MIKE BORGONZI: We wrapped up today with five more picks. First, I want to thank everybody in the organization for the past few days here. It's really more than three days. It's an entire year, especially with our scouts, all the time that they put in on the road away from their families. They are really the lifeblood here scouting these players.
To all the people in the building, in our department, personnel department, the coaches that put so much time and energy into evaluating these guys, and communication I thought was really good between the personnel department and the coaching.
Then just our entire support staff. Our medical, you know, we bring these guys in on 30 visits. There's a lot of different touchpoints to everybody in the building. Strength coaches, trainers, dietitians. Ev sits down with them too. He'll give us his evaluation.
There's so much time that's put into it in these three days, but I really appreciate all the work that they have gin us here.
Q. Mike, day three picks a lot of times don't come in immediately contribute on offense or defense, do special teams, but given that you want to create competition on the offensive line, how quickly do you feel like Coogan and Carmona can get in that mix and have a chance to start?
MIKE BORGONZI: Yeah, listen, these guys have played a lot of football, both of them. They really do fit the definition of how we say, like, the tough, smart, dependable. They epitomize it, those two guys.
Like I said, they've had a snaps here in college football. Physically, you know, where they're at right now, the size, I think they can come right in here and compete.
Q. How much does that experience maybe not necessarily make up for what they may lack athletically, but benefit them as far as getting them in here and getting ready to compete right away?
MIKE BORGONZI: I think there's a maturation to it, especially with the O-linemen. They've played so much, and they've been around probably a lot of different coaches, you know, both guys.
Fernando was at San Jose State and went to Arkansas. Then Pat was at Notre Dame and then finished his season for the National Champs. Yeah, so they've played a lot of football, so I think that does help.
Q. Can you give us the CliffsNotes version on your five today, just their strengths, what they're about?
MIKE BORGONZI: Yeah, I'll take Fernando first. Like I just said, the intangibles part with these guys, you know, they're gritty. We have these alpha tags for leadership for these offensive linemen. Both him and Pat both have that.
Fernando played left tackle at San Jose State, played some tackle in '24 at Arkansas and then played guard. Also has the capability of playing center too. Just hasn't done it much in a game. Done it in practice before.
With Pat, you know, Pat has obviously played center at Indiana this past year. I've never seen a guy get an MVP as an offensive lineman in the Rose Bowl. It just speaks to the type of player he was there for them, the leadership, and Pat has also played some guard at Notre Dame as well.
Q. How about your other guys?
MIKE BORGONZI: Yeah, with Nick, I mean, Nick was a highly productive running back at Penn State. Played a lot of snaps there too. He basically started there four years.
It's funny. I remember turning on the film, I forget who I was watching at Penn State, a couple of years ago. It might have been two, three years ago, and I see this No. 10. He runs really angry, and he's fast, and he can catch the ball. There was a guy we had in Kansas City, Pacheco, he kind of reminded me of him a little bit. So I feel like I've been watching him a long time.
With Jaren, he was really interesting because you talk about an athlete. I mean, the guy was a linebacker for three years and hadn't even played tight end and picked it up. He's played H-back, has moved around, has played full back a little bit. Really athletic, really good special teams player. So he's going to I think contribute there right away on teams.
Q. And Jackie too.
MIKE BORGONZI: I'm sorry. Jackie too. Jackie, the first time you saw him, I kind of watched a little bit of him last year. He's play five technique. He's place three technique. He's versatile. He's explosive on contact. He's twitchy. We see him here. He can probably play a little big end, but probably inside as a DT for us.
Coach Aaron Whitecotton had him at the East-West coaching that game, and our scouts got to visit with him there. Then Aaron actually was at his pro day and worked him out too. We've had a lot of different touchpoints with him.
Q. Same with the offensive linemen. You talked as far back at the owners meetings to us about being able to sacrifice some traits and get that toughness and play with that. What do you lose when you don't have the prime athleticism there, and how does a line maybe function fine without that?
MIKE BORGONZI: Sometimes with these guys, that's a good question, because you know, the toughness part always shows up. That's the intangibles part. They're usually strong, they're tough, they're smart. Sometimes they're so smart, sometimes they know some of their limitations as well, they're so technically sound.
So when you have some of these guys playing next to each other, they're kind of the same way. They make up sometimes for, you know, whatever limitations they might have with their toughness and their technique and fundamentals.
Q. If you are slotting Jackson right now, do you have him at center or guard?
MIKE BORGONZI: Right now obviously with the new staff he's playing both. He's going back and forth between guard and center. He's played probably more guard primarily right now, but he also has some center snaps. Those guys will be interchangeable here throughout OTAs and training camp too.
Q. With Singleton first off, what did the eval tell you about the injury? How quick do you think he can come back? Two, does he add something to the running back room, a trait that maybe you guys didn't have that you were kind of looking to fill?
MIKE BORGONZI: You know, I think he's a bigger back. He's probably a little -- you know, he's a little bigger than Tony. The speed, he actually catches the ball really well out of the back field too.
As far as the injury, yeah, he should be -- I don't want to put a timetable, but when he comes in here, we'll take a look. He'll be participating here in the spring.
Q. Are you going to cut some people now in order to have a bigger undrafted class? You're not going to keep yourself to four guys here, are you?
MIKE BORGONZI: Those are the things we're working on here throughout the week, tonight and really throughout the week, because technically all these guys -- I know you might hear some stuff on Twitter and all that stuff. None of these guys can really be signed until they walk in the building.
Q. Do you expect to have a regular size class ultimately?
MIKE BORGONZI: We'll see how it shakes out, yeah.
Q. What's your schedule for these guys? How soon will they be back here?
MIKE BORGONZI: They'll be back -- today is Sunday -- what, end of the week, yeah.
Q. Mike, with this draft, do you feel that you kind of -- a lot of talk about best player available at spots, but you have holes on this roster. Do you feel that you may have taken a good step with this class to try and fill those spots?
MIKE BORGONZI: I do. I think that's the goal. Obviously you want to take the best player, but you're trying to marry up value with need as a part of that without reaching for the need, and that's why I always say just take the best player. Let's not just reach for a guy just because we need, but I do think we did fill some needs, yeah.
Q. Mike, does the UDFA -- how you target you the UDFAs, does that fill in the holes that maybe you feel like you missed, or are those guys to add value to the current draft class?
MIKE BORGONZI: Yeah, I think it's an extension of really the draft class. I wish we could have 20 picks sometimes.
Q. I know you did a lot of work at defensive back in free agency. This is just a third time in the history of the franchise in Nashville that the draft hasn't included a defensive back. What's it say about where you are with Marcus Harris and Tony Adams? I know the early indications are it's maybe a focus for you with undrafted.
MIKE BORGONZI: Yeah, I mean, obviously we added Flott and Alontae too to come in here and start and then having Marcus back and signed Tony as well.
When the draft is over, we're still working here on trying to improve the roster. It's never going to stop. Whether it's waiver claims, try-outs, you know, it doesn't stop.
We're going to continue at every position to keep working, try to get the best 53 here by the start of the season.
Q. You talked about Coach Mac at your pre-draft press conference. What was it like to see maybe everybody in the war room wearing the Coach Mac shirts today and I think across the league honoring him as well?
MIKE BORGONZI: I thought it was a great tribute to him and to how many people he really had an impact on in the league. You know, the more you find out, he knew everybody throughout the league, it seems like.
I thought it was really special to see, you know, us wear these shirts here today and some of the pins that everybody was wearing throughout the draft. It was a great tribute to him.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports