We already talked about Hakeem Nicks and Sintim and Beatty.
Hakeem Nicks – we felt like he was a really good value pick and a need position. We got a little bit of both at that time; very productive, big body, long arms. We like him.
Clint Sintim – We will play him at SAM. He is a powerful man, big powerful guy. He can rush the passer. He has …..play ….tight end. Neutralizes the tight end for us in that respect. We can see him doing some hybrid stuff as a rusher and as a linebacker and doing some dropping stuff as well.
William Beatty - Tackle. We like him as a guy who can develop with no pressure on him to come in and play right away. But he will create some competition. This guy is an excellent athlete. We thought he was the best athlete of the tackles in the draft. So we expect him to come in and contribute in some way. But our offensive line is in tact. There is no pressure for him to do that. But if he does that, it will be great. We expect him to come in and compete.
Ramses Barden – A big receiver. He is long; he is very long. He has long arms. He is 6-6, dominates his level of competition out there. He had 50 touchdowns. His career average is over 20 yards. He has got huge numbers. People dinged him a little bit at the Senior Bowl but the thing that we liked about him is that he got better every day. At the first day he looked a little bit out of place but he got better every day. So we liked that about him; outstanding hands. He is a huge, huge target down in the red zone.
Travis Beckum – Tight end, more of an H-back for us. He will play more of an H-back type for us. And obviously he is not the blocking type but we expect him to block to a degree in some of the stuff that we will do. We think this guy could be a nightmare as a matchup problem for linebackers and strong safeties. We like him in that respect. Also when it gets cold out here – when the wind starts to swirl out here and it gets cold in November, December, a shorter pass to a guy who can get open on the inside, a bigger target, will probably help our quarterback in that respect. Because it is hard to throw the ball outside in this stadium as you all know. So we think he could be a real nightmare for some matchup problems with (linebackers) and strong safety types.
Andre Brown – Running Back. We really like him. We had him targeted for awhile. We think this guy is very, very similar to Derrick Ward. You have to look at a lot of tape because he had a foot injury and he was rotated almost 50% with another back, who is a good, young player for them. So you had to look at a lot of tape to really do your homework and find out who this guy really is. But just watching the tape you could almost – I think is he (number) 24. He almost looked like (number) 34, like Derrick Ward, and he runs the draws and the screens. They put him out wide. They put him in the slot. He is a big boy. He is 224 pounds, I believe. He ran 4.48 so he has got the size and the speed stuff that you like. He is very, very versatile; catches the ball really nice. He is a very good pass protector. So we like that pick a lot. So we expect him to come in and compete at the running back position as well to give us four really good backs that compete for jobs right there.
Rhett Bomar – Quarterback. We thought it was too much value at the time. We had some guys that really liked this player. It was a lot of value. We always talk about the quarterback situation – developing a quarterback. We drafted (Andre') Woodson last year. We still like Woodson. I know people will start to write him off right away, but that is not true. Who knows how long David Carr will be here. So there will be a lot of competition at that position. It was too much value at the time for us to pass him up.
DeAndre Wright – DB. At this point in the draft you are looking for some redeeming qualities. This guy's height, weight and speed – Marc Ross can give you more details about him. But there are some things that jumped out about him. He has some height, weight and speed that you like for the position.
Stoney Woodwon – DB. The same thing – height, weight and speed. You look for some redeeming qualities and that is what these guys had. And so hopefully you can hit on something with these kinds of guys down at the bottom.
Q: You talked about the fact that Nicks may be a little more ready than some of the other guys because of the pro style that he played and things like that. Is that the opposite of a guy like Barden?
A: Well the level of competition is different but Nicks did play in a pro-style offense. He has a pro-style body. He is a young guy but he has a pro-style body. He is a big, thick wide receiver. And we like that about him. He played in the pro-style. He understands defenses. He lines up and plays any position. He lined his teammates up so he is smart in that respect. So he can line up in the slot, he can line up inside; he can line up outside, X, Z, wherever you want him, he can line up. So there are a lot of things that I like about him in that respect. Ramses has a lot to learn but he has a huge, huge upside. We think he can come in and contribute right away as a threat down in the red zone. He is one of those guys – if you get a little corner and there is a real matchup problem, you can just throw it out there and we would like to think that he can come down with it. He did that a lot where he played football – at his college at Cal Poly. So we expect him to be able to do some things like that while he is learning on the job. And we expect him to play – all of these guys – we expect them to play on special teams. That is a common theme – we always expect – if you are not a starter, you play on special teams in some aspect.
Q: You mentioned at one point that you didn't necessarily think you needed a tall, long receiver. But now that you have one, is that a pretty nice luxury to have on your team with a guy that size?
A: Sure it is. Like I said, you always want a big 'spider man.' And we think we have a young kid who can develop and really could hit big with him. So we are looking forward to getting him out there and trying to get him acclimated to the National Football League.
Q: I know you are hesitant to make a comparison, but do you see a lot of the comparisons to Plaxico? Did he do a lot of the same stuff? I know the speed isn't necessarily the same.
A: They have similar body types. The Plax we saw was a seasoned veteran. This guy is just a young kid coming from Cal Poly with a huge wing span. But he was very productive. Small school guys, we like for them to dominate their level of comp. He stood out like a sore thumb – like Kevin Boss at his level of comp. This guy stands out at his level of comp because he dominates that level of competition. So you don't want the guys at that level of competition to blend in. He didn't do that at all.
Q: There were presumably some opportunities for you to maybe get a veteran receiver. Instead you got two pretty good looking rookies. Are you comfortable now with your receiving corps? Would you like to add a veteran somewhere down the line?
A: Well, we will see. We will leave all of our options open. We always try to improve, all the way to kickoff and who we play first. We will try to improve this team all the way up until we play our first game. And even during the season, we still try to improve our roster as we go through the season. So it is a never-ending process as far as that goes.
Q: When Bomar was recruited by Oklahoma, he was obviously a well-thought of high school kid. And then when he left and went to a school like Sam Houston State, doesn't that put a downside a little bit on this initiative. Shouldn't he have wanted to go to another major program?
A: I don't know. You guy can ask him that when he gets here but when you go down a level you can play right away. If you transfer to another Division 1 school, you can't play, you have to sit out for a year. So he probably wanted to move down and play. So I think that is probably what he did but I don't know that for sure. You guys can ask him that.
Q: Are you surprised that you ended up making as many picks as you did?
A: No, not surprised. We really cherish our picks. We try to not be cavalier with our picks and not just throw darts on the board. We really try to think out who we are trying to pick and what the reasons are we are trying to pick them. So we had 10 – we initially had 10 and we made nine picks. Can all of those guys make the team? We will see.
Q: Did you fear that someone might take Barden?
A: Well, we wanted to move up because we really like this guy. We really think he has a huge upside. So we had an opportunity not to give up a lot to move up so we gave up the second five and we moved up a few slots to secure him. So we thought that was the right thing to do. We wouldn't do that unless we thought this guy had tremendous upside.
Q: Over the last couple of years any time you had the H-back, the move guy, it seems like they were primarily blockers. Did you look at that and say, "Boy it would be great if we had a guy like that who could catch the ball?"
A: Well that is what we talked about regarding these type guys. We had changed the categories from tight ends and H-backs. We had H-back categories and we had tight end categories. This guy was in the H-back category. And this is a guy – these type H-backs--- there are H-back kind of blockers and H-back kind of receivers. He is more of the receiving type. So we envision him as being a guy – not so much a blocker but more of a receiver and a playmaker as a receiver for us.
Q: You mentioned when all of the Plaxico stuff was going on this team would have to find some other ways to win. Is some of this going into that – you have a young H-back who creates some of the nightmare stuff you talked – you have a 6-6 receiver who is probably pretty raw but maybe on a couple of isolated plays he can create problems. Is that part of the thinking? You don't have that one guy, but maybe a few guys can do different things to make up for that?
A: I think our offense is well diversified but we consider ourselves a power running football team. I don't think that is going to change. We are going to run the ball. We have a veteran quarterback who is a Pro Bowler. We are going to throw it when we want to but we want to be able to run it when we want to as well. So I think we will be a very even keel, so to speak, football team. We can do a little bit of both; a lot of both.
Q: Barden – do you envision him being anything like a situational type player at the beginning with the learning curve he is going to have?
A: That is another thing that jumped out as we – he is one of the kids that we brought in. We wanted to make sure he could – we put him on the board, we put him in the classroom. He was outstanding in that respect. So we don't think that will be a problem for him. He just has to learn the speed of the game here. It is going to be a big difference. But he did play well and when they played Wisconsin, he played well. He didn't make all of the plays you wanted him to make in that game, but he did score a couple of touchdowns in the game. And the Wisconsin coach raves about him; about how they had to prepare for this big guy. Again, you put the tape on; he makes big play after big play. The big play is kind of fun to watch.
