General Manager Scot McCloughan
ASHBURN, Va.- Opening statement:
“I want to welcome you all here. But first and foremost, I want to put this out there because I know questions are going to be asked – we are going to exercise the option on RGIII [
Robert Griffin III], the ‘016 option. That took place this morning. We talked to Robert, we talked to the agent. They’re very positive, very positive feeling in the building right now. So with that said, we’ll rock-and-roll.”
On arriving at the decision to pick up the fifth-year option for quarterback Robert Griffin III:
“We arrived awhile back. You know, we have until Monday to make the official announcement with the league office. So, we just decided with all you guys being here and the platform today, go ahead and put it out there.”
On what went into the decision to pick up the option:
“Well, he’s a good football player. He’s got good tape out there. Everybody knows what he did in ‘012, when he was rookie of the year, offensive rookie of the year. This full offseason, second year in the system but being healthy and being able to go through the offseason, I’m really excited looking forward with all three quarterbacks, watching them as Phase 2 gets going on the field and I can start watching them move around and watch them make plays.”
On balancing quality and quantity of players in the draft:
“Yeah, a lot of times if they’re calling us to move up to our spot and we’re moving back, we have the leverage. So what I can do is, say we’re going five spots, say we’re going eight spots, say we’re going 15 spots, I can look at the board and get an idea who might be there. We’d love to get more picks in this draft. We have our seven originals right now. I’d love to get 10-plus out of this thing. But, if not we’ll be okay. If we stay put at [pick No.] 5, we’ll get a good football player at 5. You go off the board and get a pretty good idea on what team needs are, what teams are coming for and that stuff. But, the last thing you do is take yourself out of a really good football player. Get too cute with yourself, go back too far, and all the sudden, I have say 10-15 guys I want to pinpoint that I think can come in Day 1 and start, you go too far back and you’re going to lose out on some of those guys. You’ve got to be careful.”
On if draft decisions including trades are based on a gut feeling:
“It’s gut. They have got a value chart for points. Say if they want to come to No. 5, they owe this, this and this. A lot of its gut, but also we’ve done a lot of preparation for this. Our board is almost completely set – after the next few afternoons with the coaches then it will be set. But yeah, a lot goes into it. You’re just not going to do it to do it. We’ll talk scenarios prior to Thursday, Friday and Saturday. People might be calling, sniffing around about the pick.”
On how he evaluates the team’s needs along the offensive line:
“Again, we’re not going to draft for needs. Even with free agency, we didn’t go in thinking, ‘Okay, we’re going to stick it all on defense.’ We went in special teams, offense, defense and it just worked out to be defense. We feel we got some good football players not just on the field but off the field, high-character guys that come from winning organizations and know what it looks like. We’re going to approach free agency and the draft every year the same, just getting good football players. You always have injuries, trade opportunities and stuff like that, so if you can just keep stockpiling good players, the organization is going in the right direction… It’s pretty much with any position, especially offensive line – big guys, intelligent guys, competitive guys. You know, it’s about the five guys up front. It’s not about the one guy. It’s all five guys working together. I think it’s a big man’s game, and I think size and strength and like I said passion, toughness is very important up front. If you can control the line of scrimmage on either side, it’s a pretty good start.”
