Chris Grier – April 17, 2019
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Wednesday, April 17, 2019
General Manager Chris Grier
(When do you go over the game plan with Chairman of the Board/Managing General Partner Steve Ross or have you all created a game plan?) – “We’ve updated him where it is now. We’ve hit it pretty hard. Our scouts were in town for two weeks where we ran through the draft board and did some follow-ups with the doctors last night and had our security meeting as well. The plan, it’s etched in pencil, but it’s pretty solid right now. We still have a couple days here this week we’ll go through things and get through the rest on the field this week, and then next week we’ll finish it up – probably Monday or Tuesday of next week.”
(When you’re picking at 13, do you have a pool of 15 guys and you only get one of them? How does that work because you’re in the middle of the first round and there are a lot of things are out of your control?) – “Obviously, you have to stack your board for how you like it. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where you pick. You have to decide as you’re grading for your team and how you view the players for how they fit your system and for what the coaching staff’s looking for. You just end up stacking the board. How many numbers of players in the first round, whatever that number is, that’s where it falls. After that, you start looking at … You talk about scenarios whether it’s trading up, trading down, what will it take to move here, move there or what would we want if someone came up. You start talking about all that stuff and we’ve been doing that with (Vice President of Football Administration) Brandon Shore as well, so it’s been fun.”
(How certain are you that you will get offensive line help in the first three rounds of this draft?) – “I would say we feel good about it. But again, you go through your process and how it falls and how players get picked, it’s out of our control at 13. It’s an area we’re going to look to upgrade just like every positon on our roster.”
(How much communication do you try to have in advance with clubs to let them know, “In this round, maybe in all rounds, we’re open to trading up or down?”) – “It started way back at the owners’ meetings. Every team does it. Every guy comes up (and says), ‘Hey, if you’re interested in coming down,’ or ‘We might be interested in coming up.’ You stay in touch with a few teams here or there, but over the next week or so, it’ll really start to heat up – I would guess probably especially next Monday, Tuesday.”
(How interested in general do you feel you want to be in being active and not just necessarily staying in your spot in the draft?) – “(We’re) wide open to anything. Again, whatever helps us as an organization to get better and keep upgrading the talent here, we’ll definitely do that. Wide open to anything.”
(Is there a draft where you want more picks or a draft where you want higher picks?) – “Again, it’s always tough because like last year we didn’t expect Minkah (Fitzpatrick) to be there at 11. Again, once that happens, you kind of see how it starts to fall after the first seven or eight picks maybe and then you’ll start, ‘Okay, it looks like there may be four guys that we like that look like are there.’ Alright, as we get closer to our pick, you’re two picks away, ‘okay looks like there will be guys definitely available that we like,’ and then we’ll be aggressive trying to move back. Also, if there’s one or two guys we feel really good about and they fall into eight or nine of the picks, ‘Hey, maybe it’s worth us going to get this guy, because we feel that strongly as an organization.’”
(Before you came in, we were having a debate about the last three years whether you had final say in the draft. Did you have final say in the draft the last three years?) – “Yes, I did. It was a collaboration, as you know. You know me, as we talked about, I’m not going to force a coach to take a player, because that doesn’t work. If the coach doesn’t want a player and I say, ‘No, we’re taking him,’ and then it works out one way or the other, good; but if it doesn’t, it creates that animosity and then the distrust and it’s not worth it, because you’ve been around here long enough and you’ve seen a lot of that happen. I’m not going to force any player on anyone. But yes, I had the final say.”
(So is this year any different?) – “No. You know me, I’m going to be very collaborative and that’s the only way it works. Again, you guys have all heard stories here and stuff from the past. It’s a combination of coaching staff, personnel, all working together, having the same vision, getting on the same page together of picking the players that we feel are good fits for us as an organization.”
(Your thoughts this year about trading down in relation to if you think you have a good player at 13, would you trade down and take the chance at two so-so players in the 20s of the first round?) – “I would say you should always have – and again this is just me – a list of maybe a handful of guys that you definitely take no matter where. They’re there, these are the guys you’re taking and these are the guys we feel are impact players. As you move down and get closer and you get there and there’s a group of players who are good players and we’ve got three at that pick, you may say, ‘Alright, we can move back a few spots and get one of these guys for sure and create some more picks for later in the draft.’
(Given how many needs there are and that you’re just starting this rebuilding program, is it not maybe a little bit more likely that you might try to go for a maximum number of picks this year rather than, for a lack of a better term, quality all the way at the top?) – “Again, like I said, what happens before us is out of our control in terms of how we like and how other teams view players. I would say if there was a player that fell that we thought was an impact, franchise-type player, then we would talk about it. Again, some of the moves we’ve made this offseason has given us the ability to move, even if moving some of our picks next year to move up to help us. I would say, again, everything is wide open for us.”
(There’s been a lot of debate about this year’s quarterbacks class. How would you evaluate this year’s class? Is it as strong as last year or maybe not quite as strong – how would you see it?) – “We didn’t spend a lot of time with a lot of those guys last year. We obviously thought a couple of those quarterbacks last year were really special. I think this class is a good class of quarterbacks. I would say that, again, like all of them, this class probably has some players that haven’t started as many games as you would like to see in terms of helping paint the picture for what they could be, so it’s a little more projection on a lot of them. I would say overall, it’s a good quarterback class.”
(Is it fair to say that even if it’s not in the first or second round that you would like in some round to take at least one quarterback this year?) – “Yeah. I mean we’d like to upgrade all of the positions – like I said, the depth, to create the competition to make everyone better. But again, we’re not going to reach for anyone just to take one and do it, because then you’re passing on a player just for a need at that point because everyone feels we need to get better. At that point, if you get down and are just reaching in the third round but you’re passing on a guy that could be a starting tackle or something, then you’ve hurt your franchise.”
(Do you see any potential franchise quarterbacks in this draft?) – “There could be. That’s every class. Quarterbacks have been so hit and miss. If you study them, fifty percent or less end up becoming even good starting quarterbacks. So it’s hard to say. But every class has one or two quarterbacks that become a good player in the league.”
(Are you in the Bill Parcells clan where they believe that starting quarterbacks, you need more than one year, you need a good substantial sample size of college starts to really understand who he is?) – “You’ve got going with the old Bill quarterback thing. (laughter) I do think it’s important, the starts, because it helps paint the picture because the guy has seen and played more football. But these kids nowadays are playing 7-on-7 football. You see the tournaments that are going on – they had one at, I think, St. Thomas (Aquinas) last week. These guys have been doing this, throwing the football and doing all these camps, working with these quarterback gurus, some of these kids since high school. A lot of them have been exposed to more probably than what they were back in the day in terms of the football knowledge. I think it’s part of the picture in terms of when you’re talking about a player, but I don’t think it should rule you out from ever picking somebody.”
(The defensive line is talent-rich this draft. How many of those guys, inside or outside, would you say are elite defensive linemen?) – “Off the top of my head, there’s probably five. Again, it’s going to be scheme specific. Some will be really good 30-front fits and other guys will be the 40-front. I’d say there’s five really good players that you feel really good about. After that, maybe (not) elite, but then there’s a lot of good players too.”
(Numbers wise, you will probably have an opportunity at one of those five, right, because everybody won’t need them?) – “Yeah, we have a chance. I would think so. Again, it’s like with the quarterbacks. Who knows? If people feel there’s quarterbacks here, you may have everyone trade up to try and get quarterbacks early. It’s always hard to say.”
(The d-line generally is acknowledged as the best position in the draft. Do you see any other positions outside of that stand out to you as being really strong ?) – “The receiver class is probably deeper than people think. It’s a deep class. I think you can get good value picks for the first three rounds there. I would say it’s a good offensive line class as well. A lot of potential of guys to be really good. There are kind of some young players that maybe have to mature a little more but I do think it has a chance to end up – if all those kids do things the right way – has a chance to be a good offensive line class as well.”
(You mentioned potential. How do you weigh potential versus production and which one do you prioritize?) – “It’s always hard because you’ll have some 21-year-old kids that have, lack of a better word, been coddled a little bit. Now, they’re going into a man’s world now where you’re going to have to block men and you’re going to have to do things the right way. You can’t take plays off or time off. I was joking with a guy that we had in on a visit that’s a good player here on a 30-visit … I was telling him, and he self-admitted, I said ‘I watched you against this top 10 team and you dominated, you played great, then I watched you against (a team like) Appalachian State blocking a guy like me and guys were running around you.’ He goes ‘Yeah, I get up for the big games.’ He’s like ‘I have to be better focused.’ I said ‘You realize you’re going to a league where every week you’re playing someone at the top.’ He’s like ‘I know, I’m working at it.’ That’s what you deal with a lot of these kids. You’re trying to determine if they’re going to be mature enough and if they’re going to have that love for the game to do things the right way.”
(When you hear something like that, does it turn you off or is that something where you’re like, can we shape that guy, can we get that out of him? Or are you like at this point you should have it?) – “It’s a little bit of a concern, but also the guy is 21 years old. You kind of weigh it because there have been a lot of good players in this league that have had those issues that may have not gotten drafted like they should have, but then they become great players in this league because whether they matured or got with their coaching staff that pushed them to do things a different way, or some veteran on the team took him under his wing and the guy matured and became a good player. There’s so many factors when you’re dealing with human beings.”
(From you chair, do you expect S Reshad Jones to be on the team this year? Have you been given information that he’s seeking a trade? Where do you stand on Reshad Jones?) – “No. I haven’t given him permission to seek a trade. He doesn’t want a trade, at least he has not informed me. Reshad is going to be here. I’ve known Reshad as long as anybody here. I ended up going up before the draft and ended up spending a full day with him trying to get to know him … I ended up spending a lot of time getting to know him and trying to figure out who he was as a person. I like Reshad a lot. This is a voluntary camp. He chose not to be here. We’d love to have him here. He’s a Miami Dolphin, but he’s earned the right to do it. He’s not the only guy in the league doing it. It’s voluntary and we know how this game is for these guys. No, we have not given him permission and he has not asked.”
(What are some of the factors and things you’re going to consider when you’re wresting between a top two offensive tackle vs. a top five offensive lineman? What are some things you’re going to take into consideration when at 13 that could be a decision you’d have to make?) – “Obviously when you’re making that pick at 13, you want guys that are tough, competitive, the passion for football. I think you talk about smart and will do things the right way. If you’re going to miss, you want to make sure you give yourself as small a margin for error as you can in terms of when you’re taking someone. You look for all of those traits and at the end of the day, it always falls out inevitably when you talk to coaches and stuff. We’ll go through it and go through the roster and talk about it. If they are both equal and they are both there on draft day, then we’ll make a decision depending on what we value more for our team and roster going forward.”
(Do you sometimes say, ‘We can get this position in the next round?’ In your experience, how has that worked out when it’s really close? Do you say ‘we think the position group is stronger in the next round or two’ until you go to the other position?) – “Yes. There’s always deeper positions, like we’ve talked about. We talked about the receivers being a position where there is value. But you never want to bank on saying ‘I’m going to get this guy in the second round.’ Because inevitably it always come back to well ‘we missed’ and he goes three picks before you. You just go through your process with the board and stacking it the way that you feel and how you will take them. We have all of those conversations where it’s this nose tackle versus this wide receiver, where are we in terms of needs for the roster. We go through it but again you have to take the best player for the team at that point in time.”
(How many starters will you hope to get out of this draft?) – “I’m sure like every team, we’d love to have seven starters. (laughter) As we all know it’s not always perfect in terms of picking human beings and projecting them from college to pro. We all know that’s not realistic but if we can get three starters and good contributors as backups, we’d be happy with that. That’s always the goal to at least come out with hopefully three starters and hopefully the rest will be gravy.”
(Every draft is important obviously but when you’re building almost exclusively through the draft, as maybe you might this year, does that not raise the level of this really needs to be a great draft for it to pop for us for it to raise the level of the team?) – “Yes. For me, the pressure is self-imposed. I want every draft to be great. I’m like everyone, I would like every pick to work and everyone saying how great of a job you do. But it’s going to happen. You’re going to miss on guys and get criticized. At the end of the day, when you build through the draft, it’s important. The most important this is making sure the coaches and scouts are all on the same page with what we’re looking for, so we can try and eliminate the mistakes that are inevitably going to happen but you want to try to limit to maybe one a draft or something like that.”
(DE Charles Harris has had a slow start. He is your first draft pick under your name as general manager. A lot of concerns about scheme fit, obviously the scheme is changing now, but how do you ensure that the scheme is right with what they are doing running a hybrid defense considering not everybody fits every scheme?) – “There will be a lot of guys in terms of the roster that may not be ideal fits for what coach is doing. I’ll let him talk about scheme and all of that stuff. In regards to a player like Charles, yeah they are excited to work with Charles because they had said that they liked him previously when they had seen him coming out of college at Missouri. They’re going to work with him. They think that they can do some things to help him. Charles is dealing with the wrist thing trying to get healthy now. They are excited for his future; but yeah, whenever you change schemes and coaches, there always is going to be some misfit pieces. The one good thing we love about Brian (Flores) is in New England, he found a way to getting guys to play better. Hopefully that’s the case here.”
