NICK CASERIO: I mean, overall I would say a continuation of some of the things we've talked about in the offseason. You know, just building a tough, smart, physical team, players that have the right mindset, right mentality.
So as far as just trades, positioning, let's say the first pick with Kayden is kind of moving a couple of slots, repositioning, kind of like we did with Keylan. You know, we felt McDonald was probably the best run defender in the draft. Had a really productive season. Defensive tackle that was involved in 60 tackles or 60-plus tackles, whatever it is. It's pretty impressive.
The first unanimous defensive tackle, unanimous All-American defensive tackle in history in Ohio State's program. They've had a few decent players there. So a good kid, young kid. I mean, plays the season, was 20 years old. Just turned 21.
Matt Patricia did a really good job with him this year, got the most out of him. Was a good player, spent a lot of time with him. So I feel our program will be a good fit. He'll be a good fit for our program. Our program will kind of be a good fit for him.
You know, what he does well, and he does it well. So that was him.
Then, you know, at 59 -- so we had multiple discussions. We were kind of potentially trading a pick, moving it, had a few deals in place. Then those fell apart. We had a couple of guys we were talking about picking, and then Marlin was one of them.
I would say for us, Marlin was kind of a no-brainer. It's a player we really liked. His story, I mean, you guys -- if you haven't talked to him, his story is really impressive. Like, the fact that he's even here having this discussion really speaks to who he is, his maturity, his intelligence, his toughness.
I mean, he could have sat out the bowl game, basically told his coach and everybody else, his agent, his representatives, I'm playing. Kind of like what Kamari did the year that he came out of Georgia.
So good size. Runs well. 6'5", 250. He runs 4.6. You know, I would say his best football is probably in front of him, but the type of player that has the right mentality, the right mindset, good work ethic, really smart.
I'm sure he'll be playing in Germany here at one of these international games, so get your passport ready at some point. Good football player who we visited with at the combine. Really after the combine we were done with him as far as the person, because there really wasn't much more there that we needed to talk about.
You know, he was a player that we liked. We liked him from the beginning of the process until drafting him, which is why we picked him. Then so we kind of repositioned the picks there a little bit. So we flipped 91 for 117 I think, whatever it was, part of the Vegas trade. We're picking 106, 117.
So the players that we're talking about tomorrow, it's the same players that we would have been talking about at 91. When you look up there at the names, like, we would have picked one of the guys at 91 that are still on the board that we're probably going to talk about tomorrow.
So that trade, similar to the Rutledge trade, it was more about just repositioning the picks because we really didn't give anything up other than slots. That's kind of how we view it.
So, we have a few picks tomorrow to kind of play around with. We'll see how it goes there in the morning. We're, what, five or six picks out, and then we have 117, and then we have the one in the fifth and the sixth, and then we have the seventh round pick. We'll see how it all manifests itself tomorrow and comes together. I'll take some questions.
Q. With Kayden McDonald, were you all surprised that he was kind of dropping down, and did that factor in at all to why you wanted to trade up?
NICK CASERIO: Look, I think sometimes everybody gets -- you traded up. I mean, you moved two spots. I mean, you're not really doing anything. You're just trying to make sure you get the football player.
We like the player. Look, the player falls, we can't control any of that. Good player. We'll do the evaluation. However we get him in the building, get him in the building, we'll pick him.
Again, visit with him, brought him in the building. He was here at NRG, had a good visit with him. Kind of continuing the process. Did a lot of work on him. Have a lot of respect for Coach Day and his program. We have a lot of people at Ohio State that we know I would say on a pretty deep level, whether it's coaching staff, Coach Patricia, Coach Day, have some folks on the strength staff. They have some people on the training staff. Nate Ebner was involved in the program a little bit this year, who I was with Nate in New England there for a little bit.
When have you people like that, when they tell you something, okay, what they're telling you you can probably trust. To have that type of relationship and be able to have the information kind of solidified what we thought and where we think the player is.
So, yeah, I mean, he was a player that we liked, again, like we felt he was, like, the best run-stopping defensive tackle in the draft. So, all right, if we have an opportunity to add that player, then let's add him to the team. That's what we did.
Q. Were you surprised, because obviously you loved him, that he was --
NICK CASERIO: Again, we can't control any of that. It's not up to us. If the player is available, so we'll look at what our options are. We had a few players at 38 and 36, whatever it was. Probably, like, two or three guys. All right, if we have a chance to pick one of these guys, all right, let's go ahead and pick him. Then, you know, we made the pick that we did.
Q. When it comes to McDonald, do you feel like there's more ahead of him in terms of pass rushing? We saw a lot of run stopping from him, and sometimes he gets to the quarterback. Do you think there's more ahead of him as he refines?
NICK CASERIO: The big thing is you have to play to your strengths. What a player does well, let's accentuate the strengths, and then if a guy has an area that he can improve, then we'll see if we can get him to improve.
I think sometimes even a player has a perception, well, I want to be able to do this. Well, okay, look, you're 6'3", 330 pounds. The best thing you do is play strong at the point of attack. So your pass rush is probably going to be a little bit different than, you know, Denico Autry or somebody else that's rushing inside there. So you have to play to your strengths.
And then our coaches -- I mean, look, we have the best defensive coaching staff in the league, and probably have the best defensive line coach in the league in Rod and then Coach Okam. So we're going to figure out a way to get the player to play within our system and our scheme and try to figure out how we can utilize his strengths and try to improve the areas that we feel he needs to improve.
Q. When you think about the overall defensive line, where you're at with the edges you have and having the D-tackle rotation, how are you feeling about the defensive line right now?
NICK CASERIO: Yeah, we'll see. We'll have a competitive defensive line, and each week it's going to change relative to who the opponent is. So the bottom line in this league, you got to be able to stop the run. You got to be able to take the ball away, and you got to keep points off the scoreboard. That's what defensive football is about.
However you do that, like, that's ultimately your responsibility.
Q. From a football standpoint, you guys (indiscernible) DeMeco has been here. At the defensive tackle spot, most of them range around 300 pounds, a little bit higher, a little bit lower. McDonald is closer to 330. How much do you think that body type can put a lock on different type of approaches that you guys may want to do in terms of using a bigger body in a one attack, zero attack, things that --
NICK CASERIO: DeMeco and I have talked continuously. There's a place for that player in this front. There's a perception that we want a bunch of guys that sprint off the ball and, you know, don't have enough playing strength and all that.
Well, in the end, you got to be able to play strong at the point of attack. So you're going to have to -- I mean, Foley is a good example. Foley, whatever size he was, I mean, Kayden McDonald were about -- not the same size, but pretty close. There was a place for that player on the inside part of the defense. Especially on early downs.
Then how you utilize that player in, let's say, known passing situations on third down, maybe there's another option, or maybe there's a situation that you create a matchup with that player.
So we've talked extensively that there's a place for that type of player, that body type in this system, and we don't want to cast a player aside because he maybe, quote/unquote, doesn't fit the profile.
I think that's the beauty of our defense. Look, DeMeco is constantly looking for ways to evolve, and we're just not so beholden to, well, this is the way it was three or four years ago. I mean, our defense has evolved. Our team has evolved. We need to continue to evolve as a team and as an organization.
So, to your question, I think sometimes it's like, well, does a player like this fit in this front? The answer is, absolutely, yes.
Q. In Marlin Klein's case, because his strength and maturation, he hadn't played a whole lot of football compared to a kid coming from the U.S. Does that pose any issues with y'all as far as the amount of football he's played up until this point, just looking at the upside for him?
NICK CASERIO: Not necessarily. You have players with varied backgrounds. You have some players that have been successful in this league who didn't even play college football. Some people, they only play high school football. Marlin at least played -- even though he grew up maybe not -- I don't want to say football is foreign to him, but he wasn't thinking about playing probably NFL when he was growing up in Germany and then he came to the States. Then his career kind of evolved and grew.
He spent three or four years, however many years it was, at Michigan, which has a good program. They had a pretty good track record of tight ends over the course of however many last years, between Schoonmaker, Colston last year. I mean, they've had a number of, I would say, good players at that position.
He played behind some pretty good players and had his opportunity here this year. Took advantage of his opportunity. I'd say they were definitely more of a running offense. So, you know, can he improve and grow? I think he definitely has the mentality and the mindset to take coaching. He understands football. He understands concepts.
So what you're looking at is does the player have the willingness and drive to actually work to improve, and I would say in Marlin's case, it certainly appears that way.
Now, what that actually looks like, we'll find out here as we go.
Q. You mentioned having a couple deals in place. Were you all trying to move down at that -- at 59 at that point?
NICK CASERIO: We were looking at both. I think this draft is emblematic of who we are. We've looked up. We had opportunities to go up. I think we walk in the draft room, I think we put, like, ten boxes on the board. Look, we had a, hey, here's the trade-down group, here's the trade-up group. All right, what's real? What's not?
I mean, we probably talked to, I don't want to say half the league -- we probably talked to half the league during the day. What's your appetite for moving up? All right, got it. If we want to move up, what would that look like? Let's say we don't pick at 38 and we end up moving back, what does that look like?
That's kind of how we approach it.
Q. When you guys have a guy high on your board that maybe you might -- I don't know how you guys view other -- I don't know how you find out what other teams are doing.
NICK CASERIO: You can't call them and ask them what they're doing (laughing).
Q. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you -- you see a lot of people think this person might be lower, but we have this guy higher. How do you determine whether, okay, we want to take a chance here even though other people could believe he might be lower?
NICK CASERIO: The beauty of all this is everybody has their own board. So you have your grades. You're probably not grading all the players the same way. I think when you go through this third round, I mean, the reality is they were basically coming out of the woodwork in this last round.
There's a lot of players that got drafted where you are looking up there, going, okay, I probably wouldn't have taken that player. Maybe there's a few players. Oh, we would consider him.
We just kind of go through our process, grade the players, and create kind of categories and buckets of players. All right, if this pick -- all right, here's three or four names. We comfortable picking one of them. If you move back and get one of them, are you good with that, or would we rather move? In Kayden's case, hey, let's move up a little bit, because ease a player that we sort of identified.
Look, what other teams are going to do, honestly, for somebody to sit here and tell you, yeah, they knew what they were going to do, I mean, they're lying. I'm not going to tell you that. You're trying to project to some degree. That's why we go through -- the pro staff does an incredible job of looking at team. Hey, here's what we think their needs are. What we think their needs are might be different from what that team's needs -- what they think they are.
This is a big puzzle. You're trying to piece it together. There's probably 1,000 pieces, and there's never one particular piece that ultimately is going to be the deciding factor or the driving force.
Q. You guys have moved up twice already in this draft. It's because of the aggressiveness you target players that you really like. When it comes to day three, do you feel like -- that pick at the 1, they may be the same players you're targeting around 96. Is it easier or a little bit more challenging to get aggressive for guys on day three?
NICK CASERIO: It doesn't change. Again, I'm not trying to minimize moving, but moving two spots in our mind is basically nothing. We don't view it that way. I think when you start moving eight to ten spots, that's a little bit more of probably a calculated move where you're probably going to have to give up a little bit more capital.
I would say, again -- this is just how we view it -- moving two spots and repositioning picks, you don't really give anything up other than draft slots.
So, again, yeah, we moved up a few spots. Is that us being aggressive? No, it's more of us being strategic about what we feel like makes the most sense and what we need to do.
When you're making a big jump -- I would put -- look, I would put the Will move into that was an aggressive move because we moved, like, a significant amount of spots. Moving two to three spots, it's just more about positioning. That's kind of how we talk about it as a staff.
It would be the same thing tomorrow. We're at 106. Does it make sense to move a couple of spots? Then it's how do we reconstitute those picks? I think it will be the same thought process tomorrow as it's been the past few days.
Q. It was a little different the other day. Did anyone call you about Nico Collins, and was that a random or not anything to that? Why would you want to trade a Nico Collins if somebody did want to call and talk about that hypothetically?
NICK CASERIO: Teams call teams all the time and ask about players. We're not trading Nico Collins. Whoever reported it or whatever information that they had, I mean, they can take it and shove it. We're not trading Nico.
Q. Obviously the past few years teams have -- defense has countered the explosive passing attempt, and offenses have kind of countered that by trying to run more downhill. Did that kind of help in, I don't want to say elevate McDonald's value, knowing that how teams want to play now, how -- well, teams want to attack you guys specifically, knowing to have a guy like that that can, in a sense, be so good at stopping the run when teams are trying to play more to high safety looks and have those guys in the middle to be able to counter that?
NICK CASERIO: Yeah, I think our mentality on defense is to play fast, violent, and physical. So who are the players that have those qualities? Then forget about scheme, forget about other teams are doing. Start with that premise, fill the players in, and then whoever we play each week, it's going to be the same thing. We're going to have to be good in the running game and minimize big plays, and we're going to have to play well in the red area.
Defense is about points. The red area is about points. So it's more of the, hey, here's what we want our defense to be about. Here are the things that we emphasize. All right, who are those players that actually fit? Like, we pride ourselves in being physical, and that's not going to change.
I mean, as long as DeMeco is the head coach, as long as we're here running the team, we're going to prioritize toughness and physicality. So let's find the players that have those attributes.
If you want to be a big, strong, tough, physical team, you better have big, strong, tough, physical players that enable you to play a certain way, because in the end, that's what wins in this league.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports