TL: Your Super Bowl — the NFL Draft, is in the bag…you are on record saying that you hit a bunch of singles and doubles, scored a bunch of runs and won the game. Elaborate on that a bit if you could…
ED: Going into the draft we definitely wanted to address a bunch of needs. First and foremost was offensive line at the top of the list. I think that we were able to do that with the picks of Grubbs and Yanda. We love Grubbs’ versatility as a guy who can play left guard or right guard. One of the best players at any position regardless of the position he plays is Ben Grubbs.
Marshall Yanda, one of the scout favorites this year, a very tough guy – plays guard and tackle, a unique swing guy. Most of the times you get a guy that can play guard and center. But Marshal gives us a lot of versatility. Again not a sexy pick but a player who is going to be a quality backup initially who we think can emerge as a starter over time.
Special teams, one of the things that we think really set us back especially in the playoffs was our return game. Not having B.J. Sams there, we felt with our defense and offense we needed a spark and we didn’t get [it]. Yamon Figurs is an explosive guy with tremendous ability in the return game. We thought that with the third round, this guy is a difference maker. We’ve seen what the Bears did setting the bar with Devin Hester. With our ability to force teams to punt over and over and over again, this guy is going to chew up yards for our offense.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Grubbs starts immediately and Figurs will be a starter in the true sense of the word because he’s going to be out there every week returning punts and kicks. Yanda can eventually emerge as a right tackle or possibly guard and Le’Ron McClain is a guy who competes with Justin Green.
TL: You moved around a couple of times on day 1 of the draft with trades. Explain why you moved out of the second round to pick up a third and fourth and then traded another three picks to get a second pick in the third…
Do you sometimes consider when selecting players that some of those you draft on Day 2 might not make your squad and perhaps it’s better to move up and get someone you are sure will make the team?
ED: That’s a good question. I think every year your roster is different. The last couple of years we felt that we could find 7, 8, 9 guys to make the team because we were coming off a 6-10 season and the depth was not where we wanted it to be. Over the last couple of years we’ve added about 18 or 19 players, prospects that we think can play. It’s going to be hard to draft 10 or 11 guys each year and have them make the team.
The other thing you have to take into account is the strength of the draft itself. This year there was a big hole in the draft. We felt like after the fourth round the quality of prospects really dropped – significantly. There were about 45 less players this year that we thought were draftable. What I was consumed with was getting three picks on the first day and I feel really good about it. The combination of Figurs and Yanda, two players that incidentally we would have taken at No. 61, we’ll be a lot better than any players we could have taken on the second day.
TL: Couple of interesting stories on Day 2: Antwan Barnes…Colts; Prescott Burgess…Pats…those two teams and the Ravens comprise I believe ¾ of the teams that do their own scouting v. subscribing to the services of National and Blesto. Might that be why those organizations think a bit like you? Those three teams seem to do as good or better than any other in the draft. Why don’t more teams take your approach?
ED: Taking National and Blesto out of the mix, the biggest thing is that those teams scout well. I’ll put the Niners in that mix too because [they] were involved. They traded up to get Joe Staley in front of us. We were concerned that they might also take [Antwan] Barnes or McClain as well. Mike Nolan does an awesome job. Tony Dungy and Bill Polian do an unbelievable job. Bill Belichick is one of the masters of the draft.
There are probably 10 teams that really do in my opinion an outstanding job in the draft. I think that teams are getting better. It’s not as easy now as it was 5, 7, 10 years ago to pull the wool over other teams’ eyes. We work on it. We study it – it’s our lives. Other teams, the pressure to win, the draft is becoming more and more important because free agency is becoming a dicey proposition. I think teams are seeing that.
We’ll continue to see these other teams doing a good job in the draft and you’ll have to be smart. I give Ozzie a lot of credit. Actually we had McClain graded slightly over Barnes and we drafted Barnes first. We looked at the two teams behind us (at No. 134) and we knew that San Francisco probably wasn’t going to be in the market for either player because they had a fullback prospect and Barnes wouldn’t fit the 3-4 defense that Mike Nolan is trying to build.
With the Colts they don’t really use a fullback. We weren’t worried that they would take McClain. The guy we thought they might possibly take is Barnes because he is an undersized pass rusher and scouts compared him in a lot of ways to Robert Mathis another undersized pass rusher that they got in a great spot, I think in the fifth round. Interestingly enough John Teerlinck the defensive line coach for the Colts called Rex Ryan and said, “Hey you got my guy. I thought he was the No. 1 pass rusher in the draft. We were devastated when he got picked.â€
(As for why more teams don’t build their own scouting departments…)
That’s a good question. It’s the way it’s always been done. Teams are so entrenched in tradition and they do the same things every year. [With us] it goes back to Bill Belichick and thinking outside the box. In Cleveland he said, “Hey you know what? These reports (National & Blesto) aren’t credible. Let’s take that money and hire another scout and do the work ourselves. Let’s take this approach and run with it.â€
It works, I think if you have people you can trust. If you have scouts who you have trained at a young age and taught them what you are looking for and what your organization covets, it works. We speak the same language. We’re on page with the coaches and that’s critical. Our coaches and scouts speak the same language. When Rex Ryan is talking about a rush linebacker or a jack linebacker, our scouts know exactly what that means. Or if we are talking about a guy that can be the dime linebacker or the nickel corner, we know exactly what they want at the position and likewise, when we decide to draft a player like Barnes, Rex is on board.
There’s a great synergy here in this organization. Ozzie and Brian, it starts at the top with those two guys and it trickles down. We’re friends, we work very well together and there’s excellent discussion and dialogue. Every now and then we’ll have a heated discussion but when we leave the room it all goes away. We get to the bottom of the situation and make the smartest decisions we can for the Ravens.
TL: If someone wants to get into college scouting, what would you suggest to those people?
ED: I’m sympathetic because I was a guy who grew up just loving the draft. I would spend every single year watching the draft. I would study personnel as a young kid – study how teams were put together. I was fascinated by those types of things and I always wanted to be a scout. There are a lot of different ways to get there and I think the biggest thing is having some experience. It helps if you’ve played, preferably in college.
We have some scouts, Joe Hortiz is a great example. He didn’t play in college, he played in high school. What he did, he got to Auburn way back in the early nineties and called Terry Bowden and said, “Hey coach, I want to coach. I’ll volunteer. I’ll fill water jugs. I want to learn to recruit and watch tape.†So Joe volunteered at Auburn and parlayed that into a job with us. There’s a lot of different ways.
I started as a graduate assistant up in Connecticut while I was working on a master’s degree. I did an internship with the Redskins in 94-95. Some of our scouts have coaching backgrounds. Some have playing mixed in. We’ve had guys work their way in through operations too. The biggest thing is having a passion for football, knowing the game and doing something extra.
TL: As a fan of the Ravens, one of my biggest concerns is you. If Ozzie isn’t ready to step down and you want to be a GM and are wooed by another team, is there a protégé out there for you like you were to Savage 3 years ago? Is there the next Eric DeCosta in this organization right now?
I don’t know. That’s really a question for Steve and Ozzie. My focus is really on the Ravens. I’m in a different situation from some of the other guys that have left because my family is really entrenched here. My wife is from Baltimore. To have my daughter’s grandparents five minutes away is unbelievable. I don’t know what money that’s worth, but it’s worth a lot. My situation working for Ozzie Newsome who has been one of the biggest sponsors in my life and given me an opportunity to start a career back in 1996. I was one of those guys who would pick up players from the airport. I would drive Ted Marchibroda back and forth to DC.
I’ve come a long way. I recognize that but I think there’s still a lot for me to learn. I love the feeling I get on Sundays when I meet my family after the game when we’ve won and hug everybody. I love the feeling on Wednesdays when my wife’s Mom can go to school and pick up my daughter.
Everybody has ambitions. I have ambitions. We all do. But I’m smart enough to know what I have here and I’m smart enough to know what I don’t know. I’m in no hurry to move up or move on. I love this place. I love the Ravens. I love Steve Bisciotti for what he’s done for this organization, for this franchise. I think the Ravens are one of the best franchises in the league. We have a great core group of players. I love the thought process that we use to build the team and the relationship between the coaches and scouts. I think that’s critical and it doesn’t exist in a lot of other organizations. We have a great group of scouts and there’s no doubt in my mind that each of those guys has a very, very bright future and probably at some point they will be General Managers or Directors of College Scouting or Directors of Pro Personnel.
So I don’t think fans should be concerned about successor management because I’ll tell you this, Ozzie makes unbelievable decisions. You can go all the way back to 1996-97. He’s got a plan in place. I don’t know what that plan is but I know that he’s got a plan for the future and whatever it is it will put the Ravens in position to succeed.
TL: Before you made your first pick, there were some rumblings about you trading up to select Brady Quinn. Was that genuine or was that a tactic to drive up the price for the Browns?
ED: I think we are always interested when good players slip. Brady is a player who quite honestly we didn’t expect to slip like he did. But it’s like Ozzie says, “due diligence.†You make the call, you talk to the player and ask the player if he would be open to playing in Baltimore. We didn’t spend a lot of time talking to Brady Quinn. We brought a lot of quarterbacks to Baltimore before the draft. He was not a player that we brought to Baltimore because we didn’t expect him to slip. Had we known we would probably have brought him in. I’ll say this, our grades on Brady Quinn were good enough that we were interested in him. But it would be a dangerous assumption to suggest that he was our highest graded player at that time. We were calling to see if he was interested. We did speak to a few other teams to see how much he would cost us to move up. We also spoke with teams to see how much we would receive if we traded back. There were some scenarios where a Brady Quinn, Joe Staley, Ben Grubbs were all there, maybe we move back four spots, pick up a pick and still get one of those guys.
We were interested in Quinn but the price became prohibitive based on our trade charts and what we were offering, what we felt was fair value to move up. Based on what Cleveland paid, we would never have given up that much and gone that rich to move up. It just became something that we were uncomfortable doing.
(Part II on Friday)
