GENERAL MANAGER TRENT BAALKE AND HEAD COACH DOUG PEDERSON
MEDIA AVAILABILITY
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2023
Q. What about in terms of where you see him fitting on this roster?
TRENT BAALKE: He’s a linebacker. He’ll compete for a spot. He’s a linebacker. He’ll be in that room and
he can play Mike and Moe. He’s a three-time captain. He’s a high intangible guy. He’s a baller.
Feel he fits in really well on special teams as well as the core four guy. Looking forward to getting him in
here.
Q. Thirteen picks, eight of them in the final three rounds. Do you look at those late guys as the
equivalent of maybe undrafted free agents in a normal year? Or do you feel like 13 guys can fit on this
roster that was pretty darn good last year and didn’t lose a ton?
TRENT BAALKE: Well, what we tried to do is, Coach and I, throughout the process, once the day started
was look at ways we could improve the roster, especially on the special teams side. And just selecting
guys that had a chance to compete for the 53 and as well as special teams. Bring some added value
there. And felt good about the group we got.
Q. Did you think special teams was not as good as it could have been last year, because I thought you
were pretty decent on special teams?
TRENT BAALKE: You’re always looking to get better.
DOUG PEDERSON: Always trying to improve. Special teams is just three phases of what we are as a team
— offense, defense and special teams. As good as we were, you’re always looking, again, like any other
side of the ball, it’s a way to get even better. So adding the depth and drafting some of these players
that we did can help us there.
Q. You brought in Antonio Johnson, a guy who spent most of his collegiate career playing the slot. Is
that your vision for him in Jacksonville?
TRENT BAALKE: He’s in the slot a lot, but he’s a safety in how they play the defense. He wasn’t man
covering a lot of people in the slot. He dropped down, more of a box-type guy.
But, again, there’s a high character, tough guy, great tackler. And a really good teams guy. He’s been a
core four guy his whole career there. Looking forward to him as well, getting in here and competing with
that group.
Q. Going into the draft you told us your board was less than 150 draftable graded players. Was it
always your plan to acquire more picks in this draft when you said you had a little bit of a shorter
board?
TRENT BAALKE: No, it wasn’t. But if you look at how the draft went, we tried to trade up today. We went
through 15 or 16 teams when we were trying to trade up. Every team behind us and not one would
make a move.
So that happened to us several times in the times we were able to trade back. We just felt that the time
we could trade back and get the players that we were planning on picking anyway, and we’re able to do
that. So it’s just how the draft went this year.
Q. Doug, I don’t know how much, or Trent, you guys pay attention to what the other teams in the
division are doing on a weekend like that, or is that something you wait for a couple of days to look
that way?
DOUG PEDERSON: I know for me personally I didn’t pay attention to it because we were into our draft
and the guys that we were doing. It’s something that we’ll take a look at now as we get past this
weekend and on into the rest of the offseason, yes.
Q. I would assume you noted all three teams drafted quarterbacks?
DOUG PEDERSON: I didn’t notice that.
Q. Not at all.
TRENT BAALKE: Did they? Oh, they did.
DOUG PEDERSON: They did.
Q. How comforting is it to know, and I think you addressed it the other night, those guys are chasing
you because you got your guy (QB Trevor Lawrence), and how comforting it is and how much it takes
off your mind that you’ve got your guy and you don’t have to worry about that?
DOUG PEDERSON: It’s nice to have your guy, but, listen, there’s a bulls-eye on us, obviously. I want our
team to understand that. And we have to continue to do — we have to improve as a football team. We
still left a lot of plays on the field last fall, both sides of the ball, really all three phases.
And, so, for us it’s not focusing on other teams as much as it is just us getting better. And it will start this
offseason. And it will carry over into training camp. But we have to improve.
But it is nice knowing that you have the one piece, which is a big piece — obviously the quarterback
position — in Trevor Lawrence.
Q. Trent, could you just talk about the evaluation of Abdullah, just 6-foot tall, probably a little bit
smaller normally than a typical edge player. How did you guys see him? How does he sort of fit?
TRENT BAALKE: First and foremost, special teams. And the fact that he had 20 sacks the past two years
at a high level of competition.
There’s been some very productive shorter rushers in the National Football League. He can run. He runs
4.52 and he gets to it in a hurry coming off the edge. What you see with the smaller guys that are having
success in this league, it’s hard for the 6’6″, 6’7″ tackles to get down to their level.
And it’s a changeup for our guys. And our defensive staff was looking for a guys that was a changeup to
what we currently have.
We just felt at that point in time, the production, the character of the kid, how hard he works, how
important football is to him and the success he’s had at that level all made sense to us.
Q. Do you anticipate him playing more than just on the edge, maybe a little bit off ball like he did at
Louisville or just probably more consistently as a pass rusher?
TRENT BAALKE: That’s going to be up to the coaches once he gets in here. And we’ll get a good feel for
him over the next couple of weeks, months and see where exactly where he fits in the defensive
package. But that’s totally up to the coaches.
Q. Tyler Lacy, you guys had in for a top-30 visit. What kind of impression did he make on you guys
during that visit?
TRENT BAALKE: Excellent impression.
DOUG PEDERSON: Really good.
Q. What do you see from him on tape, just his overall versatility and what he can bring?
TRENT BAALKE: A big-bodied guy. And as you saw in this draft, they were few and far between. There
just weren’t a lot of big bodies up front. And he’s a guy that’s played a lot of football at a high level of
competition. He’s a class act. Another guy that really a character fit, DNA fit for us.
So a guy that we feel can come in and compete, play on the edge in the base package as a big end and
maybe slide in a little bit as a D-tackle when we go into the nickel sets.
Q. Braswell, I know you mentioned special teams a few times. That obviously is going to be critical for
him coming in. But what else was there that you saw out of him that interested you guys?
TRENT BAALKE: Coverage skills.
DOUG PEDERSON: Coverage skills.
TRENT BAALKE: When you talk to their coaches, he was a transfer in there, one year with them at
Rutgers. A guy that stepped in, played a lot of football. They spoke very highly of him. You watch how he
competed the last part of the season.
And then you look at the numbers — 40-inch vertical guy, almost 11-foot broad jumper. He’s got some
explosion in his body and he’s really quick in a short area, which you have to be in the nickel.
Q. Running through the seventh-round guys, since we just found out about them. Hodges (OL Cooper
Hodges), local guy, how did he get on your radar?
TRENT BAALKE: Years ago I was watching App State and we drafted a guy Daniel Kilgore out of App State
that was playing left tackle. And similar to this year, a bunch of us were watching App State and we were
watching another player. And he just kept showing up. He started 50 or 51 games at the collegiate level.
He’s always been a right tackle for them. We feel he can move inside and play the guard position. We
had him in here for one of the 30 visits. Really enjoyed the visit. And saw him play guard at the all-star
game and felt really good about that film. So just a guy that comes in and competes.
Q. Raymond (DT Raymond Vohasek) out of UNC?
TRENT BAALKE: Vohasek. Defensive tackle, nose tackle. Very good film. Tough. Very good with his hands.
Spoke to him on the phone. Had a great conversation with him the other day. A guy that loves football.
Worked with a guy that’s on staff at North Carolina. Spoke very highly of him. He’s all ball. When we
called him and Coach got a chance to talk to him, he’s all ball.
Q. The million-dollar question, Mr. Parish (FB Derek Parish) will be playing what position for you?
TRENT BAALKE: Well, again, another guy that we’ll leave that up to the coaches, but we’re probably
going to start him off in the fullback room, the running back room. We’ll work him from there. Another
guy that’s an excellent special teams guy, core four guy that our special teams coaches were extremely
high on.
Q. Trent, with how many draft picks you guys made does that affect at all the ability to be aggressive
with undrafted free agents and bringing guys in on that standpoint?
TRENT BAALKE: Well, the advantage you have in that many picks, what happens in college free agency,
which the guys are doing right now, they cost a lot of money. That landscape has changed.
So we’re out there, these seventh-round picks are getting less money than the college free agents are
getting right now in terms of guaranteed dollars and everything else.
So when you have 13 picks, it allows you to draft some of those guys that you would normally be
fighting for in college free agency.
But once you get these guys on the team, we don’t set any boundaries. We don’t set any limits. Whether
you’re the first guy on the roster or the 90th guy on the roster, you come in and compete. If you earn
the spot you’re going to earn the spot. I think Coach would say the same thing.
Q. Were there any other calls to the guys that you picked that stood out to you guys either way —
good, bad, funny — anything that sticks with you, one that you enjoyed talking to?
TRENT BAALKE: One guy we couldn’t get on the phone.
DOUG PEDERSON: Went straight to voice mail.
TRENT BAALKE: Twice.
DOUG PEDERSON: Twice.
Q. Which one was that?
TRENT BAALKE: I believe it was — let me see if I can recall. I think it was Erick Hallett. But once he got on
the phone, he was fired up.
DOUG PEDERSON: Everybody reacts differently. Some guys are just emotional. They’re overwhelmed.
They hear their name called on the big screen. And at the same time they’re excited to know where
they’re going to be and go to work.
All of them, as Trent alluded to, all these guys are high-character guys. They’re going to be great fits on
our roster right now. And they’re just excited to get in and go to work.
Q. Do you have pretty much a script when you call these guys what you’re always going to say, the
same thing, or do you wing it at the same time?
TRENT BAALKE: He’s (Head Coach Doug Pederson) got the gift of gab.
DOUG PEDERSON: Sure do. Just be natural. It’s a great opportunity for them. And I forget which one of
the players that we talked to, couldn’t even hear him because the enthusiasm in the room, he couldn’t
hear us.
TRENT BAALKE: Ventrell.
DOUG PEDERSON: Ventrell. Everybody was so fired up on his end that he couldn’t hear us and I couldn’t
hear him. He was just elated and all his family and friends were excited.
But you don’t have anything rehearsed. Just natural and just welcoming them to the team.
Q. Speaking of Erick Hallett, what do you envision the role for him? And just how do you just generally
feel about his value?
TRENT BAALKE: He’s played some safety. He’s played some nickel. And, again, once we draft them and
they get in here I think our coaches are looking at them in that same capacity. Where does he best fit? Is
he competing for the nickel spot. Big nickel spot? You know, potentially the safety.
The versatility of the player was something that was very attractive to us at that point in time in the
draft.
Q. Doug, can you talk a little bit about that, because you hear this word, versatility, over and over
again. It just seems like one of your favorite things is to have.
DOUG PEDERSON: It’s the best thing to have. Guys that can play multiple positions. In his case he can
play inside, outside, and eventually maybe play safety. They’ve got the skill set that is versatile enough
to play multiple spots.
It’s like tackles on offense or guards that can move in and play center and they have the ability to do
that, because this is a game that injuries are going to happen. And if you’ve got guys that can play
multiple positions and you can kind of plug and play, it just gives you an advantage to have as many of
those guys on your roster.
Q. Trent, do you have a guess on the undrafted free agents, how many you have room for or would
like to?
TRENT BAALKE: I’m pretty sure we have room for 10.
Q. And Doug, the league has moved away from fullbacks, and with Parish sounds like you’re adding
one. You weren’t very good on short yardage, third-and-one last year. Is that a philosophical change
for you to bring in a fullback and go that way? Or is it part of the losing Manhertz (TE Chris Manhertz)
who is really a good short-yardage blocker?
DOUG PEDERSON: We’re just changing, pounding ground. Here we go. Trevor’s going to turn around and
hand it off.
Q. Seriously? (Laughter.)
DOUG PEDERSON: No, listen, the fullback position has been nonexistent pretty much in our league. It’s
kind of gone way. I grew up with a fullback in this league back in my days with Green Bay.
That position, we talk about versatility. It’s a position that can line up in the backfield, it can line up as a
tight end. It could be a third tight end. They play special teams. It’s a position that you can do multiple
things with.
And it’s something that having a guy on the roster that can play those positions just opens up your
offense just a little bit more.
And, yeah, I would agree, we weren’t very good in short-yardage situations last year. And it’s just
another way, another tool, another piece to the puzzle that we’ll experiment with this offseason and
particularly in training camp.
Q. For either one of you, you touched on the potential to bring in maybe somebody who wasn’t
necessarily a great person maybe. You said the locker room could handle any kind of — you brought in
a lot of Boy Scouts, really good guys, team leaders. Was that a concerted effort, let’s not mess this up?
We’ve got something really good that we built here, this is not the time to be tweaking with the
locker room?
DOUG PEDERSON: I know for me, yes, we do have a really good locker room. And I feel personally that if
we were to draft a player that might have some issues that our locker room can absorb that. And that’s
where I feel we are as a football team.
These guys on this list, these are football players. These guys are high character. They all love football.
And yet they’re good people first, and that’s something we do look at.
But I do feel strongly that our locker room is capable of handling any person, any player, any situation.
Q. There’s been a lot of talk obviously the last two months about if there’s an area to get better in. I
know there are a lot of them. But pass rush, you lose Smoot (DL Duwane Smoot) and Key (DL Arden
Key), almost double-digit sacks. Obviously you draft a couple guys. But how much are you leaning on
Travon (OLB Travon Walker) taking a step, some of these other guys taking a step — Josh (OLB Josh
Allen) finishing, Doug, to really make up for some of the production and make your pass rush better?
DOUG PEDERSON: I think we are leaning on that. We are expecting Josh Allen to take the lead and of
course Travon’s there and K’Lavon Chaisson to take a step. They’re all guys that have been here, the
second year in the defense. Jordan Smith is coming back off injury. He has another opportunity there.
So, yeah, we expect greater results starting in training camp and then obviously carrying over to the
regular season. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to working with these guys, developing their skill
set even more.
Q. Trent, a follow-up to that, there’s a lot of players still out there from a free agency standpoint that
have pretty good resumés.
TRENT BAALKE: Yes.
Q. How much work still goes into that and obviously time maybe add still?
TRENT BAALKE: There’s always time to add. We’re in a good situation with a cap perspective. We’re a lot
less tight on the cap than we were a year ago. There’s room to work here.
Coach and I talked about this right after the draft. We’re not done putting this team together. We’re
going to take a hard look at what we have. We’ve got a great chance with these young guys coming in in
a couple of weeks and over the next month or so watching them as they go through the offseason
program and really kind of assess where we are.
Is it offense? Is it defense? Is it special teams? Is it team in general? We’ll make some decisions from
there.
But I would expect us to continue to make some moves. How big they are, how small they are, that
remains to be seen. But we’re not done. We’re going to continue to work to build this team and make it
as potent as we can going into the regular season.
Q. Now that you have your draft class kind of in the books and you can look at it as a whole, did things
flow as you expected? And are you pretty happy with all the players you were able to get?
TRENT BAALKE: You always look back, we talked last night when it ended and how that day went and
where we were at and what we wanted to look forward to coming into today. And we just wanted to
add good football players.
You never go wrong adding guys that love to play the game, that are smart, competent guys. Versatility,
we use that word a lot, but a lot of the guys you can see, as we add these pieces, they have versatility.
And when you only have 53 guys on a roster, you need that. This isn’t college where you turn around
and you’ve got 57 guys that are — 60, 70 guys to choose from while the other ones are out on the field
or more. You’ve got 53. And only 48 on game day.
So the more they can do, the better. But we’re excited for this group to get them in here and just get our
hands on them and see exactly what we’ve got and let them show us what they can do.
Q. You added players from all over the place, but you added a few from the state of Florida, a guy
from right in Baker County. Does that help play a role where a guy is, if you can bring a guy back to his
home state or home area in the decision-making?
TRENT BAALKE: I think it does to a point. I think you weigh it a little bit. If they’re even, if they’re
comparable, you maybe go with the home guy that grew up loving the Jacksonville Jaguars and really
wanting to be a part of it. Maybe they’ll fight a little bit harder to earn that spot.
Q. Doug, Parker Washington, what stood out to you about him and really how you think he can fit into
what you like to do on offense?
DOUG PEDERSON: Yeah, I mean, this guy, the size, the speed. His athleticism. Obviously you talk about
stretching the defense a little bit. Middle of the field area. I think being behind a guy like Christian (WR
Christian Kirk) and understanding how Christian operates is going to be great for Parker to be able to see
him, and really how Zay (WR Zay Jones) operates and how Calvin (WR Calvin Ridley) operates. Having a
young guy like this with the ability to create some plays offensively just gives us another weapon,
another target for Trevor (QB Trevor Lawrence) and the quarterbacks to throw to. Excited to get him in
here and get him going and seeing what he can do.
Q. Trent, I know you mentioned Daniel Kilgore earlier. How much does bringing in Parish, how does
that remind you of Bruce Miller, when he converted to fullback?
TRENT BAALKE: It’s hard to — that was a long time ago when we scouted Bruce Miller. But we were one
of the only teams at that time that went down and did a private workout with Bruce. I think there’s
some similarities. They’re similar in size. Derek is even a little faster. But again that’s a work in progress.
We’ve got to get him in here and see how he adjusts to that position.
And the key thing for him, like it is for a lot of these guys, is what are they going to do on special teams?
How are they going to help us? And create that attitude in the locker room which we had a year ago
where they really bought into it.
And teams is one-third of the game, and we really believe in that as an organizational philosophy. So I
think that’s about as close to the comparison as I can get for you.
Q. On a big picture question, I know you said obviously this roster isn’t a finished product yet. But as
you try to move this franchise towards being built through the draft and not free agent Band-Aid fixes,
how many steps in the right direction did this draft take in progressing towards that?
TRENT BAALKE: We’re going to find out over the next couple of months and, really, years. We feel really
good today about the group that we’ve been able to assemble over the last three days, but now it’s up
to them. They’ve got a seat, a chair in the locker room and that’s all they have at this point. Where they
fit on the roster, that’s up to them to show us exactly where that lies.
