THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions.
Q. When you think about your first day here, what's it like to be in the building and to soak up the moment? And I have follow-up for DeMeco.
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: It's, first off, a blessing. You dream of this your whole life. Just getting the opportunity to play in the NFL, that's a lifelong dream. So you get that opportunity, I'm so grateful that it's the Houston Texans, and I get to come here and meet all these wonderful people that I've met. It's a great place. You can tell the people are genuine, and I'm just so excited to get to work.
Q. DeMeco, think about watching the video, and you talk about this is the kind of player you need. You want toughness on the offense. If you could expand on that a little bit?
DEMECO RYANS: We're excited for Keylan to be a part of our team, right, because he represents what we are about, and that's about playing tough, playing physical. It's about finishing. For anyone that's watched this young man's tape, you know the highlight of his tape is how he finishes plays.
It's something that's innate, something that's in him, and something that we truly believe in here. I know he's going to bring that toughness and that physicality and that finish mindset, that relentless mindset that we look for. He's bringing that to our team. That's why we're fired up to have him.
Q. Nick and DeMeco, Nick, last night you mentioned some of the elements of the grade that you had on Keylan that were really high. Can you kind of reveal without too much about those elements specifically?
NICK CASERIO: Yeah, any time you're creating a profile on a player, there's obviously the physical components on the field, and then you look at some of the intangible items that are going to apply to the player from a coachability, from an intelligence standpoint, a football character, instincts, toughness, overall competitiveness, the way DeMeco alluded to it.
Those are things we prioritize in this program, we prioritize, and every player is evaluated based on that criteria. And Keylan stood head and shoulders above a lot of other players. So that's a part of the evaluation.
When you combine that with what you see on the tape, then you put the profile of the player together, and say, like, this is what a Houston Texans football player looks like. We take a lot of pride and put a lot of value in that.
You guys have been around our team, and we've talked about this. You win with people, and you win with mental and physical toughness. That's what this league is about. So in order to be physical, in order to play with mental, physical toughness, you have to add players to your team that possess those qualities. So if you say that's what you are about, well, then it's our responsibility to go out there and find it.
Nobody epitomizes that more than Keylan, which is why he's sitting in the chair next to us.
Q. Keylan, you were speaking yesterday about kind of your mindset. Other people have described you as playing with a nasty mindset. You finish people. But I'm just curious how you adopted that, where that came from, what influence is that? Is it your upbringing, where you came from? What influence is that?
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: I mean, I think you can point to a lot of areas. I think just, first and foremost, I'm a competitor. I love to compete in everything I do. I think if you're a true competitor, like as an offensive lineman, you want to put the dude in the dirt. I mean, you want to play to the echo of the whistle. You want to compete at a high level, and you want to be the best about it.
I think that's just the competitor in me. I've always had that fire about me. I think that's where it comes from.
Q. This is for Nick and DeMeco. Obviously whenever a player gets picked, there's always talk, well, this team wanted him before, so you had to go up and get him. How do you prepare for that? Maybe leading up to it, where you talk about acting stuff up, and then in the moment and how hectic can it be when you want a guy and you anticipate that maybe a team in front of you would want the same guy?
NICK CASERIO: Yeah, it's really about organization and preparation and then capitalizing the opportunity when it presents itself.
DeMeco and I talk, I would say, I mean, 40 times a day. So we're talking about players. We're talking about different scenarios. He probably wants me out of his office plenty of the time, but you're always going through different scenarios.
In our situation, say, once we got into 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, you start to look at, all right, who are the players that are available? Who are some of the players that we would consider taking? You kind of create some buckets. Then as you go through, again, we don't really know what other teams are going to do.
You try to as best you can make an estimation, look at the roster, hey, there are some players that they might be interested in. It doesn't mean that for sure they're going to be -- you're going to be interested in the same player.
Then we look at it through the lens of in the end, what's the best thing for the Houston Texans? We can't worry about what other teams are doing. They're going to make their decisions. We have to make our decisions independent of what anybody else is doing.
In terms of how chaotic, it's really not. It's pretty fluid. It's ongoing. We react, and we're ready to go. If you do a trade, you make the trade, and you pick the player. If you can't consummate the trade, then you prepare for the next opportunity in front of you.
We're pretty consistent. It will be no different here tonight when we get started here in a few hours.
Q. Keylan, have you had a chance -- I know you haven't been in town long, but have you had a chance to meet any other members of the offense since you landed in Houston?
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: Yes, sir. C.J. Stroud came by, texted me. Will texted me. C.J. Stroud came by the hotel. We talked for a long time.
He's a great human being, first and foremost, but obviously we all know how he is out there on the grass. He's made of the right stuff. So he's a great dude, man. Just great for him to come up there and take the time to come talk to me.
Q. Keylan, earlier today it was said by Coach Key that you met with Cole Popovich before the draft. What were those conversations like? What did you think about the overall offensive approach he was talking with you about?
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: Yeah, I really loved my time with Coach Pop. He put me through a lot of the things he's looking for in terms of how he's going to throw hands, all them details kind of thing. Different than what I did in college, but I just soaked it in. Just tried to take the coaching. He was there to coach me and see what I had, see how I was moving, and I really enjoyed the time and the Zoom I had with him just talking ball. I loved it.
Q. DeMeco, when you were looking at Keylan's film and you were obviously liking what you were seeing, what did you and Nick Caley envision for him?
DEMECO RYANS: For me, when I'm watching the film of all these offensive linemen, studying a lot of different guys, and when I put on his tape, I typed in the word "swarm." And that's what I saw on tape. That's that type of player that I saw, and the envision is he played multiple spots on the interior part of the offensive line. He spent a lot of time at right guard. He snapped the ball at Senior Bowl. Did a really good job of that.
Smart, young man. Bright, young man. We're just happy to work with him. See the best five guys go out there and help us win some games. He's ready to compete. He's talked about how he loves to compete. That's how he gained his edge. That's what we're all about.
I saw that competitor mindset. I saw it jump off of the tape, and that made it an easy choice. For us and for me, we're drafting. You see a guy you want; that's why I love working with Nick -- we see a guy we want, we see a guy who fits our building, fits who we're about, fits our culture, let's go get the guy add him to our team.
Q. DeMeco and Nick, when y'all hired Popovich as the offensive line coach, what was it that y'all liked about Popovich, and is it safe to say that what we've seen with this offensive line is kind of a significant impact of his with the turnover and everything?
DEMECO RYANS: Yeah, hiring Cole, the one thing in the interviewing process, Cole is a brilliant coach. He's a very smart guy, and he's not just offensive line-driven. He's very thoughtful and seeing the entire picture of the offensive line, right, and how it all fits together.
He's very thoughtful in making sure, hey, which guys do I need, what do they do well, and he does a really good job. If you guys ever get the opportunity to see him work with his individuals and how he takes the time to coach the guys up on all the fine, small details, that's really important for an offensive lineman. It's him being detailed, being thorough as a coach and never stuck on what he's always done.
He's always trying to help his players, always trying to improve his players. To me that's the signs of a really good coach. He is an excellent communicator. Does a really great job on game day as well. We need to make adjustments, Cole is the guy who sees it, can make the adjustments and gets us in the right situations. He's all the things you want in a coach.
Q. Nick, and I guess to an extent DeMeco, how much of what happens on day one changes what you would maybe expect to do on day two? I know you moved back about 20 spots in the third round, but also, now you have Keylan, offensive lineman. Would you still be expected to maybe draft an offensive lineman as well? How much changes from after things are done the first round to the second round?
NICK CASERIO: Always open for business on anything. Doesn't necessarily take us -- just because you select one player, doesn't necessarily take you out of either a player or a position.
We'll go back to -- what we've kind of done today is looked at the board and said, all right, here's certain players graded at a certain level. What are our opportunities? We're scheduled to pick right now at 38 with five or six picks in. What are our options? Who are the players that we've identified? If they're available, will we pick them? Great. If not, will we move back? Then we're scheduled to pick at 59 and 91 and whenever it is right now.
So we'll just follow the board, look at our grades. We always go back to our grades, what have we said about our players, what have our scouts said, what have the coaches said and just kind of work ourselves around the board and try to make good, smart decisions.
We didn't go into the draft last year anticipating we were going to draft Jay, Noel, and Higg, but that's the way the board fell, so we took both players. If there's an opportunity to draft another offensive lineman that makes sense, we'll certainly consider it. We're not going to rule it out, because you really never know when you're going to need these players and what the overall constitution of the team is going to look like.
I mean, we can't sit here today and say, well, we know what it's going to look like in September. It could change. We're always planning for what's in front of us, but we're going to add good players with the right mentality, with the right mindset. Let the players ultimately sort itself out, and then if we have to make some decisions at some point, then we'll make the decisions that we feel are best for the team.
Q. Keylan, Brent Key today was telling me that there was a conditioning test, and guys were trying to get through it. It was a tough one. You were literally pushing your teammates and yelling. Do you remember that? Was that this year or last year? What can you tell me about that? I have a follow-up.
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: Yes, sir. I mean, I definitely remember that, but it was just who I am every day. No different. Conditioning test, first day, winter jacket drills, inside run. It's just, hey, you're a competitor. You want all your teammates to be wired the same way you are and get after it. So you're going to push some guys to their limit, and you hope they push you to your limit. Iron sharpens iron.
Q. After you were done, you were watching the tape and critiquing the practice stuff. He said that you were kind of going back and wondering was the standard still going the way you wanted it to with your younger teammates.
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: There's a lot of new faces in there on the O-line over there at Georgia Tech. You want to watch the tape. I'm going into practice. Don't know a lot of the guys, so a lot of new faces over there, so I just want to see what they're about, see how they play the game.
Obviously when you go to practice, if I see something on tape, I'm going to let them know, hey, I think this, yada, yada. You want them to -- I would love to be a sponge, and you want them to soak it up.
Q. Lastly, he called you an underrated athlete. They were saying that you ran in the 4.9s. You were actually disappointed to run. I think it was 5.05 at the combine. Basketball, that stuff. What is your background in those sports and other things kind of say about you as an athlete?
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: I think I'm a good athlete. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I think I move well. Grew up, didn't play offensive line until I got to college. Grew up playing tight end and D-line. I played all sorts of sports. I played basketball, threw shot put. Jack-of-all-trades kind of deal.
Q. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about what you were saying earlier when C.J. came by. Did y'all break bread? What did you make of him coming over to the hotel? What can you tell us about, I guess, the general message?
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: Yeah, I mean, I think, first of all, he was excited. You could tell he's a leader. He's made of the right stuff, so he just wanted to come over there and, hey, congratulate me. Just welcome me. And just talking life, you know? Nothing special.
Just guys being guys. Just talking ball and wishing me luck. He said, hey, if you need anything, I'm here for you. What you want in your quarterback.
Q. Keylan, you were a player that entered the transfer portal and went to Georgia Tech, and you mentioned that you didn't play offensive line until you got to college. Can you talk about your relationship with Brent Key and what he meant to be able to help you get to where you are today?
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: Yeah, I mean, Brent Key is a great ball coach, great man. Just what he stood for at Georgia Tech, the way he ran the program, I think that's the way it should be ran is built on toughness. It was just built on how we were going to be committed, how we were going to work with your teammates. It was ran the right way.
Obviously he's an O-line guy, so he's always getting his nose in the offensive line, and he just developed me in the right way. He would always bring me in his office, talk life first and foremost, and he then he would be, like, hey, fix this, fix this. He's a really good ball coach. I can credit him for where I'm sitting today.
Q. Keylan, with the Houston Texans being so close to Mexico, there's a huge fan base in Mexico. Any message to more of your international fans outside of Houston?
KEYLAN RUTLEDGE: Heck yeah. Love all my fans. Let's get after it this year. Let's play some football. Let's swarm. Let's go win some games.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports