HOWIE ROSEMAN: Excited to get Quinyon Mitchell to Philadelphia. I think that for us, as the board kind of came off and a lot of offensive players came off, we felt like we were in a good position at 22 the way it fell for us and the players that were left on the board.
We had a hard decision based on the guys left on the board, but we felt based on the player, based on the totality of the player, his talent, character, and the position, we felt like it was the right pick for us.
Q. At what point did you think it was realistic that he might get to 22, you wouldn't have to trade up?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: I think once we got towards the middle of the round we saw that we were going to be okay and get a first round player at our pick.
I think it was unusual to not have action in that room. We contemplated -- there were some really good players still left. We contemplated going up, but we kept going back to the fact that we felt like we had a really good chance to get a first round player at a position of need where we were picking.
Q. We felt there would be a lot of offense in this first round, the way it went, was that a little surprising to you?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: I don't know that it was necessarily surprising because we go through so many scenarios. We had gone through scenarios where four quarterbacks went, five quarterbacks went, six quarterbacks went, which really affected us a lot. Like I said, we go through the worst case scenario first and work back from there.
From our perspective, maybe a little surprising how late it took for the first defensive player to go. Probably didn't expect that.
Q. Why this cornerback, first cornerback you ever drafted in the first round? Why do you think you're going to get this one right?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Well, I couldn't have got any wrong in the first round if I didn't draft them to be fair, Jeff, right?
(Laughter.)
Yeah, that's fair. So certainly there is over-confidence in the draft for sure. Four out of every ten first round picks don't make it. I understand our success rate at the bottom half of the first round hasn't been as good as earlier in the first round.
We just rely on our process. We rely on who the particular player is. In this case we think we have an extremely talented, hard working outside corner, so he's got all the tools in his body and the right mentality.
We felt like we had really good information. Coach did really good job because of his connections at Toledo relaying those thoughts and us having the same conversations with the coaches.
He really had a great process, and when you think about kind of his -- he had a chance to transfer out of Toledo last year. He stayed there. He came back. He got better. He went to the Senior Bowl. He really checked the whole off-season process boxes one by one off, which is important.
And obviously he's got a lot to prove, as a small school player. The MAC is not the National Football League. We understand that. We've had tremendous success with big schools, so to take a player like this from the MAC, he has to be special, and we think he's a special person.
Q. How valuable were those connections in the building for you?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, sure. You get the information on guys, Howie and his staff do -- they have all these connections everywhere. They get great information on guys.
Just the guy that was able to get some of the information there, obviously with my ties there. You know, really I guess at the end of the day with how good of a player he was the thing that always kept coming up is how good of a person and how good of a teammate and how hard of a worker, how competitive, and those are things you want to hear.
Q. Howie, I know you don't draft necessarily for need, but felt the need to take a cornerback in the first round.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: I think you hit it. We didn't feel like we had a take a corner in the first round but it was the highest ranked player on our board at a position that we would like to get some younger players here. We got some younger players last year and we like those younger players. We wanted to add some competition at the corner position, so we felt like based on those factors.
But I think the most important thing was we didn't jump the board. This guy was standing out on our board. He was the highest ranked guy. You know, it just seemed like a pretty easy pick.
Again, the only reason that it was a hard pick was because there was still a bunch of good players there that we liked. And so I think for us, maybe we just felt like for our situation, what we were looking for, that this was the right player for us.
Again, like you're talking about another really good player there. And, again, these are close decisions.
Q. Howie, off the draft for a second, AJ Brown's extension, what made you want to get it done so early and be so proactive?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, that's the word. We try to be proactive to try to keep this team together. That starts with Jeffrey and his support like we talked about in our pre-draft press conference and just talking about the benefits of trying to keep it together as much as we possibly can.
The only way we can possibly do that is by doing deals early. We felt like it was an opportunity to do that here with AJ. Obviously we've done a bunch of deals with a bunch of our players, and want to add to that and keep this team together as much as we possibly can.
We couldn't do that without his support in allowing us to do that. We felt like the earlier we did that would be better for us and him. And him knowing that he was going to be here and he's a great player. Captain of this team. I think I saw someone show me a stat when we were doing some of research on this, No. 2 in receiving yards in the first five years of his career in NFL history.
Q. 9.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: What's that?
Q. 9.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: He's No. 9, not 2.
Q. He's behind Moss, Rice. It's pretty good company, but he's not -- I just looked it up.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: All right, Roob, stop talking.
9 is good, too. He's had a phenomenal start to his career. He's still young. To be able to keep that core group of offensive players, you know, hopefully kind of add to it, continue to add to it.
Q. Mitchell played a lot of off coverage in college. A lot of the NFL plays that way a little bit without the zones and the Fangio zones.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Vic, did you hear? You have your own zone.
Q. He does a lot of...
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, I think, I mean, he played a tremendous amount the off coverage at Toledo. When we talk about finishing process you got to see him play press coverage at the Senior Bowl. That was an opportunity to see him kind of finish that and be well-rounded.
So I think that really helped us see that he had a diverse array of skillsets there. That was one of the concerns when you see him play, that he's only playing a certain way and he is allowing his eyes to lead him to the ball.
So when he got in people's face at the Senior Bowl, we thought he was one of the best players at the Senior Bowl against really good competition, against really good receiving class. We saw a bunch of them come off today and we will see a bunch of those come off tomorrow.
That was important for us.
Q. What's the future like for Darius Slay and James Bradberry? You have a lot of cornerbacks now. Any thought to potentially moving some of them to safety?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, I think that obviously we talked about both those guys, Slay coming off Pro Bowl year and James working to get back to how he was two years ago.
I think when you talk about corners, O-linemen, D-linemen, you can never have enough of those guys. Throughout the course of the season having guys that can cover people is so important. Obviously been in position over the past few years where we haven't had enough of those guys, whether that's through injury or just kind of not -- running out of guys towards the end of the season.
I think that's a good problem to have. That's what competition -- it shows its way through. We got a lot of practice, a long time to go before we go to Brazil. It's our goal right now to add as much competition as we can to this football team and let it all shake out.
Q. Howie, how big is it to still have 50 and 53 and still get the player you wanted?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, it's really big. I think you go through this draft and my mind isn't really on what we just did. It's on what we're doing next, so I'm a little distracted, so it's hard to talk about in a vacuum one thing. We got a lot of work to do tomorrow and Saturday.
So we are going to try to execute the best we can, and it's a quick turnaround. For us to have a successful weekend we have a lot of work to do.
Q. You mentioned how hard the decision was and Quinyon ended up being the top player on the board. With all the scenarios in front of you, what was the possibility that maybe you didn't get the No. 1 guy left on the board at that time? How hard is that decision?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: I'm confused. What was the question?
Q. You mentioned how Quinyon was the highest player left on the board. With what's ahead of you, how hard is that decision when you may not have that...
HOWIE ROSEMAN: You're saying to wait for him? Was it hard to wait and make sure you got him? Is that what you're asking? It's not normally in my nature to do that, so I understand that.
The only reason we felt comfortable was because the scenarios played out in a way that we were comfortable we were going to get a really good player at that pick based on how the board was going.
The way we do it is if we're at pick 15, we got to have as many players that we like. When they start to fall off and we get in a spot where we don't have as many players as our pick, we start looking to move up.
So if we're at 15 and only have three players left that have first round grades, it's a concern, so you try it move up. When you're there and, Roob, do the math for me. How many players do we have to go before 15? The eighth player, we get the eighth player.
So when we are there and see we have eight players and then 16 at 7 and so on and so on, then we know we have a preference on that. But if they're all having the same grades then we feel good sitting.
For us it's like as long as we're in the same tier of grade in that round, so we are sitting there and still have a first-round grade on seven or eight guys at that point, we feel comfortable sitting.
If we got to a low number, then we try to move up. If we got over that number, we move back. Those are the other options there, is do you move back at that spot and pass on a guy that you feel really good at but maybe get good value. I think those are some of the discussions we have.
I think based on the experience that I've had, is that sometimes you try to get too cute and we can't afford to get too cute. We're trying to build the best possible team.
I was really trying to answer your question.
Q. (Regarding Senior Bowl.) Do you think he has inside-out versatility or more outside corner?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: For us, the important thing he focuses on one thing as a rookie. That's Coach and his staff's choice, but when we talk about him, we talk about him as an outside corner and kind of working from there.
You do watch him and see him play some inside, so he's got that versatility. We'll get him in here and see what he's comfortable doing with our coaches and work him from there.
Q. You've spoken about the lack of first round corners here. What's your sense of the adjustment, learning curve for rookie corners?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, obviously for any position there is an adjustment to be made in college football to NFL football.
I think -- I don't necessarily say it's more than the other positions. I know you mentioned a couple guys that when I think about those couple two guys they played really good football their first year.
So we're just really excited about the player. We are excited about the person. Couldn't be more excited to have him on our football team.
Q. A year ago you guys -- Jalen and a lot of people thought you might've got the best player in the draft at No. 9. Do you feel like you got that much of an improvement over the actual pick talent-wise? The question is he a lot higher on your board than 22?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, once you draft them it's what they do in the NFL. We bring them in here and we talk about it a lot, we got to develop the player and the person. We're still talking about a young guy coming to Philadelphia, and I think that's -- at this point it's all what he does from here.
Whatever happened pre-draft, none of that matters. Wherever they're picked, none of that matters. It's what they do from here on. Obviously wouldn't have picked him.
Someone said in our draft room during this week, by definition you're the high bidder on any player that you pick, so obviously we're the high bidder on this guy, and I thought that was a unique depressing way to look at it.
Any time you think you're getting someone really high, you're really the high bidder. I think that obviously for us as we went through outcomes, we felt like this would be been a good outcome as we went through the draft.
History is yet to be written.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports