Chris Grier and Mike McDaniel – April 26, 2024
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Friday, April 26, 2024
General Manager Chris Grier and Head Coach Mike McDaniel
Chris Grier:
(Does that mean you’re trading back into the third and working on it if you’ve got to get back up to the room?) – “The draft is still going on, so again, you never know what opportunities may come. Whether it’s someone just reaching out and availability on a trade or something. For us, we wanted to do you guys a favor, so we could come meet with you now, and in case something doesn’t happen, you guys can go home early. (laughter)”
(What appealed to you about T Patrick Paul? Also can he play right tackle as well as left?) – “Yes, we feel confident that he can swing. Obviously, he’s been a left tackle. He’s someone that we spent a lot of time with. We met with him at the Senior Bowl for a while, at the Combine. We had him here on a 30 Visit. He was very enthusiastic about his intentions of wanting to play here. He really enjoyed his interactions with the coaching staff and us, watching him on film and some of the things we liked about how he plays. And he knows he’s got some things to work on. He’s very honest and direct, and that’s what we really appreciated. We’re very excited to work with him because we think he’s very talented player.”
(What is it about the wingspan and the size that appeased you guys the most?) – “Just his athletic ability for a guy as big as he is. Just even when he’s not perfect with technique, which (Offensive Line Coach) Butch (Barry) and Mike (McDaniel), the staff here and (Offensive Coordinator) Frank (Smith) have all shown that’s a point that’s emphasized around here very heavily. So for him, even when he’s not perfect, when you have a guy that big with that length that he can still block people at times when he’s not right. The changes that he made from last season even in college to this season, you can see the growth in the player and wanting to get better. We’re excited. We think he has another level he can take it to, and he wants to. That’s an important part that he wants to be good and wants to be coached.”
(Is there a possibility of guard for him at all or is he just purely a tackle?) – “I think right now we just want him at tackle, but we don’t box people in. Mike (McDaniel) just said he could play fullback for us if he wanted. (laughter)”
(T Terron Armstead already contemplated retirement this offseason. Is this a potential plan in place in case he does decide to just play one more year?) – “No, I think you’re always looking at your roster, like we’ve talked about. Again, this was a player that we liked and spent a lot of time with. Following our board, he was the highest rated player on our board left still. We don’t really chase positions trying to draft out of need. This is a player that we liked at a position that can add depth and grow and compete for a role here in the future.”
Mike McDaniel:
(What about his football IQ, his smarts? Somebody at Senior Bowl told me that he is smart enough that he could play center, not that he will play center. What about his football IQ and what kind of factor was that?) – “I think he has a yearning for the knowledge. He’s very, very hungry and very capable. He’s excited to have some of his game worked on through coaching, and he’s eager to make steps in his game. To me, he exhibited how easily it would be for him to immerse into what he needs to immerse into, to adjust to our scheme. It’s rare when you get a guy that’s focused on being great at a size and length that he has with the quickness, balance and athleticism to play the position on multiple levels. Very confident that this is a guy – the personnel department was way in front of this. We met him at the Combine and had him in here. (We) spent a lot of time with him, and he shared some exuberance on wanting to be a Dolphin, so he’s all the way Fins up right now.”
Chris Grier:
(It looks like he has the longest arms of all these 32 tackles I’m looking at here. Is that accurate? How long are his arms? I don’t mean the number, I mean from your impressions, and how can that impact him on the field?) – “The first thing Mike (McDaniel) and everyone joked about when he came on his visit, he fills up the hallway when he walked in. (laughter)”
Mike McDaniel:
“No, seriously. It’s like more of the hallway is filled than not.”
Chris Grier:
“(laughter) But again, it’s like you – even when he’s not perfect, which it happens in our league and college all the time, that length allows him to recover because he is so long and he’s got some strength and power to him that it enables him to recover, even at times. So that’s an intriguing thing with all the tackles. Everyone talks about length, athletic ability and size, and those things you can’t teach. He has that in abundance.”
Mike McDaniel:
“I am a sucker for length (in) guys that like to play with their hands so they actually can use it.”
Chris Grier:
(You guys have mentioned development a few times with him. Is that something where you put together a plan ahead of time of drafting a player to develop him over the course of his time here? Or do you kind of make the selection and then think about how the plan looks from developing his technique and everything.) – “I think every player needs development when they come in, so I think when we say that, it’s just we don’t think any player comes in readymade, no matter who it is. From the first pick to the (last), they all have something they need to work on. I think the good thing about Mike (McDaniel) and the staff, it’s always talking about development. Even with our guys that are starters here, still talking about developmental plans, whether it’s Jaelan Phillips or something. It’s always development and that’s the core principle of Mike and his staff, and I think that’s why you saw the jump in a lot of player’s ability and the things they have done on the field over the last couple of years.”
Chris Grier:
(A couple times you’ve mentioned his exuberance in wanting to come here. Is there an example, something he said or did?) – “It was just – from Day 1 at the Combine, because we had already spent some time with him at the Senior Bowl, and he came in the room. Once he met Mike (McDaniel) and spent time with (Offensive Line Coach) Butch (Barry) and the other coaches down there and the meetings stuff, he enjoyed the meeting and talking ball and being around the coaching staff and the scouts. Then on the visit here, he had expressed to us, ‘I don’t want to be anywhere but here.’ And then all through early this morning up to our pick, it was a barrage of text messages, not from him, from his agent saying, ‘The kid is driving me crazy. He wants to be here.’ (laughter)”
Mike McDaniel:
“And it kind of speaks to what we’re talking about, he has a vision. He’s not paying attention – in our minds, he’s watching how players were developed on the team by (Offensive Line Coach) Butch (Barry), (Offensive Coordinator) Frank (Smith) and everyone, so when we say he was yearning for the opportunities because he wants to work and wants to develop his game and is super eager to do it. He was a pretty giant man with a giant, strong handshake letting us know from the Combine on that he thought this was a fit, and clearly, we agreed.”
(Your first two picks have both been guys with off-the-chart measurables that you think there’s a huge growth opportunity for them. How do you, in the short time you’ve spent with them, really get a feel for, “Hey, these guys have what it takes to make what’s going to be a big leap?) – “It’s a whole process. It all starts with all the work that the scouts do in the fall of talking to coaches, strength coaches, whether it’s janitors at places, cafeteria workers, just to get who they are – their high school coaches, things like that. Then as we get to meet them from All-Star games to Combine, you start to piece things together and get to know who they are. I think everything usually reveals who they are at some point through that whole process, because even if you’re trying to fake it, you can’t sustain it over that long of a period of time. So here on a 30 Visit again, we had him in here and spent all day with him and really enjoyed him. And nothing changed from when we had met him at all of those different times, and it matched up with all the information the guys had gathered, and then coaches follow up with their connections at schools and places that have coached him over time. So you’re just piecing all that information together to make you comfortable, and both these kids have come in and it’s their love of football, their passion, how they want to be good, and so it makes you feel good. You know you’re never 100% (right) as we all know, but we feel good about the process.”
(Did you have conversations tonight or today about moving up or moving down in this round?) – “Yeah, we had a couple opportunities possibly, but you know how there was so movement as you saw in front of us that teams had better offers here and there. We had a bunch of offers for our pick. We had a bunch that were – a couple were enticing, but not enough for us to move from not taking Patrick (Paul).”
Mike McDaniel:
(Coach, you mentioned a few times getting off the football for offensive linemen. How does T Patrick Paul measure up in that category?) – “It’s intriguing to have – off the tape, you’re like ‘Wow, this is a big guy.’ But there’s position functionality and an athlete that has the foot quickness to cut off a B-gap or get the four-technique to the second level with urgency. That projects as some cool displacement as a tool for a blocker, and again, that’s why we keep talking about the human being tied to the player, because those types of things he has the ability to be really good at with a lot of deliberate work and motivation to do so. Those nuances, he’s totally fit to really do well in our footwork fundamentally, and we feel very confident he’s willing to put in the work to master the craft.”
Chris Grier:
(Obviously this is not like picking a first-round quarterback where you call your existing quarterback, but T Terron Armstead is obviously a guy you have great respect for and is an elite player in the league. I know you mentioned your communication with him this offseason. Did it ever come up that you might take someone who could eventually succeed him down the road? And is he the ideal guy with the character he has to help nurture someone at his position?) – “Yeah, Terron (Armstead) is fantastic dealing with it. We felt strong that we didn’t need to communicate with him on this because he knows – he’s always like ‘take an offensive lineman.’ (laughter) The cool thing about him is he loves to mentor these guys, so I think if you were to talk to Austin (Jackson) and Rob Hunt and Liam (Eichenberg) and all of them, I think that’s a big part of the work that (Offensive Line Coach) Butch (Barry) and Mike (McDaniel) and (Offensive Coordinator) Frank (Smith) put in, but also what Terron, behind the scenes with these guys, does. He spends a lot of time and likes to pass it on to the younger guys. He will be very enthused to work with him, and we’re excited that Patrick (Paul) is the right kind of person to come in and work with our group.”
Mike McDaniel:
“It’s funny, we kind of knew Terron (Armstead) would be excited. How Terron views himself and how he’s become such a player in this league is Terron’s not worried about someone outplaying him. Just like how he came out from a small school and had people invest in him, he loves paying it forward. He’ll be the most excited. He might already have a jersey of his.” (laughter)
(When you think about developing T Patrick Paul, what are the specific areas that you want to see him improve once you get him in here?) – “Literally, you want people to have the willingness to improve everything. And it’s not like cliché. It’s more like if you have the mindset that ‘I’m good on this,’ that mindset is not – you have to come in hearing with intentionality the process with which we teach, and from his stance to how he’s coming off the ball and his overall mindset, that’s never done. He’s trying to master a new scheme. I think all of the stuff is on the table while he develops the type of athlete and what Chris (Grier) was alluding to is he’s able to block people a little out of position. What we look at is how easy or impactful that block would be if everything was aligned. So especially for offensive linemen coming into our system, every day is very valuable. From stance and start, that’s probably the first thing that you master is how we come off the ball. For that to be impactful against an opponent, we want it to be the fastest, the quickest, the most deliberate that anyone does in the National Football League. So you have to train that and make it consistent, and then you move onto the next thing. But all is on the table, not because there’s a hole, more because we’re going to coach this guy to be the best player he can be and we know he wants to be great.”
