JOHN SCHNEIDER: Thanks for coming out. This is our 14th draft that Pete and I have been doing together or are doing together. Really excited about it.
A lot of thank yous. First and foremost, we want to thank Jody Allen for giving us the resources this spring to travel all around and do our work, get a lot of things accomplished.
Obviously the personnel guys, the personnel staff, the scouts, all the way through the fall, all last summer, away from their families, up late at night typing reports, taking people out for coffees and trying to use all their resources to figure these guys out, all these prospects out, the coaches jumping in after the season. Everybody is very excited about the fifth pick, so we have a lot of general managers in this building right now and head coaches.
But everybody is really excited, and yeah, with that, we will open it up for questions.
Q. John, how has it been knowing you have the highest pick you've ever had? Has it made the draft process to this point any different?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: I would say way more exciting. There's so much more research that goes into it. Last year obviously picking where we picked, but there's levels all throughout every round, and obviously in the first round there's specific levels every year. You have to evaluate the classes, and every class is completely different.
Being up there with a fifth pick, I think, is just really exciting, and you have way more covers and accessibility to all the prospects.
Q. How do you feel about where your interior D-line room is right now?
PETE CARROLL: We've got some work to do. We've done some work here in free agency, and we're going to continue in the draft, and we'll just keep battling throughout to put it together.
We made some big commitments that have gotten us to this point, and we're really excited about it, but it has left us with a few question marks we've got to get filled out, so there's plenty of time to get that done.
Q. John, when you're drafting say 25 or whatever, there's so many variables in front of you, you probably have no idea how it's going to fall. At 5 do you have a lot better feel do you think like what's going to be available?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: You would think so, right? It doesn't feel like it, no.
Yeah, obviously everybody is focused on 5, and rightfully so, but 20th pick is extremely important, as is 37.
You're constantly trying to paint pictures and scenarios of what you think will happen and what other teams will do what. We're getting into -- we finished yesterday with the scouts going back over the board, through their spring, and how everybody performed in the spring.
Now we're getting into we'll have the coaches in this weekend and then we'll get into heavy, heavy scenarios, talking to other teams, speaking with agents, and trying to figure out how and where we can acquire these guys.
Q. Is the very top of the draft this year harder to predict than it has been in past years?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: I don't really -- yeah, I would say yes, compared to last year I would say yes, but in previous -- besides that, I don't really know.
Yeah, I think there's just a ton of variables up there, a lot of different scenarios, a lot of different ways we can go.
PETE CARROLL: What I think is exciting about this one is you get the first challenge coming up at 5 and then we've got a whole 'nother one at 20, and day two we come right back again. Those three big events of those early picks, it kind of comes back at us in a hurry, makes it really fun and a challenge, and a lot of scenarios, more so than normal. That keeps us just active and functioning and having fun doing it.
The whole thing is pretty cool. We know nothing, though, it feels like.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Five of the top 83 is probably the one thing that really stands out. Okay, we're getting a pretty good feel for what it looks like and now how do we go execute our game plan.
Q. When you go through this whole process starting last year, going on campuses and then you get the pre drafts and you get the combines, is it elusive to know exactly everything you need to know about a guy, there's always going to be things you don't know and you're taking a risk on, or do you feel pretty ironclad by the time the draft comes that you've learned everything you wanted to know?
PETE CARROLL: I wouldn't say ironclad.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, we haven't wrapped up -- ironclad -- no. I would say the variables of you never truly, truly, truly know what's in somebody's heart, right, so even once they're in the building, we feel like we can support them, we're going to have a great plan for them. But once we get it the night before the draft, button it up, the draft is all buttoned up, we know how we're going to execute, then we just move forward.
Now, the process of it, Pete and I were just talking yesterday, I think my primary job is to evaluate the evaluators, and that's myself, Pete, our coordinators, the coaches, our scouts, our docs, the training -- how everybody feels about them. To bring that world together and then come up with what is the fit, what's the plan for the prospect and how can we help them have an incredible career -- yeah, how do we help them help themselves in order to help us be world champions.
Q. When it comes down to character guys or guys with character, has anything really changed in how you evaluate that through the years?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, I think it changes every year. Every situation is completely different. We learned early on, or I did - I don't want to speak for Pete - but I learned early on that you can never say, this is the way it is and that's how we're going to move forward. I mean, I think you can back yourself into a corner.
PETE CARROLL: Yeah, we pretty much would -- the evaluation process just keeps going all the way until there's no more time left and we're taking in everything that we can. John is doing such an in-depth search of our own guys and their opinions and things, and those tend to shift a little bit as we get more information as it gets closer and all.
It's just ongoing. It's not over until it's over. We're going to go all the way until the very end of it.
Q. How much have things changed in 14 years from when you guys were first together in 2010 to now, whether it's how you work together or how the process goes, evaluation, interviews, et cetera?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Wow, awesome question. I think early on, we spent -- Pete made a great point right when we got together, like hey, this is going to be the best marriage ever. We're going to spend as much time together as we basically could. We basically lived in this facility for the first four months, Traci and Glena weren't here, so we were together all the time. So learning each other, and then constantly over the years knowing, yeah, figuring each other out. I think that's very fair, as partners, and I think Pete said we're going to make this the best marriage for a head coach and general manager in NFL history.
With that comes buy-in and pulling back on your ego, but you're still staying strong throughout the process, and the process of the draft itself, we're constantly questioning that in a positive way.
Then also the players and the way all these guys have -- everything that they're exposed to, much more than they were when Pete was at SC or I was in Green Bay, when we had the youngest roster in the league for how many years. Things have changed, so NIL, trade portals. I think coaches are switching schools more often, keeping track of the coaches and your sources and all that. I think that's probably the -- can you speak on the school, the players?
PETE CARROLL: Yeah, the kids are, the players are exposed to a different environment now. I mean, just now I was just checking in with Brennan at Arizona, and it's like free agency going on in college football. These kids have choices and they're figuring it out, and as we've -- there's a whole young kind of evolution occurring here, and they're early in it but they're exposed differently, so we're seeing guys a little bit differently.
We have to continue to adapt as the times change, and that's what we've been doing. We feel like very much the same in the overall overview of it, but our decisions seem more precise and based on more combined experiences, and we've got so many examples of things.
John -- just the things we were doing yesterday, you'd be shocked going back and looking at all of the picks and trying to figure out how they're going to happen this time around and using all of that information. We're just a lot further along.
We've come a long ways together, and our people, too. John has had a really good group that's stayed really consistent for the most part with his personnel side of it, so we're as good as we've ever been. This is the best we've been. Hopefully we can make the most of a draft that gives us maybe the most potential, too. It comes together as a good time.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: We've changed some grades towards the bottom of the draft, and then free agency we've tried to -- rookie free agency, we've tried to clean that up. We went through a period where we had a lot of guys on the board. We had more guys, we thought that was more opportunity, which became more cluttered, and then really the last several years we've really, all right, who are the guys who are true Seahawks.
PETE CARROLL: I think that's maybe the biggest clear difference is zeroing in on the personnel, the people really. That's why we have a fewer number to pick from. We've really kind of circled the wagons in a way that it's about the guys and who they are and as much as we can possibly figure that out. It seems like it gives us the best insights to what we're doing.
Q. Did last year's class feel like that's really what you hit on most, the people?
PETE CARROLL: I would say I think they put together a great group of guys coming to us. So many guys were so clearly able to handle the process and the pressure of jumping in and playing. So they took full advantage of the opportunities, and they had huge contributions last year. It's got to be our most -- the biggest class we've had in terms of plays from that class.
That just gives us the sense of excitement going forward with them as well as the next guys. If we can come close to matching that up, it'll be a great couple years back-to-back.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: There was a lot of opportunity, too. We had two open spots at offensive tackle, we had two corner spots that was wide open, nickel was wide open. We were ready to dive in, and I think the coaches and the scouts did a great job working together and having the buy-in and then having the guys really go for it with the development starting in that first mini-camp really.
Q. What does the next week look like? What work is still left to be done for you guys?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, like I said, we're getting together with the coaches on Friday and Saturday. Sunday is a really cool kind of gathering of all the information that you just heard and kind of a reset with the scouts and trying to figure out the input from the coaches and what that means to the front board.
We'll get with Jody on I think it's Tuesday night and show her what it looks like and tell her what we're thinking and what our process has been and the way we think it's going to go, all the different scenarios.
Sometimes when I tell her the different scenarios, I think she looks at me like I'm crazy, like okay, I don't know, we have 12 different things that can happen. But we'll do that with Jody.
Then Pete and I will have a good day, afternoon just the two of us.
But yeah, like I said, speaking to other teams, speaking to agents, getting as much information in the final prep as we possibly can and then closing the doors and just getting ready for Thursday night to let it rip.
Q. I think you only have 52 players on your roster right now, which feels like the fewest you've had in quite a while at this point. Was that intentional at all?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: No, it's just the way our process looked throughout free agency. We were really aggressive in free agency this year, more so than we ever have been. So it's just a cap reality for us.
Q. Have teams reached out and expressed interest in trading up, like coming to get 5 from you?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Kind of periphery stuff, but not that -- that stuff really gets pretty intense I'd say like next Tuesday, Wednesday. Those are really the two days that people kind of set up broad parameters for moving up, moving back at different spots, and then you have to be really pliable once it starts because if you've moved, you've got to be able to move to the other spots or move up. You have to be ready to roll.
Q. Pete said that NIL and transfer portal has changed and you view players differently now. How so?
PETE CARROLL: They're getting paid. I think they can't help but be affected by that. It's a different world. They don't have to stay at their schools anymore. They can go wherever they want.
I think it changes the guys. It changes their mentality. I don't know what the results of it's going to be because it's only a couple years old right now, but it's evolving now, and we're going to see, I think, some changes.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: If they don't like the way things are going, then --
PETE CARROLL: Yeah, coaches in college are constantly recruiting not just people from the outside but their own guys because their own guys can leave. It just shifts somewhat of the dynamics of it.
Again, we don't know the effects of it, but we know that it's changing things. For a guy to come in here and make a million dollars a year, some guys have been making a million dollars a year already, so it's a little different than it's been in that regard. I don't know what the result of it's been, but it's having an effect.
Q. Is that an entitlement thing or is it harder to coach those players?
PETE CARROLL: Can be, sure. Certainly can be. It's an enormous amount of pressure on the programs to maintain their guys and keep them and then also constantly be recruiting as the new different seasons arise with the portal thing hitting and all.
It's interesting. Again, let's see what happens.
Q. When you went on your selfie picture tour of all the pro days, you had a pretty significant chunk of your staff and coaches with you. What was the benefit of having that many people there with eyes on and being involved in those conversations?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Just different ideas, questions, thoughts, being able to constantly bounce scenarios, questions off each other, challenge each other, learn as much as you -- just learning as much as you possibly can and trying to listen to each other and trying to just constantly figure things out.
PETE CARROLL: Yeah, max out the opportunity to be on campus and have as many eyes as we could -- we're looking at different positions, not just -- the quarterbacks were the focus of it, but there's a lot of guys we looked at.
Q. Were those conversations more in depth or different than what you get at the combine?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: No, not necessarily. Have you ever hung out with Pete for 24 hours?
Q. Piggy-backing off that, how much different is what you can get out of a player in that combine interview versus his pro day versus bringing him in here? You have all these different ways of meeting with guys.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, I think they're much more relaxed. They're much more relaxed when they're in their own environment, and rightfully so; they're throwing to their own guys or working out with their position coaches or sleeping in their own beds. The combine is a pretty -- it's a great opportunity for these young men, but it's stressful. It's stressful on everybody. It's late, long days, but for the prospects in particular, Pete doesn't want to say it, but these guys are 20, 21 years old and they're sitting down in front of Pete Carroll looking at him like holy -- that's Pete Carroll right there.
PETE CARROLL: What are you talking about? Isn't that the way you look at me every day?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: No, no.
PETE CARROLL: You can definitely see there's a difference in different environments, how they feel. When they get to here -- our guys have a good time when they're here and they seem really relaxed and we really feel like we're getting to the essence of who they are more so, and that's the whole idea here trying to figure it out. It's very valuable to get them all the way to this point but also get to see them in those other settings, as well. It's just all info.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Our 30 visit and our local visit, the coaches and the staff and Stu, everybody just does an awesome job of what our culture is. The coaches, these guys are all sitting right here and the coaches are hooting and hollering back there and having a great time with everything. That kind of settles everybody down, too, and they can see our culture and how fun we are, and then guess what, we're going to go work our tails off after.
PETE CARROLL: We may not get them the first time around, but we're recruiting. It's going to come around again. As always, we're just taking every shot we can along the way.
With the thought, like we talk to these guys, like they're Seahawks for that day they're here, but we may never see them again. But there is that loop, so we want to make sure we make a good impression and we're battling.
Q. Is there any more of an update on Jamal Adams and Jordyn Brooks?
PETE CARROLL: They're doing well. The progress is being made. Their visits, I think it's this week we're getting with them again to make sure they're making their progress.
But everything is going fine so far. Very optimistic on their side. They really think they're going to make it. We'll hold a good thought.
Q. How do you feel about your running back depth right now?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: We're constantly trying to address every position, running back -- every position. I know we did some things in free agency, and it sounds cliche to you guys over the years with us, but it's never -- we're never truly satisfied, and it's never over.
Q. You said Jordyn and Jamal think they're going to make it; what is "make it"?
PETE CARROLL: They're trying to make it for camp. That's what they're shooting for. They're not resigning to the fact it's going to take them past that, so they've got the right mindset at this point. We'll see what happens.
Q. Do you have a timeline the docs have given for those two?
PETE CARROLL: It could happen. I mean, there's some optimism that it could happen. We'll be conservative through that time frame to make sure that we don't screw it up by hurrying them along, but I'm wide open to -- they think they can do it, so we'll see what happens.
Q. Did you expect Dissly for camp?
PETE CARROLL: Yeah, Will is doing really well. Will is doing well at this time. There was some question marks in his -- in that process for him, whether they were going to have to do surgery after they gave him a chance to recover. He's recovered, so there's no surgery in the near future.
Q. When Jordyn does get back for you, how do you envision mixing him with Bobby and Devin Bush and making that all work --
PETE CARROLL: We're going to do a great job of that. It's going to be awesome. Yeah, we've got all kinds of plans, and we have some variables to deal with it really positive. We've got guys with a lot of flexibility, and we love that, that we're able to move some guys around.
I think Julian coming in, you wonder how are you going to play him. We'll figure that out. We're excited about that.
Jamal has been such a dynamic player in his variables that he brings. He's opened us up, and we're wide open to some different things that we can do.
Julian is a very flexible football player. You guys might forget, but Quandre was a nickel coming up, and he's got all of that background, too, so it's going to be hard to tell what we're doing with these guys for a while until we'll get zeroed in -- the opponents will get zeroed in on us, but we're really excited about the chance of putting it all together.
Q. How close are you to knowing all the options you're going to have for what you want to do at 5, like if-this, then-that scenarios?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Not as close as I want to be. Hoping by next week we'll have --
PETE CARROLL: Maybe by the weekend.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Do you think? Yeah, by next Wednesday I hope to have way more.
PETE CARROLL: At least by the weekend we'll have it figured out.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Oh yeah, totally got this.
Q. Do you have to be more protective about information, not letting maybe what you want to do leak out during this process with such a high pick?
PETE CARROLL: Have we been more protective?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: No, we haven't been more protective. We trust our people. I say that, and then next week I'm going to be like, get out of here.
No, right now the coaches are coming in, so we're still going to be fine tuning some things, so by the time we get to Tuesday, Wednesday, the draft room becomes much more like off limits. You do worry about things to a certain extent, but we trust our people. We haven't -- in 14 years we haven't been -- maybe like twice we've been in a situation where like, hmm, how did that happen, did information get out, did it not get out, but it was definitely early on, like 2010, 2011 when we had a mixture of staffs and we're trying to figure things out.
But no, I think we're picking up there, and no, there isn't a difference in protection of thoughts and leaks.
PETE CARROLL: You can hear him say every once in a while, you're either competing or you're not.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, it's a phrase I thought of several years ago.
PETE CARROLL: But we're battling. We're battling to hold our information, of course. That's where the value comes from, when they don't know what you're doing. We've been all over the place, done a million things and looked at a million different scenarios right now.
I don't know how anybody else could know what we're doing because we don't know what the heck we're doing.
I don't mean that. I don't mean that.
Q. You guys are anticipating what the draft is going to be for the rest of the week and making your moves based on that. How much more difficult is that now with everyone that has a keyboard that can put out information and their own smoke screens and agents and all the different --
JOHN SCHNEIDER: I think it goes along with what we were talking about earlier, like evaluating the evaluators, so evaluating the tools, as well. Guys like Nolan Teasley and Matt Barry and Willie and those -- there's a group of younger guys that can evaluate what things on Twitter mean or Instagram or whatever. It's not like just like once a week the Fred Edelstein report comes out and you read that with all the rumors now. They don't know what the Fred Edelstein report is, do they. Or Paul Zimmerman's one mock draft, right, because you can have several mock drafts. I don't know how many 7.0s -- Brady, how many do you have?
Q. None.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: None.
PETE CARROLL: But addressing one of the parts of that question, how do we predict, really this is John's world and this is where we've been counting on it, the ability to kind of assess what the draft could look like and then to go through the process and then to try to nail it so that we can predict kind of how it's going. That's really been a great magic --
JOHN SCHNEIDER: We have really good meetings with our staff, with the pro staff in particular before we get to the weekend where you have to -- we have to have a feel for what we think other teams are thinking and what their perceived needs may be and how they would view specific players that are in front of us on the board.
PETE CARROLL: I find it remarkable each year that the board kind of comes off like John has figured it to be. In that, we can sense what's going on, but that's what you have.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: That's what we do.
Q. How do you feel about getting your cornerback spot and where Tre Brown maybe can still fit into all that?
PETE CARROLL: Yeah, I think coming back off of this first year of seek Tariq and Michael play together, we feel pretty good about that, and knowing that Tre didn't have a chance to really contribute much. Coby's addition, as well, we're in pretty good shape right there.
They're going to get way better. They're going to improve a great deal, and they played pretty good this past year in their first really go around. I feel pretty good about that spot.
We're always looking to add, but at least we know what we've got coming back.
Q. In terms of the board, does who his head coach is play into it?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Absolutely. Where they've been, who they've worked under, who they've worked with, how they -- maybe how they perceive specific positions, values of the positions. Yeah, that all goes into it, and I think our guys do a great job of working through their own process of what -- they're responsible for their teams, the guys that scout on the pro side in pro personnel, they're responsible for their teams as the scouts, like they're running that team. They do a great job of trying to figure out, hey, if I was running this team, this is what I would be looking for.
Q. John, you mentioned self-scouting your own evaluators and stuff like that. When you look back at the drafts that you consider to be successful, are there common denominators there in maybe some of the processes that you had that made you successful in those classes?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, the competitors and the people. We can all sit and evaluate the strengths and deficiencies of prospects and debate that, and the film kind of is what it is, and then knowing who the person is and not trying to push players based on specific needs.
Q. You said Wednesday night that it's just you in the room, no Pete for the draft?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: I have my alone time in there, yeah.
Q. What's the most important thing you do during that time, that Wednesday night before the draft where it's just you?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: The most important thing I do is pray on it and pray about the different scenarios. We used to have Rocky Seto here and we'd always spend time together, and he'd be like, okay, before we start the draft, he'd say, okay, specifically what do you want to pray about, and I'd be like, I really hope Richard Sherman is there. That sounds weird something to pray for.
PETE CARROLL: I'm not going to be able to forget that now.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, I probably said something inappropriate.
Q. What's it been like having Bobby Wagner back in the building?
PETE CARROLL: It's really cool. It's really exciting to have him back. He's really fired up to be here and be part of it and reconnect. You can see him, he's got new eyes looking at us because he's been through another experience. I think his appreciation for the time he spent and the things that we've done and all, it's kind of come forward.
He's been really -- it's been really good. Every time he pops in -- he pops in like he always did. He's been around a lot. So when he does it again, it gives everybody a lift. He's a really positive influence.
Q. Where is Dee Eskridge at with this whole process? How is he going to fit --
PETE CARROLL: He's in the best shape he's been in in quite some time. He's just coming back already. The guy is reporting in that he's doing great. That's good that he's not dealing with some issues from the off-season.
This is his third year. This is that year. Sometimes it takes receivers this time to get -- really get it nailed where they can use all of the information that we have and let their ability show through, so it's a big opportunity for him. He's got to overcome some years of not getting a lot done, so he's determined to do that. We'll see what happens.
Q. Do you guys see Evan Brown as more of a center or a guard?
PETE CARROLL: A center, but we know he can play guard.
Q. John, you said you anticipate when teams are going to start calling to trade up for 5, if they do that, that'll be next-week thing. In the event that you guys move up from 5, would that be some exploratory conversations that start next week, as well, or have those started already?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, you literally just go right down by division. I start with my guys that I'm closest with, but yeah, making the calls by division so that you have -- we have broad strokes of what parameters might be, because at the end of the day, on draft day, you can use all the charts you want and all that kind of stuff and there's a million charts now that different teams use, but at the end of the day, it's how bad do you want the player, how bad do you want to move in terms of moving up or going back.
Q. When you guys are doing mocks and trying to figure out what's going to happen, do you have your own in-house model or do you use stuff that's --
JOHN SCHNEIDER: That's a really, really funny -- we have a very funny story on that, and I'll tell you sometime. We did it one year and it didn't go well. We did a mock draft in-house because we had never done one, so we thought we were adding to our process, and it was awful.
PETE CARROLL: Disaster.
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