Edc interview notes
Dennis pitta after Ed Dickson
Mark Andrews after Hayden hurst
- he was most surprised about dobbins being available there at 55
- Pretty open about rbs generally - recognised that the analytics community is obsessed with rbs and their value but ultimately you do have to remember to look at the player also and dobbins was the type of classic BPA where the grade far exceeds where he’s getting picked
- Said there were 4 RBs they thought might go in the 1st (dobbins, Edwards-helaire, swift and Taylor) and then 3 other guys they thought were really talented - Akers, moss and interestingly: aj dillon
- Duvernay was the pick they were most nervous about having the player fall to them - was the receiver they were most excited about in the 3rd round - they were most hoping for him not to get taken before the pick
- Malik was one they also sweated out about him getting snapped up
- They agonise over every pick where there’s a guy they really want with the pick
- Talks about studying consensus bias - the tendency for people to assume that everyone else sees the board and sees the players just like you do when that’s not normally the case and it’s why they know that they can often sit and have a guy they really like fall to them without having to move up - to understand that helps you not to panic and trade up when it’s likely a player you like will fall to you because of the general volatility of the draft and variance in other teams draft boards
- EDC clearly does not like the idea of giving up picks
- AJ wasn’t even a second thought - jk was by far the highest rated guy on our board - mentions good relationship with people at Iowa and that he’s a player that we liked but dobbins was way more exciting and coveted by the ravens - he said it was like dobbins just “fell out of the sky”
- Love decosta taking a sly dig - says he’ll read some stuff on the website but as soon as mink writes anything on the draft he doesn’t bother because it’s basically worthless lol
- Talking about the running backs as a group of 4 and not in terms of competition for spots - certainly seems to suggest that he at least is thinking that we’ll keep 4 and trust Roman to find roles for them in the same way he did TEs last year (my guess is that Justice maybe gets in for his special teams as well as being a RB)
- Decosta wasn’t directly comparing but when talking about madubuike he instantly brought up Aaron Donald and geno Atkins to talk about him - talking about wreaking havoc inside and finding interior pass rusher - Justin’s a guy who has the talent “in his body” to be an inside pass rusher - he’s “twitchy”, “strong with his hands”, “plays hard”, “got excellent penetration ability”, “lateral agility”, “natural explosive qualities” - thinks he can develop into an inside pass rusher for us
- Duvernay is an angry football player - good character fit in Baltimore - EDC says he thinks about the best receivers we’ve ever had in Baltimore and you think of highly competitive guys (different styles with different games but highly competitive “warriors”) - that’s what EDC sees in Duvernay - different style but the same sort of mentality - specifically namechecks Steve Smith, derek mason and anquan boldin
- Malik Harrison gets overlooked because of his size and length
- If we take 2 guys at a position in one draft class it normally means we really like the 2nd guy a lot:
Dennis pitta after Ed Dickson
Mark Andrews after Hayden hurst
- if we take that 2nd guy, edc says fans should look at that 2nd guy and go “wow they must really like that 2nd guy”
- *I personally wonder in some of these cases if the fact we got the first guy allowed us to take a slight risk on the 2nd guy who may have higher upside (and sometimes doesn’t always pan out like Tim Williams whose ceiling was enormous but he never got his head right)*
- Harbaugh was one of the biggest advocates for tyre phillips since he saw him in January/February - edc said harbs became enthralled with his [tyre’s] ability in our offence
- Underrated athlete
- Harbs really excited about this pick - been talking about him to EDC since the combine
- Said initially thought we could get him towards the end of the 3rd or 4th - lots of OL started to go in the 3rd and EDC said at that point the mission was to make sure we got Phillips - probably the only pick that sounds like they reached for a guy they knew they wanted but maybe thought could be had a bit later - I’m guessing that part of the rationale was that we smashed the first 5 picks and had still managed to acquire an extra day 2 pick so we could go and reach slightly for need on a guy our HC loved
- Ben bredeson: physical, tough, experienced, intelligent - thinks he’s next in long line of experienced big-ten offensive linemen who can come in and play for us and play really well - trying to work out who he’s referring to: Alex Lewis, Rick Wagner, John urschel, Marshal Yanda
- Tbf that’s a pretty great hit rate from that conference...
- Omg downing is so much better as an interviewer than mink - will actually take advantage of what EDC says and create a conversation - them talking to EDC as a mixologist was more interesting than anything mink said the whole time
- EDC said both Ozzie and harbs had to be on mute at some point
- Didn’t mind the virtual draft and had no trepidation about it but said the thing he hated was not having Ozzie and pat sat next to him for the first time in 24 years - at some points he would get away from the cameras etc by taking his phone into the closet and calling Ozzie 1 to 1 - used it for 1-1 calls with any of the top brass... Steve, Ozzie, harbs, joe Hortiz, George kokinis
- Went into the closet even though he knew the cameras couldn’t actually hear him
- Ravens have always tried to make the draft feel like a team effort and not just 1 person
- Said with proche (because it was the 5 that we got from the steelers for wormley) that he asked himself the question - would I trade Chris wormley for James proche?
- Thinks we’ll be getting some comp picks next year (I don’t know where the second pick would be coming from)
- Said there were guys we would have been happy taking (and wanted to get extra picks for) in the 7th - says we got some of them as udfas but couldn’t talk about them because they can’t take physicals yet - it’s prohibited for him to announce those guys - says he does think that we might have got 3-4 guys who we would have drafted