JOE SCHOEN: Obviously we took Abdul, so really excited about adding another pass rusher to the organization. Great kid. We spent a lot of time with him, been in constant communication with him. I know you guys asked last time about the foot. We feel good about the foot, where he is. He's been running, been working out, so we're not really concerned with that at this point.
But again, we're just excited to add a really good football player to the organization who's really going to help our defense moving forward.
Q. You guys took a lot of time on the clock. How much were you contemplating taking phone calls, contemplating other picks at that spot?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, we were high fiving and hugging. That's what that was, and then we got him on the phone. So we took about five minutes there and just -- we were just talking out and hanging out and enjoying the moment really.
Q. When did you realize this would be a possibility that this was kind of the guy you were going to likely land on and did the action before you at 2, when did you hear about that, and did that change anything for you guys?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, it seemed like just in terms of the order of the draft, it shifted probably around that Colorado pro day. That's really when Travis going No. 2 really started to catch steam because a lot of time before that, it felt like Abdul was going to be the pick at 2. So as we went through our process with all the players that were in the mix, and again, we went through a thorough process through the entire draft, we had a pretty good sense probably on Wednesday that this was going to happen. We had caught wind of the Jacksonville-Cleveland thing so we've known that that was probably going to happen for a couple days here. So we just didn't know which way Jacksonville was going to go.
Q. Dabes, big smile on your face. Talk about going with Abdul, the process, everything that it entailed.
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I had a chance to get some breakfast with him when I went down to Penn State to visit my daughter for a parents' weekend that we had lined up, and in the morning when we were getting ready to leave, I went to a breakfast spot down there at Penn State that I've been to a few times, and we had a great breakfast, great meeting.
He's a great kid, and he's an exceptional player. He's got great quickness, bend, he's hard to block. He played off the ball the year before, and he has some instincts in that area, as well, smart. Just had a really good meeting with him, and then he was up here -- fun guy to evaluate.
You look at him from an offensive perspective and things that I think we might have to do if we ever had to play against him, which we have certain guys in our division that are similar to that.
But he's coming in. He's going to do everything he can to help us out, and he'll start from ground zero with us and Shane and Charlie, but he's got a great personality.
He's a lot of fun to be around, and he's a good football player.
Q. Dabes, (indiscernible) linebacker issue?
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, I think you guys saw that. He put something out there. But he's going to have to be Abdul and do the things we need him to do, but I think he has position flexibility. He can do a variety of things. He's extremely athletic for a big guy. He's played on the edge. He's played off the ball. How we deploy him, we'll have to get him here and work with him. But smart, he's got great personality, and again, he was a fun guy to evaluate. He's a tough guy to block.
Q. The fact that he had only one year at defensive end, did that give you a feeling that his ceiling -- that he's not even close to his ceiling at that position, the more experience he's going to gain --
BRIAN DABOLL: Well, you saw what he can do when he's rushing on the edge, and the issues that he creates with his get-off and bend is really unique. Again, that was his first year, but he's an exceptional athlete. Just really looking forward to working with him. Very happy that we had the opportunity to get this guy.
Q. Joe, was he the No. 1 player on your board?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, I'm not going to get into who was where on our board, but we're ecstatic to have him.
Q. But he was in the top three obviously?
JOE SCHOEN: Obviously he was in the top three. He was definitely in the top three.
Q. Both you guys, offense, quarterbacks who can score points, that's important, but at this point is there anything wrong with developing an identity as a really, really good defensive team, and where do you think you are with this addition to being a team who can say we're a top 5 or a top 10 defense?
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, we're in phase 1 of our off-season program and have one draft selection. Let's get him here. Let's get him into our defense.
Again, I'll say there's a lot of happy people that he was there upstairs with Shane and Charlie. We had Andre Patterson who's coached the defensive line a long time really take a look at him, and we're happy that we have this young man to help us, and we're going to try to do everything we can to help him.
But there's a long way to go here.
Q. Just how much of a consideration was a quarterback at 3?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, as long as the process is, you go through it, you go through it. This wasn't an easy decision. But throughout the process, it became an easy decision that led us to today. It was a series of events, meetings. It's a very detailed process. Again, pro days, privates, breakfasts that Dabes had with him. It leads up to it makes it an easy decision on draft day.
Q. Joe, you mentioned that at the Colorado pro day that things seemed to take a turn with Travis going (indiscernible). How much more did you guys put into your evaluation of Abdul, if at all, in that situation?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, Abdul is one of those guys that as a true freshman jumped off the film. If you're just watching anybody against Penn State, he's playing off the ball, he's moving at a different speed than everybody else. So as personnel folks, you're always, man, who's that freshman, like this year at Ohio State, that receiver, like that guy is jumping off the film already. He was one of those guys. So he was on our radar from early on in August, like, we've got to go see Penn State. We have to go see this guy play.
I was able to see him live against Ohio State. I was able to see him live in the Orange Bowl against Notre Dame.
He was always a guy that was on our radar that was a special talent, and again, we were just fortunate to be able to land him.
Q. You already have Kayvon and Brian Burns obviously on the edge. What's the vision? How do you guys expect to make that work? A natural assumption by some people is they're going to trade Kayvon. What do you say to that?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, we're going to exercise his fifth year option. We've already told him that. That was earlier this week. I know that stuff is out there, but again, you can just throw anything at the wall right now and people go with it.
Kayvon is going to be here. We're excited to have him. You can't have enough pass rushers. Between those guys coming off the edge, Dex in the middle, Nacho, Roy Robertson-Harris, I'm excited about the D-line. We added Ledbetter, Chauncey Golston. So we're turning the corner where there's some depth at some of these positions, and that will really help us. I'm excited about the group.
Again, just -- we're phase 1, so Shane and his staff and Dabes will get together and figure out the creativity of how they're going to utilize the personnel.
Q. How seriously did you make an attempt to trade up to No. 1, and did you get close or was Tennessee not interested?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, we've had conversations going up and back, and again, just it takes two to tango in those situations, and yeah, there wasn't any -- Tennessee stayed and took Cam Ward.
Q. Joe, you mentioned obviously you can't have enough pass rushers, but knowing the history of this franchise with great pass rushers, how exciting is it to add Abdul to that mix knowing what this team has done with good pass rushers?
JOE SCHOEN: Yeah, we were talking on the way down just in terms of adding dogs and a certain type of mentality, and I would say two years in a row with Malik's competitiveness and the toughness that he plays with, and then you add another guy like that in the first round like Abdul Carter and the motor he plays with and the toughness and the violence, that can really help.
And the identity question was mentioned. That can help develop an identity, those type of players, and the more of those guys that you can acquire, the more that can come to life.
Q. In regards to using Abdul, can you envision stuff with the three of them together, Kayvon and Brian Burns? Is that something you guys have thought about or could envision?
BRIAN DABOLL: Yeah, potentially.
Q. How did you pitch to Abdul when you were talking to him? What did you tell him?
BRIAN DABOLL: Well, I would say, it's not recruiting. You're not recruiting athletes to come and they get to choose. You get to choose them. But we had very good conversations with him. Again, he's played multiple spots, off the ball, linebacker, moved and was very productive on the edge. And he's a very intelligent player. Again, once we get him here and he gets engrained in our system and gets to be around all the guys, there's a long time here before we actually get going here, but we're excited to have him.
Q. Joe, what type of conversations regarding moving up from 34, was that the plan to go in and have a lot of phone calls about that?
JOE SCHOEN: This is an interesting draft so I'm actually excited to go see who's been taken so far because I have no idea. It's going to be interesting. We'll see how the night goes. We'll see -- obviously we're not far from the back end of the first round, so we have five or six players that when you talk about, hey, if they're there, we can talk about it, or we're sitting in a good position tomorrow. When you have the second pick in the second round, people sit around all day on Friday and they fall in love with guys, so you can also turn that into multiple picks, as well.
There's a couple different avenues. I'm just excited to go up there again because we've been so focused on what we're doing, I haven't really heard a lot of rumors on what's going to go on behind us, so I'm excited to -- this is a great time of year for us. It's fun. We put a lot of work into it, so it's fun to see how everything goes and sit up there with the scouting staff and personnel guys and just see what other teams thought of players. It's a fun weekend.
DraftScripts by ASAP Sports
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports