JAGUARS HEAD COACH URBAN MEYER
April 30, 2021
(On if the value wasn’t there to draft a tight end) “Yeah, we’re still looking around. Obviously, Kyle Pitts is someone — I said how do we get him? Trent looked at me like I had five heads, so you were going to have to mortgage your future for that. That’s one that we have not addressed yet. There’s some conversations going on right now about how to try to find a tight end.”
(On where he sees S Andre Cisco fitting in) “Well, I tell you what, he’s a guy we just all fell in love with. Before that injury, he’s — I had Malik Hooker at Ohio State — and he’s the best overlap player I thought in the draft. We used to call Reggie Nelson the eraser, he makes a lot of things right. Best ball skills we felt in the back end of the draft. We had a couple incredible Zoom calls with him. Great background, great character and if he wasn’t injured, I think that was a value pick. We’re real pleased with that.”
(On where he sees Tyson Campbell fitting in the cornerback room) “I’ve known Tyson since his sophomore year in high school, state champ in Florida. He was [Patrick] Surtain’s teammate, wonderful family, played safety, very good tackler when you watch him blitz. He’s a versatile defensive back so when you look at our corners and Tyson, you’ve got these long, six-foot-plus guys that run a 4.4 [40-yard dash] and he’s physical. The flexibility that he will provide — he didn’t play a lot of inside for Georgia, but he was a safety in high school, and like I said I’ve known him a long time. I actually heard on television and we agreed with the assessment on television that he’s so confident in his speed he’s never out of control. We love that guy on film.”
(On if he believes Campbell has the flexibility with his skillset to potentially play inside) “Oh yeah, that’s one of the reasons that we took him, but his flexibility — because you’re going to get your best players on the field and we’re going to be, if we can hold up, we’re going to play much more man coverage that hurt the Jaguars last year. That was an area of need, we didn’t play well in the back end of our defense and you’ve got Shaq [Shaquill Griffin], you’ve got Tyson and then you’ve got Ray [Rayshawn Jenkins] and the safety position is [Andre] Cisco to add to who we already have.”
(On if it helps having college experience with the way NFL defenses are starting to mirror college defenses) “Yeah, Chris Ash — I brought him in from college. It depends — if we’re playing the Titans it’s a completely different looking defense than if you’re playing spread teams — so we’ll be a 3-4 defense but then when you see nickel and dime situations we’ll be a 4-3 and that’ll be where nickel and dime people — if you have those people that can play man coverage — if not you can’t play it.”
(On how CJ Henderson is doing in his recovery from surgery) “Oh, he’s doing great. It’s been very positive in all areas. Wonderful guy, very talented guy, and he’s doing very good.”
(On if the expectation for CJ Henderson is to be starting outside) “Yes.”
(On what sold him on Walker Little) “Great story there. He hasn’t played in a long time. He was the number one tackle coming out of high school, I remember him. He was very good before he got hurt early in the season, not this past year but before. And then the Pac-12 canceled the season, and that’s when he started training somewhere else. We were kind of hoping he’d go play in the Senior Bowl so we could go and watch him, but we did a lot of intel. I know Coach [David] Shaw fairly well, and you watch his athleticism and bendability for a big man. The tackle position was very thin this year, and we needed a backup left tackle. He’s again trying to develop to at one point to become a starter. We’ve kind of focused on him pretty early in the whole scenario.”
(On if it’s hard to draft two players who haven’t played in a long time) “Very hard and I needed help with that, to be quite honest. We had to do as much intel as we could, but if you look at sheer talent, I think the two guys Walker and Cisco, yeah it was really hard. I’d much rather have those guys in, spend time with them, but the good thing is we have great connections with Cisco and we had great connections with Stanford and Walker Little.”
JAGUARS GENERAL MANAGER TRENT BAALKE
April 30, 2021
(On S Andre Cisco’s recovery) “Anytime there’s an injury, you have no idea. We feel pretty good about it from a medical perspective. [We] did a lot of background work on it and know the guy that did the surgery real well, our medical staff does. We’re very optimistic he’s in position to come in and take over right away.”
(On CB CJ Henderson and drafting another cornerback in Tyson Campbell) “You need more than two. You saw last year how quick these things can change. The game with as many four and five wides as you’re seeing in today’s game, you need guys that can cover. The whole goal was to do a good job of increasing our ability on the backend on the defense and I think we’ve done that.”
(On what they saw of CB CJ Henderson’s abilities in the eight games he played last season) “CJ [Henderson]’s a very talented young man, he just has to get healthy. When he does, I think you saw last year what he can do. Coming in as a rookie, his first game, [he] made some very good plays both against the run and the pass. He’s a talented young guy. Now when you look across the board, you have six-foot, six-foot, six-foot plus across the board. That’s what you’re looking for: height, length and speed.”
(On the evaluation process for OT Walker Little) “Obviously, when you’re looking at tape from two years ago, you had one game to go by in ’19 and he played really well against Northwestern. He’s just a guy that’s going to have to get in here and go to work in the weight room, on the field, technique, all those things that you lose when you’re not out on the field. He’s going to start from a little bit behind the eight ball. It’s our job to get him up to speed as quickly as we can and [we’re] very confident we can do that.”
(On drafting players with injuries) “What we do is risk reward at a lot of different levels, whether sometimes it’s character, sometimes it’s injury, sometimes it’s position changes. There’s risk reward in what we do, and you have to vet it. You have to do the best job you can, which if you shy away from it, you lose a lot of options on draft day. We feel very good about Andre [Cisco] and his ability to get back and get back quickly. He looks very good. They shot some videos the other day and he looked extremely well moving around on the field. That’s not game speed and we realize that, but I think he’s in a good position to come in and get going early.”
(On assessing the risk versus reward of a player with an injury) “I wish it was easy. I carry a big coin in my pocket and I flip it. You don’t know. Again, every case is so much different, every injury. You look at one ACL and a guy comes back last year. A young man got injured in December, came back at the same position, came back and started 15 games this year for one of our conference opponents. So, it happens, and how quickly they come back, again, [is] independent of one another.”
(On acquiring a tight end during the draft) “I don’t know. I hate to even speculate on it. We’re always looking. You’re always looking at every avenue you can to improve the football team. You have the draft, you have trades, you have free agency, you have cut downs. There’s a lot of different ways and we’re monitoring every situation we can to see if we can improve the football team.”
(On his assessment of who is still available at tight end) “We like where we’re at. What do we have, five picks left I think, and there’s still players on the board that we like at the tight end position and at other positions, so we’ll figure it out. You can’t fill every position with one pick. It’s a process, so we just have to go through a process and let it materialize.”
(On CB Tyson Campbell’s speed standing out) “It does, and CJ [Henderson]’s speed jumps out to us, and [Shaquill] Griff[in]’s speed jumps out to us. Again, we have three six-foot or taller corners now that have a lot of versatility. Tyson [Campbell]’s played inside, he’s played outside. His speed is noticeable on the field and you have to love that. He’s a contact player. He loves to blitz and was a safety in high school, so he hasn’t played the position a real long time. We just factored in a lot of upside, a young guy that has the character, that’s going to fit into the culture we’re trying to establish here.”
(On a defensive player playing on the outside and inside) “I think it depends on the style that you’re playing, and we feel that the scheme that we’re playing and what we’re trying to do and in the division we’re playing in, that you can never have enough of them. [We] feel really good about his versatility. Unusual for a six foot plus corner to go inside, but if you watch the film, and we’ve spent a lot of time watching it, Coach [Urban Meyer] and I and the rest of the staff, personnel and coaching. We feel really good about his flexibility and versatility.”
(On OT Walker Little’s lack of recent game experience) “Again, [it’s] risk reward. If he were to have played, where would he have been taken? I don’t know, no one does know that. But he’s going to come and he’s going to get to work real quick and we’ll get him in the program and get him on the field working, get him in the weight room working, and all of these guys [will do that]. Our sports performance, you’ve heard Coach [Urban Meyer] talk about it a lot, it’s going to be the best of the best. These guys are going to get in here and we’re going to do our best job to get them ready to play on Sunday.”
(On S Andre Cisco being available at 65) “We were a little nervous, but again, I think the injury played into it a little bit. It always does, but how much? I don’t know, I can’t speak for the other 31 teams. When we value the board, we value it for us, regardless of what the media may be saying or where we hear other teams may be leaning. We value the board for us.”
(On the balance between him and Head Coach Urban Meyer during the first two nights of the draft) “First of all, the collaboration has been excellent. I think we both work extremely hard at what we do with one goal in mind: to bring a winner to Duval. That’s what we’re trying to do and that’s what we will do. But as far as the relationship, like I said, it couldn’t be better at this stage and I don’t see that changing at any point in the near future or the future. We enjoy the process. We’ve had a good time working through it. His understanding of what he’s looking for from a culture perspective sets him apart. He really understands what he wants and how he wants this team to look. It’s our job as personnel people, my job as the general manager to support that goal of creating the culture. The way you do that is you get the type of players in this building that fit that culture. You can’t do it any other way. [We’re] really looking forward to doing that again. We have five picks left, we’ll bring five more in here that fit that culture and we’ll go to work.”
JAGUARS SAFETY ANDRE CISCO
FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 2021
(On a health update and coming back from an injury last season) “Yeah, I’m a little over six months out of surgery. Right now, I’m working on doing field work, my normal positional workouts. So, I’m on the field and moving around and I feel pretty good. I’m working at 85 percent right now, so working through that. Little tweaks here and there, so I would say that I’m still working through this journey. I’m not there yet, but I’m looking forward to starting training camp out and being 100 percent cleared.”
(On whether he’s always had a nose for the ball) “Yeah, I say for myself [with] the right guys around me and be able to make plays. So, the ball skills are something that are definitely natural, but the rest of it is the preparation.”
(On what the IMG Academy Sports Camp kid would tell him if he told him he was going to the NFL) “He would have said, ‘When? Where? and How?’ because it definitely was a long road for me. It wasn’t clear, it’s hard to say exactly how it was going to happen. But I’ll say going to IMG has kind of opened up my eyes, to me believing in myself and making that next step to say that I’m dedicated for myself.”
(On how he calculates the risk versus reward as a ball hawk safety) “Right, well I’ll say it starts with understanding who you’re playing. So, I’ll say I’ll understand that and then as the game goes along, I get a better feel and I try to—all you’ve got to do is catch the quarterback slipping on one play to make that big play. So, that’s usually how I try to calculate it.”
(On what it means to get drafted and hopefully start the chain for other Syracuse teammates in the draft) “If, I mean, it means everything. I mean, this is exactly what I’ve been working for. You know, I’m somebody that had an unfortunate incident this past season and still fortunately ended up getting drafted this early. So, I’m blessed in 100 different ways. And on top of that, like I said, the guys that are going to follow within this draft is just—it’s a blessing for all of us. We’re all super close. Hopefully maybe we end up in the same city or even close to each other, that’d be awesome for us. All three of us have a lot planned for the future.”
(On whether he suspects that he’ll be 100 percent ready by training camp) “Yeah, I would assume that I’ll be ready for training camp. Unless I have a setback between now and then, but we haven’t had any setbacks this far and I’m doing really well on my timeline. So, I’m really happy where I’m at and I think training camp is a good time to say that I’ll be ready for.”
(On what he may have learned from the sidelines while having to sit out last season) “Yeah, honestly, dealing with the injuries that I dealt with, I think the biggest thing is just understanding that the game could be taken away from you and that it’s not something that you take into consideration as you approach the game each day. But when it happens, it’s a little different. So, from then until now, I think the base that changed in me is just every time I step onto the field, just be grateful that I have that opportunity.”
(On whether he had any idea that this was going to happen and whether the phone call from the Jaguars was a surprise) “I could say that me and Coach [Chris] Ash go far back and now he’s the DB [defensive backs] coach obviously. He was the coach for Rutgers and I’m from New York, so we had seen each other at some camps before and there was a little bit of recruitment throughout my town as recruiting high school. So, that relationship was there, so I thought it could happen. And I’m very grateful that it did.”
(On the thought of going from defending QB Trevor Lawrence and RB Travis Etienne in the ACC to now being teammates with them) “No, that’s pretty funny. I mean, it’s definitely going to be some cool interactions between us. I understand that we’ve played against each other several times and I had to study them and now we’re on the same team attacking other guys. So, it’s a blessing. Obviously, they have very bright futures, both are extremely talented players two of the best players I played in college. So, I’m glad I have them on my side.”
(On the moment when he found out he was getting selected by the Jaguars) “Yes, I have a bunch of friends and family here; I’m in Atlanta. And you know, once I saw the call, I was like, ‘Okay, so now it’s time.’ Because for me at least, the draft, it’s emotional. But at the same time, I’m really ready to get to my city, get to work and start this new journey, because it has been a long time waiting. Like I said, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for and I’m really ready to improve myself in the NFL.”
