JOHN SCHNEIDER: Christian Haynes, that was a long, long wait, but we were trying to think of Leonard Williams the whole time.
Smart, tough, reliable. 50, 51 starts, length, explosiveness. Great pass protector. Yeah, plays with some nasty -- obviously, we're really excited, yeah.
MIKE MACDONALD: Not much to add. Just our type of guy. I think you're kind of seeing a theme here, but really excited to add him to our O-line and get after it and compete. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out by the end.
Q. You talked about yesterday not thinking that Byron Murphy was going to be there. Now to have a two time All-American still available, how surprised were you?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: There was a little run there too. There was a couple guys starting to go. Yeah it got -- and Indy went right ahead of us, and someone in the room was like, oh, no, they're going to take him right here. We had a little panic there.
MIKE MACDONALD: It was not me.
Q. He played exclusively right guard in college. Do you see any flexibility to move around in other spots?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: He's obviously been the most comfortable there, but this guy is going to come in and compete. He's a solid guy. I'm sorry. I'm not saying it's going to light up.
MIKE MACDONALD: Obviously doing a lot of work at right guard, but definitely some position flex across the interior O-line. But we'll start him at guard.
Q. Why would he be positioned to make an immediate impact or to be on the field right away?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: He's played a ton of ball. He's played a lot of football. People were ripping off stuff in there, like I said, 50, 51 starts. He's had 48 pressures in like -- not like. I know exactly what it is. They just told me -- 1,687 snaps.
The guy is really, really experienced. Again, this is a full buy-in -- coaches, scouting, analytics. His speed, velocity, ratio. Everybody was really excited to rip it off.
MIKE MACDONALD: Spring profile.
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Spring profile is amazing. He generates a ton of force. It was a lot of fun.
Q. You mentioned had a lot of fun. What are those moments like for you?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: This was long, so long because of the length of the second round, not having a pick. We had considered going up several times, and then things just didn't work out. People wanted to pick, and then people had their players taken.
Q. Mike, you mentioned that you spoke with Scott Huff, and then the Senior Bowl performance. What kind of insight did you get from Scott and seeing him in a different setting than the one he was at?
MIKE MACDONALD: Like John said, there was a lot of consensus with Huff and Grubb and Hutch and really everybody -- Todd with his area and stuff. It's great to have everybody on the same accord, you know. I think the Senior Bowl was really impressive as well, so that might have sealed the deal.
Q. I would assume that Tennessee take -- you took special note of that for obvious reasons. What made an impression possibly from that game?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: I mean, just obviously the level of competition, right? You're going to try to study those games as much as you possibly can when they're playing up like that. I mean, all of them, when you have all these cut-ups now, it's like, all right, show us all the pressures. Show us all the rear run play stuff, outside zone, inside zone.
You can watch so much stuff. So, yeah, all of it.
Q. When you consider Byron as sort of your second round pick this year, how excited in general are you this year to bolster your offensive and defensive line with these two picks?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Huge. We really wanted to put an emphasis on it, and the board ended up kind of going that way for us.
Q. John, what are some characteristics that show up when you watch him play?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Initial quickness, length. He can get under people. He can roll his hips. Like the pass protection stuff is legit, lateral movement. He stays in front of people. He's got strong hands. Yeah, he's got anchor. He's just a really good football player, really good -- so experienced. He knows like the nuances.
He had a great Zoom interview with Coach Huff. They loved the football intelligence. Everybody was just really excited.
Q. How do you feel about your guard spot as a whole, just with Anthony obviously played a lot of right guard last year, and then Laken and all that?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, Laken was huge for us. Anthony started a couple games for us last year. We just want more competition there. We're going to keep working it, see what the board looks like tomorrow.
Q. With this era of college football, how impressive was it that he stayed six years at Connecticut, three coaching changes, two-year captain, Masters degree, all that?
MIKE MACDONALD: It is rare. You hit it on the head. Yeah, he's just a mature guy, smart. Everyone coming out of the school loves him. Even people that have worked with me in Baltimore that crossed with him at UConn had a lot of great things to say about him as well.
It's been a long time. Six-year senior is pretty impressive. We won't be seeing those guys after a couple years once the whole COVID things fall off here.
Q. Did Jim Mora have anything to say to you personally?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, just classy, you're going to be getting a classy, highly intelligent, nasty football player. Great combination, I guess, if you like that sort of thing.
(Laughter).
Classy and nasty, yeah.
Q. What do you guys think it was about him that made him a two-time captain?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Good question.
MIKE MACDONALD: It's all the things we're talking about. Just the everyday attitude. When you do it every day like Christian does, people see it, players see it, coaches see it. Those are the guys you want leading your team. So we're excited to bring him in.
Q. Six years in one place, four on the football field, change anything about how you get to evaluate the football parts of him, either how he grew in the system or just kind of the comparison that you get to make with him year over year?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Just the experience to a point, yes, but the Senior Bowl really, we can see him in the one-on-ones, he did a great job. You could just -- you can see him against the different levels of competition, different styles of defensive linemen, the level of play there, I would say that. That was very important to the evaluation process.
Q. John, kind of similar to Bob's question, did you guys appreciate the interior group in the O-line, but this off-season none of the starters from last year are back. How do you feel that process has gone, both the outlook for the group as a whole even at center with the group you kind of have there now?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: I like the process. We've gone through it in an efficient manner. I don't think we've panicked. At that position, it's clearly a position that you can -- it's easy to panic because there's the lack of depth, whether it's pro football or college football, right? On the offensive line.
We're not going to stop working it. We're going to just keep going.
Q. In the blocking scheme that Ryan wants to run, did that influence at all the type of offensive linemen you're looking for?
MIKE MACDONALD: To a degree, but we're going to be multiple up there on the schemes that we run. Yeah, to a certain extent. We're considering those types of things, but I would say on the whole probably not majorly, if that makes sense.
Q. Have you considered Nick Harris at guard or just at center?
MIKE MACDONALD: Both.
Q. Talk about culture (no microphone). Today an offensive player you drafted said the word (indiscernible).
MIKE MACDONALD: Did he? Great. That's great. Keep saying it.
Q. There's got to be some intentionality with what you all are creating?
MIKE MACDONALD: I think that's fair. I think that's fair. Just a style of play that no one wants to play. That's what we're aiming for. That's our standard of how we play football. If you want to play here, you're going to have to play a certain way. Those are the types of guys we're bringing in.
Q. Along those lines, Mike, we're all interested to see kind of your offensive identity. As you're evaluating a guard, would you say you have any slight preference towards the pass blocking versus the run blocking, or do you want the road crater? When you watch a tape, what viscerally gets you when you watch a great block?
MIKE MACDONALD: I like the guys that knock them off the ball. That's me. So we kind of figure out the rest later. I think Christian brings that to the table. So that's the first thing I'm looking for.
Q. What's your outlook for Olu heading into this off-season? After the little bit he played last year, how you project it?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Olu did a nice job last year when he played. He came into the Detroit game, and Evan was injured, and he came in and went right down the field, continued to drive, and ended up scoring.
Yeah, he did a nice job when he played. It's a year of growth for him, but same way we felt about him last year. He goes to Michigan, and he's named captain in the spring. Again, smart, tough, reliable guy.
Q. What did you think of that draft call?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: I wasn't on it. Todd did it. He was awesome.
Q. When you let your scouts do it?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Well, he was so passionate about him. Just awesome. His initial report is like this guy is a Seahawk. And that's in, I don't know, September. He just had so much passion for him. Yeah, it's fun. It's always a blast to be able to call people like that.
He's had a relationship with him. Jason Barnes as well. Jason went in there. He did the school call, and those guys, they just always really liked him.
I'm not sure if -- Todd's been doing this since the west was won. I'm not sure if he's ever been able to do that. So it was fun.
Q. Mentioned the run on the guard that started the offensive lineman pick in the second round and third round. You guys were considering trading up. Was going up to get Christian the main goal behind that?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: Ooh, maybe I shouldn't have said that. We were trying to trade up. I'm not going to get into specifically who we were trying to trade up for.
Q. Similar to that, with the picks you had, were you able to get the guys on the offensive and defensive line?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: No, we're excited for tomorrow. We have a lot of work to do, and there's still some darn good football players on the board. Then we're going to jump into rookie free agency and try to crush it.
Q. Maturity and experience is probably the easy answer, but what is the benefit of a 24-year-old and bringing someone in like that to essentially have the opportunity to come in and play and contribute right away?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: I mean, you nailed it. And his intelligence, his football intelligence, how he related with our coaches, interacted with them on the Zoom. Yeah, I mean, he's a tough, competitive guy that has a level of maturity.
It's not going to be too big for him. Guys that have that experience, I mean, he's played in 51 games, and you start 50 of them, that's a lot. It's a lot of football.
Q. What's the dynamic of coaches on the Zoom call?
MIKE MACDONALD: The thing I like about how we did it is, when you do it at the combine, it's only 15 minutes. Sometimes you'll supplement with another Zoom, but this gives us a little bit bigger opportunity to dive in with football knowledge and football character and kind of how they see the game. And their personalities get a chance to kind of come out and shine too.
I think the way we do it is really cool, and our guys did a great job.
Q. Is there a time limit?
JOHN SCHNEIDER: We try to keep it to an hour.
MIKE MACDONALD: It's definitely less than an hour for our guys.
(Laughter)
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports