JOE SCHOEN: Fire away.
Q. You're not shy about making these trades. Can you give us your thought process behind it?
JOE SCHOEN: It was a good player that we liked that was kind of sticking out on our board, so at a position that, you know, we thought he could help us at receiver. He ran 4-3 and some change, and you could feel his speed on film. I mean, that's legit. Just a player we liked and we spent some time with, and we thought the value is good for what we had to give up to go get him.
Q. How much of a priority has it been this off-season to make this offense more explosive?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, I would say both sides of the ball, just team speed in general. OD and special teams. So I think we did that with some of the free agents we signed: Parris Campbell, Jeff, Okoriki (ph) runs well, Banks. We've upgraded the speed in general; Waller. So yeah, that's definitely something watching our team last year, we just felt we needed to get faster in all three phases.
Q. Every time you make a pick, you know that means you might have to not get another guy, right. So when you look at the totality of today, you got a center, who we assume will challenge for a starting job, and one of the fastest receivers in this draft, did you think that was feasible to get these two players today?
JOE SCHOEN: Not really. One of those deals, we were joking around after we took the center and were like, hey, wonder if we can get them both. I told the guys, just start making calls when it looks like we're going to do it for R4, when it comes into range and we made a couple phone calls and some teams were interested in doing it. We're ecstatic to be able to get him.
Q. How much of a deep threat guy is Hyatt?
JOE SCHOEN: He can roll. I was at that Alabama game. I can't remember why I came in late but I was a little bit late. But I was on the field for the first half. I was coming from another game, landed there, and first half I was on the field, and you could really feel his speed. It's legit 4-3.
Q. Do you typically watch games from the sideline?
JOE SCHOEN: No, but again, sometimes flight delays and everything else. I had some issues with my travel. I was able to get there for pregame but not enough time to see the body type. So I stayed down there and kind of looked at the guys physically and went up to the press box after that. Yeah, you could see more from the press box. I could see it better.
Q. Why do you think he fell as far as he did?
JOE SCHOEN: I'm not sure. I'm glad he was there, though. Josh Heupel, the head coach at Tennessee is a good friend of mine. We go way back. Oklahoma was my area a long time ago when he was a quarterback. I've known him for a long time, and he was the head coach at Central Florida when we took Gabe Davis when we were in Buffalo. So there's some history there. I called him at some point today and just checked on Hyatt. We had him in on a visit.
Again, I'm not sure why he was there but we feel good about him and glad he was.
Q. What's your impression of Hyatt and how important was it to you to get more of that speed around Daniel?
BRIAN DABOLL: I think he's a good player. I think he runs some of the routes that we run here. You can see, a little bit like Gabe, how it might translate. But again, everything is new for him. He's a young guy. We'll throw him in the mix with the other receivers and let those guys compete it out. A good visit here. Definitely has some qualities that you like when you're watching him. Good young man. So happy we have him.
Q. Quick follow, everybody always is happy with their draft, nobody walks away saying it sucked, right, but when you look at just what you've done so far, you've kind of hit on three needs in these three first picks here. Is that something you anticipated being able to accomplish going into this?
BRIAN DABOLL: Well, you never know. We have a lot of meetings, I would say, leading up to the draft and then these last few days and you go through a lot of different scenarios. You know, it's an inexact science but I'd say there's a lot of preparation. I think Joe does a fantastic job working the phones and being prepared, along with, I'd say, Tim and Brandon and Dennis, rest of the scouts, they have done a great job.
So again, you draft these players. You put grades on them. You come in, you coach them up. But you let them compete it out. That's what we're all about. So it's just adding new pieces just like we did in free agency. We'll get them out there on the field and see how they do,
Q. Did what the Eagles did yesterday on their defensive line make the center position that much more of a focus for you today?
JOE SCHOEN: Not really. You know, it was a position we were looking, the entire offensive line. Again we looked across all of them. You're always look the in the division, it's important how you match up.
I go back to when he was at New England and they had the two really good tight ends. You are always trying to figure out who can cover Gronk or whoever it may be. You're always looking at it.
But I think being strong in offensive and defensive line, regardless is always going to be a priority of ours.
Schmitz is a great guy, I know we haven't talked about him, but smart, tough, dependable, played a lot of ball. Had a great Senior Bowl. He's a good player and a great kid.
Q. What do you like about the pairing of Daniel and -- those two together?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, we'll see how it works out. I know we've spent time with him. He's a great kid and he embodies what we want to be about. He's a good football player.
Again everybody is going to come in here, compete, earn their spot, and, you know, we'll see how it falls but he's wired the right way.
Q. A couple of the knocks on Jalin, a little bit slight, what people are saying. When you look at the frame and his body type what gives you the confidence that maybe he can grow into it or he can play with that body type in the NFL?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, I think he -- body type -- (audio skip) that's a good player. Was drafted much higher. But again, you look at it, you look at the group, you know, how tall they are, how long they are, thick they are, and you know, I know the offensive staff and Dabs, they do a great job of putting the guys in the best position to succeed; and what are the routes they run best, how can we accentuate what they do well, and then they will kind of formulate the offense around that. I think he'll be fine.
Q. Schmitz was the one guy you didn't trade up for. Is that because you felt he was going to fall or you felt a lot of guys --
JOE SCHOEN: I wish. I wish. Yeah, I wish I had a crystal ball. It's hard. Patience, I wouldn't say is one of my strengths, and I often get tested this time of year because it's like anything, if you want it and you have the resources to get it, go get it.
I've been on the other side that when you're sitting there kicking yourself for not doing something you and don't like the subsequent result from not doing what you could have done and you were okay with, you know, what it was going to cost you.
So yeah, I mean, Chicago jumped up from us, and you thought, okay, who knows what they are going to take. So a couple players there that we liked but you've got to be at piece with that if it happens and say, hey, let's just stay patient and we did that. You know, any type of move-up would have cost us another pick and maybe you don't end up with Jalin. So you know, I'm glad it worked out the way it did.
Q. When you say that last year you couldn't do this to the level you did this year, you needed for picks last year and this fear, is it fair to say you can cherry-pick a little bit more?
JOE SCHOEN: No, that's a good question. I think we had a little more resources in free agency and so we were able to add more depth pieces in March and April, you know, along with maybe some of that's practice squad guys we had last year that had developed, or the Isaiah Hodgins' of the world, so had a little bit more depth. We added some starting pieces in free agency, guys that will compete for starting spots. So maybe you don't need the depth and the numbers that I felt like we needed last year.
Q. Was Hyatt a guy you considered where you took Schmitz?
JOE SCHOEN: He was in the range. He was in the range.
Q. When you guys both talked about from a receiver perspective in this offense, how complicated it is --
BRIAN DABOLL: I thought you'd, ask like, an offensive line question. We can keep going with receiver.
Q. Just in terms of the complicated nature of the routes you guys run in this offense, for Jalin, I would imagine, he has a diverse game to be able to run what you guys run at different spots in this game?
BRIAN DABOLL: I'd say this: With all the players, particularly, the young ones that come in, you evaluate them on tape, and then you get them here, and you try to do what they do well. You have a good idea watching the tape but sometimes they come in and they can do a few more things maybe you didn't want to do as much as you thought you would do with one of them.
Our job as a coaching staff, our offensive coaches, whether it's receivers, tight ends, running backs, is let's figure out what these guys do well and then let's -- we have a pretty expansive system, which I'm sure most people do.
But once you pare it down and find out who is going to be running those things, you make sure you adapt and make sure there are things your players can do well whether it's quarterback, receivers, blocking schemes with the line, defensive players. That's the job of a coaching staff.
But yeah, and our other third-round pick was Waller, so we tried to do what we can do with him, too.
JOE SCHOEN: It's true. Pick's coming up probably.
Q. I'll give you the offensive line question then. When you have a young guy coming in like Schmitz, how much of it is, can he handle the physical load but also the mental capacity to be able to do this job?
BRIAN DABOLL: No, I think that's, regardless of if it's this offense or any other offense, you're come in from college and you're playing against grown men up front.
So I'd say there's a learning curve mentally but there's also a physical curve, too, and we won't find that out until August. But this guy's tough. He's smart. He's got a good frame. Former wrestler. Good leader. So we'll throw him in the mix, let him compete it out with the other guys and see how it ends up.
Q. Both guys on the offensive line, on Schmitz, when he had him in the conference call, he described himself as "nasty" and he sounded like a polite young man on the telephone. Is that something you have seen on film or noticed when you took him to dinner what's your take on that?
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, you see it on film.
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, you see it on film. Not when you're sitting across from him but when you turn on the flim, you see it.
Q. Nothing bad happened during dinner or anything like that?
BRIAN DABOLL: No. We did a FaceTime with him, the whole group and he basically wanted to put his helmet and shoulder pads on that instant, standing with his parents. He loves the game of football and just another good offensive lineman to work with.
Q. So you saw a lot of things where Schmitz and Tippmann were almost interchangeable; one could go in front of the -- did you like Schmitz more than Tippmann?
JOE SCHOEN: There's a lot of offensive linemen we liked in this draft, and we went through -- I won't get into how we have them ranked or something. They are both good football players, both in New York and I think they will both have successful careers.
Q. Yesterday we saw Wink give a pretty aggressive hug to the general manager after the cornerback. As the head coach, are you allowed to express that when you get a 4-3 receiver?
BRIAN DABOLL: Sure, I did it with the defensive -- with Te, too. Look, these guys, Joe does a great job, like I said, of leading the entire draft. But the people -- these scouts that are busting their tail and they are gone for six months, they might have, you know, however many people that they want to select and we don't select any of them from their area, if you can imagine that, they are gone from their families and working their tails off. They do a great job of setting up the board, communicating with the coaches. It's a really good process but I'd say this guy leads it up and he does a great job of it.
Q. Asked the wrong question. How did Kafka respond to the pick of receiver?
JOE SCHOEN: He's jacked up, too. Yeah, him, Mike Groh, everybody is excited. Kafka is excited about the center, too.
Q. Schmitz is a center and you guys had talked about maybe having Ben play a little center, so how does that work? Will Ben compete with Schmitz as center or do you want Ben as your left guard? How do you see that that? How do you see Ben's role shaking out now?
BRIAN DABOLL: We'll find out. Throw them all out there.
And again, we haven't had practice yet. We have selected some new players and some free agents and we'll start phase two on Monday, which is a little bit different from phase one, but can't get out in front of each other until we get to phase three and that's really a teaching type of camp, if you will.
I don't think you want to put too much on the rookies early on because, you know, let's be honest, they have been on the road. Te has been on the road, however many visits. They have to re-acclimate themselves and you want to be smart with them, and slowly integrate them into the system. But that's what you do every year. You try to build as much competition for your roster as you can, and that's what we're trying to do.
Q. How much of a mind game is it when you're in the draft room and you are picking second round, saying, well, if I take the center now, am I still going to get the wide receiver or how do you play that? Do you just take the best player or what?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, in that case we did. We weren't even really thinking about that. We weren't thinking about the subsequent pick. You're really, again, there's something out there that you want or you desire, and you're waiting and waiting, don't know if it's going to be there, it's tough, and it can be stressful.
So that's why again, sometimes you are aggressive and sometimes you move back. Last year in the second round, we moved back twice. Based on the situation, who is there, where you are as a roster, you're always taking that into account. We met extensively today and went through different scenarios and the roster and kind of wants and needs on the roster, and you know, I think it worked out well for us this evening.
Q. When you're talking to so many different teams like you were tonight, looking into trades, how many different people are on the phone at once? Are you on the phone? Is Brandon making some of the calls? How is it all working?
JOE SCHOEN: Last night, the first round, it's a little bit slower. You get more time to turn in your pick. You've been through, again, there's so many different scenarios, especially last night. So that was more myself.
Then today, it's a group effort. Dabs, actually, executed his first trade. He initiated the trade with the Rams; so I congratulate him on that.
But no, if you know somebody, hey, why don't you shoot the Rams a text, or you know, give them a call and again, hey, this is what it looks like it would be, does it make sense and we just call and say, hey, when you're on the clock, let us know.
Q. Was that a FaceTime trade then?
JOE SCHOEN: That was a test.
BRIAN DABOLL: That was not a FaceTime trade.
JOE SCHOEN: We had to type it in his phone for him. He said, "Here, just type it in for me."
BRIAN DABOLL: I'm a FaceTimer, that's about it.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports