet individually, we meet as groups, and so we spend a lot of time working through it because it’s an important pick for us. So it was cool working with ‘Weav’ (Anthony Weaver) and the guys and the new guys here and seeing the work ethic. We were presented a packet the other day on Chop which was fantastic that (Ryan) Crow put together for us. So it was very collaborative and it was exciting and really enjoyed it.”
Mike McDaniel:
(On the scale of raw to polished, where do you view LB Chop Robinson’s skillset and toolbox?) – “’Rawlished’? (laughter) I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry.”
Chris Grier:
“His testing numbers are elite and you see all the tools, the things he can do. But is he a finished product? No. And I think he’d probably admit that to you as well, and not many players who come into the league are. So we think he has obviously the get off and speed that everyone talks about as kind of rare and his athletic tools. So I think again for us, he still has a runway to keep improving, but the fact that the guy works hard and has a tremendous motor and toughness to him which gives us really excitement to think he’ll reach his peak of ability that we think he can hit.”
(Do you now go into Day 2 with a focus on o-line, maybe d-tackle with the trenches?) – “I think for us we’ll get together here tomorrow. We’ll go home tonight and then we’ll get together in the morning and look at the board and see who’s up there and kind of put the plan together, but again, it’s taking the best player. Not just roster but whoever the best player is, too, so down where we’re picking, we’ll probably need to see who falls to us and then we’ll see if we’ll get aggressive to go up and get somebody.”
Mike McDaniel:
(How does it feel to finally have that first-round pick under your belt?) – “This is awesome. We should do this more often. (laughter) What was really cool is just knowing that your – just from the organization standpoint and the personnel and coaching staff – having understanding that the assets are real but they’re limited and the focus for preparation for all the different scenarios. I could feel just overall there was a deep dive on every level to be as thorough as possible. I think what was exciting for all of us is the conviction that came out and the vision and the extensive process that we went through and to have the opportunity to add to our football team a guy that has plenty of room to grow, but I think from all departments, we were very, very convicted that he can be productive and help the entirety of the defense while growing and that’s a key component for us, which we talk about disruption, disrupting the passer and all of those things. I think that’s a really cool thing to be able to do, and I hope all first rounds go like they went today because we feel very, very convicted and pumped for the football team.”
Chris Grier:
(In the first round, you had some unexpected events. Six of the first 12 selections were quarterbacks and I think the first 14 were offensive players. What happens in the draft room? Are there phone calls? Are you consulting with other people here? Are there new possibilities? What happens in the draft room?) – “It’s like everything. You do your homework and you talk to a bunch of people. So for us, we had a pretty good idea that five were going to go before our pick, and we were told the possibility of six. So we were kind of working through it. So when you do your homework and work through people and even just digging through our own analytics and going through everything, for us, it wasn’t really a surprise. The phone calls all at that point were really coming into us about people trying to move up to our spot. It was relatively quiet. We had about four or five teams that were trying to move into our spot and as the board kept falling to us, which we thought it would, like you said it kind of fell to where we had it, at that point we decided to stay where we were because the offers weren’t enticing enough for us to move.”
(Did you have any inclination to move up or was 21 kind of where you guys were going to pick?) – “No. As the board was falling, like you said, there were multiple players there that we liked at 21.”
(Just to make sure I heard you correctly earlier, you said that you were on the phone trying to trade back into the first round?) – “Yes.”
(Without a third or fourth rounder, there is a 103-pick drought between your second-round pick and your fifth-round pick. What’s the level of urgency to get back into one of those middle rounds?) – “Again, as the board falls and the players – you never want to get desperate in doing things and moving around. But if opportunities arise, we’ll take a shot and move around.”
(You had mentioned early on about getting to know LB Chop Robinson as a person as well as a player. What stands out to you both in terms of Chop as a person?) – “Really, just getting to know him and who he is as a person, just talking through some of the things that he’s been through in his life and seeing how he’s come out, and just listening to people talk about his character, just in terms of how he loves football and the passion and how he plays and his work ethic and his drive. His whole focus is football. He loves football. He wants to be great. And I think you guys saw his clip of when we talked to him on the phone, he was so excited. He’s ready to come play right now. Just when you meet kids like that who are genuine and you understand that they truly love football and they want to be great and they know that it doesn’t come easy and they’re going to have to work, that gives him a chance to be the player that everyone thinks he is. Again, we’re very excited.”
(You told us last year that we were more worried about the offensive line than maybe you were. I’m just curious 12 months later, you went pass rusher over o-line. OL Graham Barton and others were available at No. 21. What’s your level of confidence right now with where the o-line is?) – “We were talking about that coming in. Like you said last year, it was this and just the level of what (Offensive Line) Coach (Butch) Barry had done with the offensive line, we still think those guys will keep improving, and the job they did last year with how we were moving the ball and scoring and stuff. So we’re very excited. Again, the draft is not over. There’s always still free agency to add pieces to come in. We’re excited with the guys we have in the room. We added a couple of guys through free agency and we’ll keep looking at it, but we’re excited with the guys in the room.”
Mike McDaniel:
(So are you kind of saying that offensive line is a position that we continue to be over-obsessed about that you’re not really that stressed about?) – “We love your passion. (laughter) There’s a lot of good players available. We didn’t feel like there’s any sort of – you try to go into the draft, so Chris and I both share the firm belief that you position yourself as best as you can to take the best available player and allow these players to kind of shape your team. I think it comes off as we’re dismissing, and it’s quite the contrary. We have a really good orchestration of talent evaluation and coaching. With that, we have a room of passionate guys that we know are going to develop. You can only pick one guy and depending on the value relative to the class and historically what produces in the NFL, you take your shot when you recognize the opportunity for your team to get better. I think it’s more of a compliment of the development. I think the one thing you can say is there’s a history of guys getting better and you can understand how people, especially well-informed reporters and fans – if you look at a picture of a player last year, well, part of the thing that our mantra is, is if you’re signing up as a Dolphin, we’re going to invest and develop you. So what you saw last year, our bottom line we’re expecting as coaches and players is that’s a different guy the next time you see him. There’s a lot of positions. There’s a lot of players. I think when guys are continuing to develop, sometimes it can come off like – we’re investing. It’s just in a way of in-house commitment and making sure that we get the right guys that want to develop and we get the right developers.
Chris Grier:
(In college, LB Chop Robinson obviously played some linebacker, some defensive end. Do you see him as a stand-up linebacker? Do you see him as a hand-in-the-ground end? Or both in this scheme that you have?) – “I think it’s some of the versatility that we like. You see it when you watch him. He rushes kind of all over. Inside, he’s over the center, he’s two-point, three-point. So that versatility is what drew us to him initially.”
