Q. When you traded up for Cooper, I think there were four, or three or four cornerbacks that came up right after that. Did you get a sense as the draft is going along, we have to get up there because we smell a run coming?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, and I think really when you get to the start of a day, and I think the second day and the third day are different than the first day obviously, you get a sense just overnight and being around your people, you know, what you're really passionate about. There is not a lot of secrets in this anymore. Everyone has the same information.
I remember being in Alabama one year wit Ozzie Newsome and he said, everyone knows. There is nobody you're drafting today, tomorrow, that somebody going to look up and go, who is that guy? Everyone has this information.
It's just really your order of preference. So when you get to a day like today and certain guys stick out, you want to go get those guys. For us, Cooper was a consideration yesterday, and we thought one of the best defensive players in the draft. Obviously we took a guy that we loved as well yesterday.
And so we made a concerted effort to try to go get him. Really excited to add him and his skillset to our team.
Q. He said that you guys talked to him about all three positions, the versatility that he brings was one of his hallmarks in college.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Is it versatility?
Q. Versatility. Sorry. That's fair. Do you have a preference watching him when he comes in here what position he'll play?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, he's such a good player. You know, I think whatever he does he's going to do at a high level. Obviously we'll get him in here, and like everything else on this team, see how the pieces fit when Coach and his staff get their hands on these guys.
Q. Nick, how do you figure out the balance on a player that has that kind of versatility with using that but not overwhelming him when he gets here?
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, all depends on the player, all depends on the different positions we're asking him to learn. Not every guy that has versatility, not every position on defense is obviously the same thing, way to learn it.
You figure that out as you go. We also know that guy has high football IQ and we'll see what he can handle, you know, see where he falls.
Q. Howie, you were here in 2002 when the Eagles drafted Sheldon.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: And Michael.
Q. And Michael Lewis as well. Obviously at the time it seemed crazy because Bobby and Troy were really good. Obviously in the long run it worked out. How much was that on your mind?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, think we're all a product of our experiences, and I saw like obviously those guys played for us in the Super Bowl, and I think that Coach Reid had always -- has always done a great job of being a year ahead.
I think that's one of the lessons that I got to learn from him working with him, for him. So I think from our perspective, obviously that's always in the back of the mind when we're making picks.
At the forefront of it is guys that can help the football team right now. We think we're a good team and we're trying to do whatever we can to help the football team.
Q. Any scenarios, was he ever someone that you discussed first round?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: He was. He was a first-round player for us. You know, Jeffrey said this tonight, you know, it's rare for us to be picking in the 20s and to get two first-round players. You know, both those guys were first-round players for us.
We didn't have 32 first round guys, so when you get that opportunity to get two first-round guys, especially picking where we were, we felt like it was an opportunity and it was obviously an area we wanted to address.
We felt like we addressed a lot of the areas of our football team through free agency, but that was one area we could address, and there are a couple more we would like to address here.
I think that's one of the reasons we try to accumulate picks at the end of the day today, to try to see if we can accumulate some of those players tomorrow.
Q. What was the rational for trading back twice? Did you think you could get Jalyx at 94 as opposed to 78?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: I don't know, every time DJ's best available came on I got a little worried, my guy over there. You think you get a guy from Houston Christian and nobody is going to know. Goes to the point. Everybody knew him. He was at Senior Bowl.
For us, the values were good. Those were good trades for obviously those teams that wanted the players, and we felt like they were for us and what we're trying to accomplish here in the third and fourth rounds.
When we looked at our boards, that's a good portion of the draft for us. We like where the draft is tomorrow. We think we're going to get an opportunity to add some good players tomorrow in the fourth and fifth rounds.
Q. When you look at Cooper on the outside, what do you see? By all accounts he's very good.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, well, again, the guy has every tool in his body. He is an elite athlete, elite competitor. You know, he's done really everything on the football field. We haven't even talked about his ability to return and make key plays.
You know, you get a chance and you talk to people at Iowa and they talk about how legendary of a player, of a career that this guy has had, his ability to make big plays in big moments of game.
Obviously that Minnesota play, that punt return that got called back, Jon Ferrari says he's going to talk to him about his fair catch if he gets a chance to punt return.
I think you saw his freshmen year in the bowl game and Wan'Dale Robinson took -- caught the ball and was -- he tackled him down from the one from the other side of the field. He's just got football instincts. He's the type of guy wherever you put him he's going to play really well.
He's got great character and just excited to add him.
Q. (Speaking over one another.)
HOWIE ROSEMAN: No. You know, I don't think that we did. You know, we went into this draft feeling like we had an opportunity to kind of stick to our board. I think that during the first round it seemed pretty obvious to us that it was going to pay off being patient.
I think we woke up today and felt like it would pay off being a little bit aggressive. Then when we came into the third round, saw where the board was, and took some phone calls. Felt like it was our advantage to move down and try to accumulate picks for tomorrow.
So I think you can go in with a plan, but because you're subject to so many other teams and what they're going to do, you have to be able to adjust and see what's going on and be able to do that kind of on your feet.
Luckily we got great staff and great people in the draft room and we're able to communicate and kind of come up with a plan that maybe kind of was different than when we walked into the draft room.
I think for us, I think it's a good start. It's hard for me -- we talked about this last night -- to really see the clear picture until we finish tomorrow and see how it all shapes out.
Just looking at last year, I felt like the third day really solidified feeling good about the draft class. So we got a lot of the work ahead of us tomorrow.
Q. Jalyx has a very limited experience playing edge rusher. What give you guys the confidence he can become an NFL caliber edge rusher?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, he's got freaky tools in his body. He's an explosive guy. If you watch his best plays, he's doing things that are unique. He can bend. He can close. He can finish. He's long. He's an extremely smart kid obviously coming from Cornell.
You know, we feel like we got a good edge rush group. He doesn't have to come in here and we're going to develop him like we talk about.
This is a perfect developmental guy for us because of the tools in his body and his character and work ethic, and we think we can really find something with him. That's on us. That's on how he's going to work.
You know, you can say, well, that's the third round and you're a good team, why are you doing that? Because these guys are hard to find. We believe in the edge rusher and we just felt like there was a tremendous buy-in from our staff about this player. Obviously from the coaching staff, from the front office we thought this guy had tremendous tools.
When you get guys like that it's exciting to see what they can become. Again, we feel like we like our edge group. We didn't have to add there, but it's exciting to get a guy like this.
Q. ...guys from smaller programs that you guys drafted so far, which seems like a departure from recent philosophy. What's the reason for that?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: They're the best players. I don't think that -- I think that, you know, the SEC guys are still playing against great competition. I think these were kind of two extenuating circumstances because of the particular guys. Probably wouldn't say it's going to be a trend.
Q. Nick, it's our first time asking about the kickoff rule changes. How has what you're looking for changed there, and is that a place where...
NICK SIRIANNI: Yeah, good question, Zach. Obviously we spend a lot of time working on that, myself, Coach Clay, the special teams staff, you know, even the defensive and offensive coaches. Without giving to much into it, obviously game one I know there will be some things in pre-season. I am assuming not going to be a lot of people showing what they're going to do. So game one, we have to hold some unfortunate our secrets until then.
But obviously Cooper is very versatile. Not only the things he can do on defense, but also on special teams. We've all seen all these plays that he made as a returner. So, yeah, he'll factor into it, but we got a long way to go before we're at that point and we need to show that.
But we're excited about him on this football team, not only as defensive player, but special teams player a well.
Q. You mentioned the Senior Bowl for Jalyx. Is that when he got on the radar? What's the scouting process like that for a player from a small school?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Our guys do a great job getting guys on radar. First time was in August. These guys take a couple weeks off after the draft and they get right back on spring scouting so by the time we come back from training camp, they do a tremendous job of setting the table for me. They know I know I do a lot of work in August during training camp when we have practices, no pre-season games. It's a great chance for me to get a head start on the class before things get really busy, roster cuts and you get the season.
So when I come back here in July, they'll have 400 reports in the system. Right away our guys saw him and saw this guy had unique talent for a small-school guy. Then through the process, he kind of rose. Just watching him there, our guys were there, I was not there, but obviously watching the tape and then getting a chance to sit down with him and then we brought him in here to get with our support staff as well and our performance staff to kind of see where we could grow him a little bit so he could get a head start if we got him in.
Met with the defensive coaching staff, and so he's an interesting guy for sure. Those guys are hard to find and so we're excited to work with him.
Q. Is it difficult to figure out where you can land them in the draft?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, it is. I think that as one of the guys that you started to hear a lot of the buzz on him. We do all these mock drafts and you start seeing his name in the second and third round.
You know, I think it starts out with a guy, you kind of are going, all right, maybe I can get this guy on the third day, and then you start seeing a bunch of mock drafts with his name in it in the second and third round and you start seeing DJ's list. You realize there are no more secrets.
I think for us, obviously we took some chances because we were picking at 78. We moved back. I think we went to 86 and moved back, and then I think right in between those picks I think that's when DJ's big board came on the screen and it was best available and he was the third guy.
I wanted to text him and tell him to delete that. I don't think he would listen to me at that point. For us then it was just like we didn't want to get -- we want to develop the player. I think one of our scouts, after we picked him, said, man, where can this guy be in two years? What kind of pass rusher?
We believe he has an ability to be a small-school rusher that really can ascend and we feel like we have the right coaches and the right support system.
Q. In terms of Cooper DeJean's makeup, how much did you do on him? This is a kid that was a Mr. Iowa and barely got a big college scholarship.
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Iowa is pretty big time football.
Q. I think only one he had an offer from. Sam Houston State was the other one. How did that affect him and what did you find out about him and how he was able to persevere through that? And he just said even yesterday, he was a little frustrated by not going in the first round?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, he's -- how do I say this in a not insulting way? He's determined. I had another one. You knew where I was going. Wouldn't have worked. No, no, no.
He's a determined guy. You know I think this guy, he is all ball all the time. When he came in here, you know, it's like you see him and it's one track mind. How am I going to improve football, work at football. I think our fans are going to love this guy.
I think this guy is got an incredible skillset. You know, I know just from talking to bunch of my friends in the league after we made the trade, you know, it was like I think most of the league thought this guy would go yesterday.
I think there were opportunities, and sometimes you're picking between two guys and you pick a guy and then the guy just falls because of the draft order.
But he certainly was one of the guys when we were going over scenarios that we would've considered at 22 depending how the board went, and would've been really excited to get him.
Obviously made a trade here with a team in our division. Probably didn't win on any of those charts going on in the internet for sure, but felt like it was the right thing to do our for us and our team.
Q. You mentioned that ability to reset after day one, day two. With day three coming up, you do so much work on this thing. Whether it's going up to get Cooper today, Kelee last year, with that overnight, how much can things change?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Well, we don't change grades. You know, that's one of the things that we were upstairs, Jeffrey certainly won't let us change grades because of a need or anything like that. That's the scenario. He makes sure we stay true to our process.
It's about passion. At this point you write up so many guys and you have so many grades on so many players. Who are you passionate about? Who do we really want on this team? And let's go get that guy.
Or when we're in a position to pick, when you look at the board it's vertical, horizontal, and when you look from a horizontal perspective, even though the grades are the same, you're at this point in the draft, you're not looking at positions. You're going, who are we really passionate about and can develop into a player that's really going to make a difference on and off the field for our team?
So that's what I mean. We did that a little bit. We got more time obviously last night going into today and coming in the office and discussing that. Quicker turnaround tomorrow, so we did that a little bit here at the end of the draft. We'll go back up a little bit now, think about it, kind of sleep on some things.
Then we got a great meeting tomorrow at 10:00 tomorrow. We bring in all the scouts, coordinators, and we'll just have a passion meeting. We'll just say to the scouts, you guys, you work your ass off all year. Tell us right now who you think you want to put your name on again. Like obviously scouted these guys, but right now we got these picks. Tell us, speak about them. You got a chance. Jeffrey, Nick is in there. So you do that.
You know, it's one of -- probably one of the best meetings we have all year. You know, it's not as much fun when we have two picks. We have had that, and I think it will be really fun tomorrow for our guys to do that.
Q. On the broadcast they said that (indiscernible.) What was his input and influence?
HOWIE ROSEMAN: Yeah, we include our coaches in this whole process. Obviously don't give them guys we don't like. That has never been something I thought made any sense, to go hey, we don't really like this guy but what do you think? Obviously that puts us in a bad spot.
So we only give them guys, and I think coach Fangio had a lot of the guys in this draft he liked. When you're developing a small-school guy you want buy-in from the coordinator and the position coach, Coach Fangio, Washburn obviously. Had a chance, we brought them here. Coach Wash worked him out.
All those things that really help us, give us answers to the test. We're able to get our hands on guys and work them out privately or bring them in here and see how they react our to this atmosphere, how they react to coaching, especially the small-school guys.
It helps you complete the process better than otherwise. In that way we had an opportunity to do that with Jalyx and made us feel better about the pick. Sometimes you do that, too, and all of a sudden guys get a little bit too excited and it's like, no, no, no. We're still keeping them in the same spot on the board.
I think that's fair to say. Obviously there was some excitement from this player from all levels of the organization.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports