# Power Players: Rams Assistant GM John McKay

An episode of [NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/680904259), 23 Jul 2026, 48 min.

Audio: https://pdrl.fm/91be81/podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/claritaspod.com/measure/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/9ce11dad-e86a-444f-ba83-ae27003475be/5c0576e1-ba3e-4add-9690-b48f01828ca2/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=deff018f-4b51-4501-937c-ae27003475d1

Jourdan Rodrigue is joined by Rams assistant general manager John McKay to discuss how the Rams approach talent evaluation, how in-season schematic changes take shape, relationships in the building with Les Snead and Sean McVay, and behind the scenes of the trades that brought Myles Garrett and Trent McDuffie to Los Angeles. NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of NFL Daily's Power Players,
[0:09] Speaker 1: where we talk to football people and learn from them
[0:11] Speaker 1: and pull back the curtain of the sport for you
[0:14] Speaker 1: just a little further. Today, I'm stoked to be joined
[0:17] Speaker 1: by Ram's assistant general manager, John McKay, who has also
[0:20] Speaker 1: previously worked as the Pro Personnel Director and assistant director
[0:23] Speaker 1: of Pro Scouting. He'll enter training camp this summer after
[0:26] Speaker 1: interviews for the Miami Dolphins in Minnesota Vikings general manager jobs.
[0:31] Speaker 1: If you're a football fan, you know that the Rams
[0:33] Speaker 1: do things a little differently than many of their peers,
[0:36] Speaker 1: from their talent identification process to their financial and other
[0:39] Speaker 1: resource allocation, whether it's an f them pis era or
[0:43] Speaker 1: a draft and sprint rebuild era weighed down by record
[0:46] Speaker 1: setting dead money at the time that team building is
[0:50] Speaker 1: often among the NFL's biggest stories. Each season, they've tried
[0:54] Speaker 1: new ideas in scouting, from character assessments or projections into
[0:57] Speaker 1: head coach Sean mcvay's offense to their evaluation of the
[1:00] Speaker 1: middle round draft picks and cheap veterans acquired in free
[1:03] Speaker 1: agency that often supplement their big spins on stars elsewhere.
[1:07] Speaker 1: So for John McKay. That has meant learning how to
[1:09] Speaker 1: stay agile through the process, a risky process at that
[1:12] Speaker 1: understanding their model could shift at any moment, and often
[1:16] Speaker 1: without other precedent to follow along the way. So today
[1:19] Speaker 1: we're going to talk about how a team becomes like this,
[1:23] Speaker 1: how this shapes the people on the staff, among other items,
[1:26] Speaker 1: including the Miles Garrett trade, this off season in general,
[1:29] Speaker 1: and what in seasons and off seasons in a front
[1:33] Speaker 1: office actually look like. Ready to get into it, Welcome
[1:36] Speaker 1: to NFL Daily's Power Players, where we go inside the
[1:39] Speaker 1: NFL with the people who shape the sport. I am
[1:42] Speaker 1: joined today by Los Angeles Rams assistant general manager John McKay,
[1:47] Speaker 1: who almost certainly has not had an interesting off season
[1:50] Speaker 1: at all. John. Thank you for joining me today on
[1:53] Speaker 1: Power Players.
[1:55] Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
[1:56] Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about Miles Garrett, We're going
[1:59] Speaker 1: to talk about your off season, talk about the process.
[2:00] Speaker 1: We're going to talk about all the things and the
[2:03] Speaker 1: expectations and the really intriguing storylines around this team. But
[2:08] Speaker 1: really what this show is about is helping people understand
[2:12] Speaker 1: what people like you actually do in their jobs and
[2:16] Speaker 1: what your path to the sport is why football has
[2:18] Speaker 1: become not just a job for you, but a calling
[2:21] Speaker 1: and a why. So I kind of want to start there.
[2:24] Speaker 1: Why football. I know it's in the family, But when
[2:27] Speaker 1: did it spark for you as a child that this
[2:30] Speaker 1: is something that you're gonna probably be like a little
[2:33] Speaker 1: bit sickly obsessed with.
[2:36] Speaker 3: Probably probably as long as when I could first remember
[2:40] Speaker 3: is honestly when it became my why. Growing up, my
[2:43] Speaker 3: dad was with the Bucks kind of in the late
[2:46] Speaker 3: nineties early two thousands, and then transitioned to the Falcons.
[2:49] Speaker 3: So I was always around it. I was always entrenched
[2:52] Speaker 3: in it. It was always a part of our life.
[2:55] Speaker 3: It was always a big part of my family. It's
[2:56] Speaker 3: what brought us together, what made us and even closer
[3:01] Speaker 3: than we've you know, could have been. So it was
[3:03] Speaker 3: always it was always the biggest.
[3:04] Speaker 2: Part of my life.
[3:05] Speaker 3: It was something I knew from an early age I
[3:07] Speaker 3: wanted to do. I got, you know, quickly obsessed with
[3:11] Speaker 3: team building, roster building, player evaluation, different ways to attack it.
[3:16] Speaker 3: And so that was an obsession from an early age,
[3:19] Speaker 3: and then I think, much to my dad's displeasure, it
[3:23] Speaker 3: became what I wanted to do for a career. He
[3:26] Speaker 3: was always very adamant that I He's like, please just
[3:29] Speaker 3: do something else, and I'm like, how can I grow
[3:31] Speaker 3: up around this?
[3:32] Speaker 2: This not be what I do? Like, it's way too
[3:34] Speaker 2: fun for that.
[3:35] Speaker 3: But it's also I understand the downsides too, But it
[3:39] Speaker 3: was always what I was going to do, and the
[3:41] Speaker 3: exposures I had in early age were things I wouldn't
[3:44] Speaker 3: trade for anything. Being around some of those teams and
[3:47] Speaker 3: the people that I met, you know, both on the staffs,
[3:51] Speaker 3: the players, whatever it may be. Being around my dad,
[3:53] Speaker 3: watching him do it at a high level was always
[3:57] Speaker 3: something that I strived to do and wanted to do
[3:58] Speaker 3: when I got chance.
[4:00] Speaker 1: So yeah, probably your dad wanted you to pick a
[4:04] Speaker 1: career with a little less heartbreak in it. I would imagine,
[4:07] Speaker 1: you know, Rich McKay obviously is who we're talking about here,
[4:11] Speaker 1: and but for you, you just sort of stayed obsessed
[4:15] Speaker 1: with it. I think Lucky for you, eventually the team
[4:19] Speaker 1: that you started working for moved back to the city
[4:21] Speaker 1: where you went to college, right, So that probably helped.
[4:25] Speaker 1: But in those days, the formative years of you deciding
[4:29] Speaker 1: your path and what you wanted to do in football,
[4:32] Speaker 1: that maybe was in some ways similar to what you
[4:34] Speaker 1: watched your dad do, but in other ways different. Who
[4:37] Speaker 1: were some mentors that have stood out to you and
[4:40] Speaker 1: who are some mentors that you sort of stick close
[4:43] Speaker 1: to now?
[4:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, obviously my dad is a tremendous one. But
[4:48] Speaker 3: when I like think about my relationship with him, it
[4:50] Speaker 3: wasn't always a football based relationship. It wasn't like we
[4:53] Speaker 3: were talking about football at the times. And I think
[4:55] Speaker 3: about it now even like what I bring to the workplace,
[4:58] Speaker 3: Like the things that I've learned from him are totally
[5:00] Speaker 3: different than football. It's it's how to treat people, how
[5:03] Speaker 3: to be a good leader, you know, how to just
[5:06] Speaker 3: be a good person. Like those are the things that
[5:08] Speaker 3: I embody from him that I found myself using on
[5:11] Speaker 3: a daily basis. But then, you know, the cool thing
[5:13] Speaker 3: about working here is I have a number of tremendous
[5:16] Speaker 3: mentors that have come through this organization. Like I got
[5:19] Speaker 3: to get started at a really young age here. I
[5:21] Speaker 3: think I was twenty two or twenty three when I
[5:23] Speaker 3: got hired, and Less has built of incredible staff over
[5:27] Speaker 3: the course of the time that I've been here. We've
[5:29] Speaker 3: had a number of you know, current and former general managers.
[5:33] Speaker 3: I mean ran Carthon, Brad Holmes, Brian Xanders, Ray Agnew,
[5:38] Speaker 3: James Gladstone, all those guys you get to learn from,
[5:42] Speaker 3: take different things from, Emulate things that you'd like that
[5:46] Speaker 3: you want to take as you, you know, elevate up
[5:48] Speaker 3: in the profession. And then obviously less is a is
[5:51] Speaker 3: a huge mentor of mine and somebody that I always
[5:53] Speaker 3: look up to, and for me, like what he's what
[5:56] Speaker 3: he's always imprinted on me is like, how can you
[5:59] Speaker 3: think of about things differently? How can you think outside
[6:02] Speaker 3: of the box, how can you think about team building differently?
[6:04] Speaker 3: And are there different ways to do this that that
[6:06] Speaker 3: we haven't thought of? And how can we make our
[6:08] Speaker 3: processes get to a point where where we can put
[6:12] Speaker 3: those things into place and our scouts can feel those
[6:14] Speaker 3: in a daily basis, both on a on a small
[6:17] Speaker 3: scale and then a larger scale from a team building perspective.
[6:20] Speaker 3: So he's made a huge impact on me, and you know,
[6:24] Speaker 3: being in a role where I'm in the building for
[6:26] Speaker 3: the last ten now eleven years, I get to feel
[6:29] Speaker 3: that on a daily basis, and so we're always in
[6:33] Speaker 3: constant communication, especially in my role now, and it's cool
[6:36] Speaker 3: to work kind of side by side with him now,
[6:38] Speaker 3: but also when I first got here, it was much
[6:40] Speaker 3: more like, hey, just put your head down. My dad
[6:43] Speaker 3: always said, you know, kind of put your head down
[6:45] Speaker 3: and put your ears up and listen and take in
[6:47] Speaker 3: what you what you want to do, and and learn
[6:49] Speaker 3: how to do this thing before you, you know, try
[6:51] Speaker 3: to do too much. So I've been extremely blessed to
[6:55] Speaker 3: be in the place that I'm at because between the
[6:57] Speaker 3: coaches that have come through here in the front office
[6:59] Speaker 3: executive is, I feel like I've had so many of
[7:02] Speaker 3: the best people in this business to learn from, and
[7:04] Speaker 3: I'm forever grateful for that.
[7:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, you've gotten to watch them learn each other as
[7:09] Speaker 1: you're learning them too, which I know is just as
[7:11] Speaker 1: part a much part of the process for listeners who
[7:14] Speaker 1: don't know. The RAM staff is very different and has
[7:17] Speaker 1: been operating as such pretty much since the move from
[7:20] Speaker 1: Saint Louis back to Los Angeles, where first they were
[7:24] Speaker 1: in transition, but then now there's a very small number
[7:27] Speaker 1: of people in the front office and on the personnel
[7:30] Speaker 1: team that work on site, and so it's sort of
[7:32] Speaker 1: like a cluster where you guys are in very close quarters.
[7:36] Speaker 1: I mean, this is not a practice facilities joke. You
[7:39] Speaker 1: guys are in very close quarters all the time, and
[7:42] Speaker 1: there's a huge number of Satellite people that are very
[7:45] Speaker 1: trusted to sort of be on the road, and then
[7:46] Speaker 1: obviously the Scouts and the area Scouts and everyone's on
[7:49] Speaker 1: the road anyway. But in terms of like learning the
[7:53] Speaker 1: people around you leadership styles, but then also watching them
[7:58] Speaker 1: learn each other, Lesnie extremely individualistic, unique person. I'd be
[8:04] Speaker 1: curious what adjectives you would use. And Sean McVay extremely individualistic,
[8:12] Speaker 1: unique person, also curious what adjectives you would use. Being
[8:16] Speaker 1: in the room, as those two also learned each other
[8:20] Speaker 1: over the years, what did you take from that?
[8:24] Speaker 3: You know, I think I think I'm able to learn
[8:27] Speaker 3: and the people here, we're able to learn so much
[8:29] Speaker 3: because it is a very open place. Doors are always open,
[8:33] Speaker 3: conversations are always open, and that's unique, and like it
[8:37] Speaker 3: doesn't matter if you're a Scouting assistant or a pro
[8:40] Speaker 3: scout or an assistant general manager, Like everyone's voice is
[8:44] Speaker 3: going to be heard because our staff is small, and
[8:47] Speaker 3: the people that are at the top positions, like they
[8:49] Speaker 3: want to hear from you and they want to be
[8:51] Speaker 3: be told the truth. And so I think you're able
[8:54] Speaker 3: to learn so much more when the doors are always open.
[8:56] Speaker 3: You're not afraid to ask questions. You know, it's you know,
[9:00] Speaker 3: it's all coming from a good place. And also like,
[9:02] Speaker 3: I think the unique thing is you're able to dissent
[9:05] Speaker 3: comfortably and say, hey, I might disagree with this evaluation
[9:09] Speaker 3: to this player, I might disagree with this move, but
[9:12] Speaker 3: here are my reasons behind it, and know that I
[9:14] Speaker 3: can dissent comfortably and and not be you know, lashed
[9:18] Speaker 3: out at, like like who are you to say something
[9:20] Speaker 3: like that? Like I think that that's a really cool thing.
[9:22] Speaker 3: And then watching the two of them work together is unique.
[9:26] Speaker 3: They're they're like brothers, uh and in ways they know
[9:30] Speaker 3: how to nip at each other, but they're always in lockstep,
[9:33] Speaker 3: and they both of them are very good at articulating
[9:36] Speaker 3: the clear visions of what they value in players. And
[9:39] Speaker 3: Sean does a tremendous job communicating with our staff like
[9:42] Speaker 3: this is what we're looking for, and not necessarily from
[9:46] Speaker 3: always just a skill set standpoint of each position, but
[9:49] Speaker 3: like what kind of people we want, you know, to
[9:52] Speaker 3: fill this locker room? And I think the clear messaging
[9:55] Speaker 3: in the in the constant communication allows all of our
[9:58] Speaker 3: scouts and all of our front offices and better job
[10:01] Speaker 3: when we're evaluating players and bringing players in and understanding like, hey,
[10:05] Speaker 3: we're we're going to shop in this in this small aisle,
[10:08] Speaker 3: like we'll let the rest of the league, you know,
[10:10] Speaker 3: kind of take the other ones, but these are the
[10:12] Speaker 3: guys we're going to be hyper focused on. And you know,
[10:14] Speaker 3: being together for this many years, like I think that
[10:17] Speaker 3: that vision has grown even more and more clear, and
[10:21] Speaker 3: now I think when our scouts go on the road,
[10:23] Speaker 3: they quickly kind of identify this is a RAM or
[10:26] Speaker 3: this is not a RAM, and it really gives us
[10:29] Speaker 3: an edge. But watching those two work together. We have
[10:31] Speaker 3: a lot of small group discussions and things like that.
[10:34] Speaker 3: They're some of the most fun you can you can
[10:36] Speaker 3: possibly have as a group of you know, five or
[10:39] Speaker 3: six of us that are whether it be going through
[10:41] Speaker 3: the draft process, going through free agency, and then obviously
[10:43] Speaker 3: using all our scouts on the road, but those small
[10:46] Speaker 3: film meetings are some of some of the best times,
[10:49] Speaker 3: best times I could imagine.
[10:51] Speaker 1: We will get to what you touched on there about
[10:54] Speaker 1: the combination of agility and willingness to take on risk,
[10:58] Speaker 1: because that's a huge trade mark. I think of what
[11:01] Speaker 1: that building is, and especially that sort of circle of
[11:04] Speaker 1: trust in the building itself. But first, I think listeners
[11:09] Speaker 1: when they see your title, they know what your job
[11:11] Speaker 1: is right by title. But in terms of process infrastructure,
[11:15] Speaker 1: what are some key elements that you can pull back
[11:18] Speaker 1: the curtain on a little bit about what doing the
[11:21] Speaker 1: job of the assistant general manager, specifically in the RAMS
[11:25] Speaker 1: building means. What it looks like, what you have your
[11:29] Speaker 1: hands in at any given moment.
[11:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it all starts with helping build out
[11:35] Speaker 3: o our scouting process and putting together a clear process
[11:39] Speaker 3: for our scouts when they go on the road they
[11:41] Speaker 3: know what they're looking for, and then how they write reports,
[11:45] Speaker 3: evaluation structures, character structors, things like that. It starts with
[11:48] Speaker 3: our process, so we spend a lot of time, a
[11:51] Speaker 3: lot of time doing that. That's a big part of
[11:53] Speaker 3: Nicole and I's job to, you know, help put Lesson's
[11:56] Speaker 3: vision into life with our scouts and bring that to
[11:59] Speaker 3: life so they feel as comfortable as possible on the road.
[12:02] Speaker 2: And then it's a lot of evaluation.
[12:04] Speaker 3: It's an evaluation based building and evaluation based job. So
[12:08] Speaker 3: my hands are in all parts. I would say of
[12:10] Speaker 3: the evaluation process, both pro and college.
[12:14] Speaker 2: I'll evaluate every player.
[12:15] Speaker 3: On the draft board, I'll evaluate a really large number
[12:19] Speaker 3: of free agents, and then kind of the weekly rhythm
[12:22] Speaker 3: when you get into the season is a lot of
[12:24] Speaker 3: evaluation of your own team and evaluation, you know, when
[12:27] Speaker 3: you lose a player and need to sign a player
[12:29] Speaker 3: to practice squad, how do Matt wan and I are
[12:32] Speaker 3: pro director, how do we go about bringing those players
[12:34] Speaker 3: on and with the help of our pro staff. So
[12:37] Speaker 3: I'm doing a lot of that own rams roster management
[12:40] Speaker 3: kind of in the season and always making sure you're
[12:43] Speaker 3: keenly and tuned on your own team. And I think
[12:46] Speaker 3: that that's given us a big edge is really understanding
[12:49] Speaker 3: where our own team's at, where our rosters at, where
[12:51] Speaker 3: can we improve in what kind of guys we need
[12:54] Speaker 3: to bring in. I think that's a tremendously underrated thing
[12:58] Speaker 3: when when I look at like team building. So that's
[13:00] Speaker 3: something I try to stay super focused on. I started
[13:03] Speaker 3: in the pro scouting side and was there, you know,
[13:07] Speaker 3: kind of for eight nine seasons. I don't really know
[13:10] Speaker 3: how many, but so transitioning to this role is a
[13:13] Speaker 3: little different in terms of it's a wider scope and
[13:16] Speaker 3: it's really staying focused on the draft board and then
[13:19] Speaker 3: really helping the pro side where I can.
[13:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, we cover it in chunks, right, Like on the
[13:25] Speaker 1: outside media, we cover it in chunks. We cover in season,
[13:27] Speaker 1: we cover off season, we cover free agency, we cover
[13:31] Speaker 1: things in buckets, right, And that's actually not how it
[13:34] Speaker 1: works in real life. It is an ongoing, constant conversation
[13:39] Speaker 1: and a constant evaluation and sometimes pruning and tweaking your
[13:44] Speaker 1: roster or seizing opportunity when opportunity does present itself. I
[13:48] Speaker 1: think I first learned that when I was talking to
[13:50] Speaker 1: you out at the practice field when I was a
[13:52] Speaker 1: RAMS beat writer about your Kevin Dotson acquisition. And you know,
[13:57] Speaker 1: he's a player that the RAMS and yourself as a
[14:00] Speaker 1: pro personnel director at the time, scouted for a while,
[14:04] Speaker 1: many many years at the point. So the pre draft
[14:07] Speaker 1: process melds into the nd season development process, melds into
[14:12] Speaker 1: the roster building and veteran free agent or excuse me,
[14:15] Speaker 1: veteran player acquisition portion that sometimes does happen resource allocation,
[14:21] Speaker 1: sending the picks and sending what you did for him,
[14:23] Speaker 1: and then coming in the building and how does it work?
[14:26] Speaker 1: And you know, can you take me through what that
[14:29] Speaker 1: was like, because to me, Kevin, who's a starting right
[14:32] Speaker 1: guard for the Rams, is a huge example of how
[14:37] Speaker 1: long and interconnected this entire talent identification processes.
[14:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, so we do our pro scouting by position, which
[14:47] Speaker 3: is different than a lot of teams do it. A
[14:49] Speaker 3: lot of teams do pro scouting by teams. So you
[14:52] Speaker 3: have a pro scouting staff of three or four people,
[14:55] Speaker 3: they're going to evaluate a certain amount of teams in
[14:57] Speaker 3: the league, and then you end up having evaluation on
[15:00] Speaker 3: the entire league. The way we've decided to do it
[15:03] Speaker 3: is to do it by position, so we have a
[15:06] Speaker 3: certain number of scouts being have ownership of certain positions.
[15:09] Speaker 3: So and that's over the course of the entire league.
[15:12] Speaker 3: Every every guard in the league is evaluated by the
[15:15] Speaker 3: same person. Every tight end in the league is evaluated
[15:17] Speaker 3: by the same person. And what we feel like is
[15:20] Speaker 3: that gives that person true ownership of the position when
[15:22] Speaker 3: we want to sign a free agent, or make a
[15:25] Speaker 3: trade for a player, or sign a player off the street,
[15:27] Speaker 3: whatever it may be. So in Kevin's case, Matt Waugh,
[15:32] Speaker 3: who is our pro director, he's always handled the entire
[15:35] Speaker 3: offensive line and that was his kind of his baby,
[15:38] Speaker 3: and his was he's the expert on it. So when
[15:41] Speaker 3: we went through that offseason, we were not able to
[15:44] Speaker 3: address that guard position adequately. We felt like, and in
[15:48] Speaker 3: the early parts training camp it became clear like, hey,
[15:51] Speaker 3: we're gonna we're gonna need a guard. So Kevin is
[15:54] Speaker 3: a player who had been drafted by the Steelers, played
[15:57] Speaker 3: three seasons of good football starting starting of a football
[16:01] Speaker 3: and Matt each season had evaluated Kevin's film and had
[16:05] Speaker 3: been a big, big fan of his. So when we
[16:07] Speaker 3: were putting together, you know, potential trade candidates we're looking at,
[16:11] Speaker 3: We're always putting lists together of guys that may come free,
[16:14] Speaker 3: whether it be a contractual reason, a role reason, whatever
[16:19] Speaker 3: it may be, guys that we just think might be available.
[16:21] Speaker 3: It was like Kevin really stood out, and Matt was
[16:23] Speaker 3: the first one, you know, kind of put the list together.
[16:26] Speaker 3: I evaluated him on my own two and we together
[16:29] Speaker 3: kind of brought it to Less like, hey, we feel
[16:31] Speaker 3: like this would be a really good candidate to step in.
[16:34] Speaker 3: So we spent a large portion of the month of
[16:36] Speaker 3: August that year really pressing Less like, hey, we need
[16:39] Speaker 3: to we need to get this, get this going, and
[16:42] Speaker 3: you know, letting him, letting him communicate with Omar from
[16:45] Speaker 3: the Steelers and you know them talk through trade compensation,
[16:48] Speaker 3: et cetera. And it went on for about a month
[16:51] Speaker 3: and we eventually got the deal over the line. But
[16:53] Speaker 3: it was a good example of a player who we
[16:56] Speaker 3: had no reason necessarily to evaluate him. We're on the
[16:59] Speaker 3: service that he had ever been a free agent. Obviously
[17:02] Speaker 3: he was still in a rookie contract, so we didn't.
[17:04] Speaker 3: But we do this process called the non advanced process,
[17:07] Speaker 3: where you basically evaluate every player in the league that
[17:11] Speaker 3: was not a team that you advanced scouted for, was
[17:13] Speaker 3: not a free agent, basically the rest of the league.
[17:15] Speaker 3: So Matt had done a tremendous job doing the non
[17:18] Speaker 3: advance evals on Kevin year after year, and then that
[17:22] Speaker 3: trade is able to come to life. And obviously he's
[17:24] Speaker 3: been a high level player for him since for us
[17:27] Speaker 3: since we acquired him, and a big part of you know,
[17:30] Speaker 3: the success we've had in the run game and in protection,
[17:33] Speaker 3: really solidified the you know, the imperior part of that
[17:36] Speaker 3: offensive line. But it's really a credit to the whole
[17:38] Speaker 3: process coming together, Matt doing a tremendous job. I mean,
[17:43] Speaker 3: I'm gonna take no credit, but it filtered to me
[17:45] Speaker 3: and then it went to the last so we did it collectively.
[17:48] Speaker 3: And then watching him come on the field and you know,
[17:51] Speaker 3: kind of bring some of those things to life in
[17:53] Speaker 3: twenty twenty three was was awesome. So it was a
[17:56] Speaker 3: it was a fun one and one that we we
[17:59] Speaker 3: still like to well, you know, like to talk about it,
[18:01] Speaker 3: and it's a good encapsulation of the entire process coming together.
[18:06] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[18:06] Speaker 1: Well, I think there's still a pile of sunflower seed
[18:09] Speaker 1: shells out on the practice field where you lesson Matt
[18:12] Speaker 1: would stand every single practice into August and September, just
[18:18] Speaker 1: serving right behind the offensive line drills, just serving the
[18:22] Speaker 1: work that you had just accomplished by bringing him in.
[18:25] Speaker 1: And I think to John, one of the things that
[18:28] Speaker 1: you touched on, but the evaluation of these players that
[18:32] Speaker 1: you first scout in the draft. And that's where I
[18:34] Speaker 1: want to talk about some of your off season and
[18:36] Speaker 1: draft season work that you do in your role too,
[18:39] Speaker 1: that stays in your system, jars that you know, listeners
[18:42] Speaker 1: know I've written about it. I'm not breaking any news here.
[18:45] Speaker 1: This internal scouting system that you use and basically, the
[18:48] Speaker 1: more data and the more evaluations you have that you
[18:51] Speaker 1: can keep, that you can basically pingpong other data sets
[18:56] Speaker 1: off of in your evaluation process when you circle back
[19:00] Speaker 1: around to, hey, we might acquire this player. Sometimes you
[19:04] Speaker 1: have a full evil that you guys did in completion arguments,
[19:08] Speaker 1: things that you've talked about. What was that like, maybe
[19:11] Speaker 1: not even just for Kevin, but you've had players who
[19:14] Speaker 1: I mean, it's been a year's long process from when
[19:16] Speaker 1: they were a prospect into maybe when they finally got
[19:20] Speaker 1: into your building, from the draft and pre draft scouting
[19:23] Speaker 1: process into the off season and preseason work of pro personnel.
[19:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's really cool, and it's a credit to
[19:31] Speaker 3: our college scouts because they do a tremendous job putting
[19:34] Speaker 3: all the information together, and it's it's always funny, like
[19:37] Speaker 3: we talk after the draft, were like, wow, we did
[19:39] Speaker 3: all this work on all these players for you know
[19:42] Speaker 3: whatever and maybe eight draft pcks.
[19:43] Speaker 2: I think this year we had six.
[19:44] Speaker 3: But like you do all this work for you're only
[19:47] Speaker 3: getting those couple players at that time, So it feels like, man,
[19:51] Speaker 3: that was a lot of work for not a lot
[19:52] Speaker 3: of you know, not a lot of payoff. But in
[19:55] Speaker 3: reality that work is always still a big part of
[19:57] Speaker 3: what we do and the things that we lean on
[20:00] Speaker 3: on the pro side is things like character, background, injury history,
[20:05] Speaker 3: things like that. All the data that we're accumulating when
[20:08] Speaker 3: they're in college is still a huge asset for us
[20:11] Speaker 3: when we get to their next acquisition period, whether that
[20:14] Speaker 3: be in free agency or they're released or whatever it
[20:16] Speaker 3: may be. We're always looking back at that information and saying, Okay,
[20:19] Speaker 3: let's what parts are still relevant, what parts are not relevant?
[20:23] Speaker 3: And then it's funny because oftentimes you end up signing
[20:27] Speaker 3: free agents or trading for players that he really liked
[20:29] Speaker 3: in college that you missed out on. But there are
[20:32] Speaker 3: other examples of times where we maybe didn't give it
[20:35] Speaker 3: kind enough credit. But we look at things, Okay, we
[20:37] Speaker 3: might have missed on this part of his evaluation process
[20:40] Speaker 3: when he was in college, but obviously he's done a
[20:43] Speaker 3: tremendous job with this team, and you know he's got
[20:45] Speaker 3: high character, high ability to learn, like this is a
[20:48] Speaker 3: player we should target. So it's really a credit to
[20:51] Speaker 3: all the work that goes into the college process, and
[20:55] Speaker 3: our database allows us for that stuff to always be
[20:58] Speaker 3: a living thing and sell for us to always lean on.
[21:01] Speaker 2: So it's cool when those things come.
[21:04] Speaker 3: To life later on in guys' careers and we're looking
[21:07] Speaker 3: back on their character, you know, six years later, or
[21:10] Speaker 3: they're you know who the area scout was, like, man,
[21:13] Speaker 3: he really liked that guy. Let's you know, like, let's
[21:15] Speaker 3: talk to him about him. And then those parts are
[21:18] Speaker 3: those parts are fun and really go back to the
[21:20] Speaker 3: emphasis we put on our process being strong and making
[21:24] Speaker 3: sure we're doing good work on every player even if
[21:27] Speaker 3: they you know, may not be in range for us
[21:29] Speaker 3: to pick them or whatever it may be, like maybe
[21:32] Speaker 3: it's not in need at that position during that specific
[21:34] Speaker 3: draft cycle, but hey, it's going to help us down
[21:37] Speaker 3: the line. Like it's a cool part of the process,
[21:39] Speaker 3: all working together and you know, coming together in totality.
[21:43] Speaker 1: Tell me about what that becomes. The full bodied evaluations
[21:48] Speaker 1: that you guys do and the revisiting of them all
[21:52] Speaker 1: the time. Tell me what that turns into when you
[21:55] Speaker 1: have a head coach in Sean McVay and a GM
[21:59] Speaker 1: in less Sneed and they are actively communicating about how
[22:05] Speaker 1: Sean McVeigh will change things schematically frequently and to do
[22:10] Speaker 1: so to stay ahead of how defenses chase him. And
[22:13] Speaker 1: you know, we've seen it year over year over year
[22:16] Speaker 1: from the run game and turning in from turning from
[22:19] Speaker 1: a predominantly wide zone team into more of a middle
[22:21] Speaker 1: zone gap team to a duo team. And I know
[22:25] Speaker 1: that was fun for you guys especially, But then also
[22:28] Speaker 1: you know some of the passing concepts that he uses.
[22:31] Speaker 1: Eleven personnel. Now you know you've got two premier receivers
[22:35] Speaker 1: and a bunch of tight ends and using them a lot.
[22:37] Speaker 1: So when those pivots happen as they you know, as
[22:40] Speaker 1: they should when a successful team exists, how do you
[22:44] Speaker 1: communicate it in your role with those two and how
[22:47] Speaker 1: do you sort of prepare with all that information you
[22:50] Speaker 1: already have to pivot into whatever you're going to try next.
[22:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, I would. I would say we have to. We
[22:57] Speaker 3: always have to be ready for anything because anything as
[23:00] Speaker 3: anything as possible from you know, what the vision may be,
[23:03] Speaker 3: what the adjustment may be, So you always want to
[23:05] Speaker 3: be ready, and you want to always make sure that
[23:08] Speaker 3: your scouts are always doing good work. And you know
[23:11] Speaker 3: also like correctly identifying like what players are good at
[23:14] Speaker 3: and what players are not good at, Like because someone
[23:17] Speaker 3: might not be a scheme fit at the current moment,
[23:19] Speaker 3: doesn't mean they might not be a scheme fit down
[23:21] Speaker 3: the line. And I think when we pivoted at thirteen
[23:24] Speaker 3: last year and used a lot of a lot of
[23:26] Speaker 3: three tight ends, like we've been an eleven personnel team since,
[23:30] Speaker 3: you know, since Sean's been here. I think we played
[23:32] Speaker 3: the Super Bowl, we might have had like one healthy
[23:34] Speaker 3: tight end active in the game or some maybe two,
[23:37] Speaker 3: but it felt like one. And so you know, you
[23:40] Speaker 3: have to be ready for pivots to happen, and I
[23:42] Speaker 3: think last year the pivot to thirteen was a good
[23:45] Speaker 3: example of our group being really prepared. We had felt
[23:49] Speaker 3: like we had built a good tight end room where
[23:51] Speaker 3: that pivot was possible, and to make that pivot in
[23:54] Speaker 3: season was unique obviously, like because we didn't really run
[23:57] Speaker 3: thirteen for the first you know, five or six weeks.
[24:00] Speaker 3: But then to pivot that, you have to make sure
[24:02] Speaker 3: your roster has guys that are ready to make transitions
[24:05] Speaker 3: like that when when a coach needs them to. And
[24:08] Speaker 3: that might not always be you know, in the off
[24:10] Speaker 3: season process, like last year it was in the end
[24:12] Speaker 3: season process. But we felt really good about the group
[24:14] Speaker 3: that we had, you know, with Kolbe Davis, Allen Higgs,
[24:19] Speaker 3: like those guys were ready for it and could do
[24:21] Speaker 3: all the things that you know we're needed of them,
[24:24] Speaker 3: and the versatility and be able to blog and someone
[24:27] Speaker 3: to be a move player, guys to run different routes.
[24:29] Speaker 3: We drafted ferguson, so it was possible at that moment.
[24:33] Speaker 3: I think that that's the cool thing is like we
[24:35] Speaker 3: felt very ready for it, and so for us, it's
[24:38] Speaker 3: always about preparing our scouts to adjust to anything that
[24:42] Speaker 3: and you know, they know what a RAM is, and
[24:45] Speaker 3: being a RAM is more about who you are than
[24:47] Speaker 3: it is like what you are from a trades perspective.
[24:50] Speaker 3: So I think that those guys are rams, and they're
[24:53] Speaker 3: Rams through and through, and it makes those pivots so
[24:55] Speaker 3: much easier. So when Sean wants to change what we're doing,
[24:59] Speaker 3: Offen like, we're ready for it. And you know, we're
[25:03] Speaker 3: fortunate to have those guys on the roster and to
[25:06] Speaker 3: see that vision come to life. But it's a real
[25:08] Speaker 3: credit to our entire scouting staff and our you know,
[25:11] Speaker 3: department as a whole to be prepared for it, to
[25:13] Speaker 3: identify as the guy the guys that we needed to
[25:16] Speaker 3: fill those roles. So that was a cool one for me,
[25:20] Speaker 3: just to make such a strong pivot in season was unique.
[25:24] Speaker 1: Well I have to, I mean I have to. You
[25:26] Speaker 1: have to take me inside. You know, I'm fascinated by this.
[25:28] Speaker 1: I've been like complaining for more heavy personnel for years.
[25:32] Speaker 1: I went back to my notes and I charted. I
[25:36] Speaker 1: was like, I saw, I'm pretty sure I saw like
[25:38] Speaker 1: eleven snaps of thirteen total, like just for giggles, right,
[25:44] Speaker 1: like over my five years covering the team, and I
[25:48] Speaker 1: was always like thinking it would be twelve probably right,
[25:51] Speaker 1: that would make sense. But then no, thirteen makes so
[25:53] Speaker 1: much more sense because of the mismatch like receiver types
[25:56] Speaker 1: that you guys drafted. But then also the eleven personnel
[26:00] Speaker 1: playbook already exists, right, so it's it's basically a transfer process,
[26:05] Speaker 1: which probably helps the pivot in season. But I have
[26:07] Speaker 1: to know, like when you're in the room, you guys
[26:09] Speaker 1: are in your meeting and and you know, Sneed comes in,
[26:12] Speaker 1: McVeigh comes in, and you guys have this conversation like
[26:16] Speaker 1: and they're telling you, Okay, now I need you to
[26:18] Speaker 1: make sure to articulate this to the scouts. What is that?
[26:22] Speaker 1: What is that like for you? First of all, we
[26:23] Speaker 1: were like, oh, we're going to do something new okay,
[26:26] Speaker 1: but then but then articulating it out into the rest
[26:29] Speaker 1: of the ecosystem. I'm so fascinated by.
[26:32] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[26:32] Speaker 3: We we spend a we spend a lot of time
[26:35] Speaker 3: in training camp. We have what we call the Scouting Summit.
[26:38] Speaker 3: It's really like our meetings the first week of the
[26:41] Speaker 3: first week of training camps, all our scouts are there,
[26:43] Speaker 3: We're all together kind of communicating, you know, changes in
[26:47] Speaker 3: our process, whatever it may be. We spend a lot
[26:49] Speaker 3: of time in those meetings talking about things to be
[26:53] Speaker 3: looking for when they when our scouts go on the
[26:55] Speaker 3: road the next season, when our pro scouts are evaluating
[26:58] Speaker 3: guys for other teams, like what are our points of
[27:00] Speaker 3: emphasis is going to be and where the change is
[27:02] Speaker 3: going to take place, And so we use a lot
[27:05] Speaker 3: of that time to communicate those out. We do presentations,
[27:08] Speaker 3: we have coaches come in to talk, we have former
[27:10] Speaker 3: players come in to talk, and it's big for us
[27:14] Speaker 3: and that that's where we kind of put together the
[27:16] Speaker 3: vision for this you know, evaluation cycle, and and that's
[27:19] Speaker 3: where our scouts are able to go on the road knowing, Okay,
[27:22] Speaker 3: this is what we want to hammer home and these
[27:24] Speaker 3: are the kind of guys we want to look for
[27:26] Speaker 3: at these positions. Here's where we may be changing schematically
[27:29] Speaker 3: to help us do so. And then I think one
[27:32] Speaker 3: of the cool things is like Sean and Seawan and
[27:35] Speaker 3: Less in February kind of the like post mortem of
[27:37] Speaker 3: the season, Like they do a great job communicating like,
[27:42] Speaker 3: this is where we're at as a team, this is
[27:43] Speaker 3: where we feel like, you know, we can get better.
[27:46] Speaker 3: These are the positions we need to add. Here's how
[27:48] Speaker 3: we may tinker things schematically to do so, here's how
[27:52] Speaker 3: we may change things on defense, like so we know,
[27:55] Speaker 3: and and when we get into February, it's like, Okay,
[27:57] Speaker 3: this is the vision for the next kind of evaluation cycle.
[28:01] Speaker 3: And then we try to bring those to life and
[28:03] Speaker 3: free agency in the draft. But then again, where our
[28:06] Speaker 3: scouts get in the road on the road the next ball,
[28:08] Speaker 3: they know, Okay, this is what I'm what I'm looking for,
[28:10] Speaker 3: this is what maybe our points of emphasis, and it
[28:14] Speaker 3: just it just all boils down to communication, and their
[28:17] Speaker 3: communication from the top makes it so much easier for myself,
[28:21] Speaker 3: Nicole Matt anybody who is directing some of our scouts
[28:24] Speaker 3: on the road, like or our pro scouts that are
[28:26] Speaker 3: in house, like the communication is always clear and it's
[28:29] Speaker 3: always straight down the line, and I think it's a
[28:33] Speaker 3: fun thing to watch come to life. And our scouts
[28:36] Speaker 3: do a tremendous job of putting in on a tee
[28:38] Speaker 3: for us to always make good decisions.
[28:40] Speaker 1: This this league does not want you to take risks
[28:44] Speaker 1: just by the way that it's structured, and it doesn't
[28:47] Speaker 1: It doesn't want you to take risks that push your
[28:50] Speaker 1: team building model, you know, to the edge of the
[28:53] Speaker 1: cliff or to the tightroper, however you want to describe it. Right,
[28:58] Speaker 1: But year over year, this is a group and I
[29:02] Speaker 1: think continuity plays a big part in that, of course,
[29:05] Speaker 1: but this is a group that has shown a willingness
[29:09] Speaker 1: to take risks, to absorb whatever risk means, and kind
[29:15] Speaker 1: of push into a vision of what that team building
[29:19] Speaker 1: era is going to look like. You guys, trade it
[29:23] Speaker 1: for Trent McDuffie, send a first round pick you obviously
[29:26] Speaker 1: you know, I think sent a shockwave through the league.
[29:29] Speaker 1: A little bit later in the off season when you
[29:32] Speaker 1: trade for Miles Garrett. Can you just take us behind
[29:36] Speaker 1: the scenes of what that was like for you. This
[29:40] Speaker 1: is a model you are familiar with. You were around
[29:43] Speaker 1: the last time of the f M pis era. Obviously,
[29:46] Speaker 1: building through the draft helped you guys get to this point.
[29:49] Speaker 1: But in terms of those moments, making those decisions, sending
[29:53] Speaker 1: draft capital for you know, very very very very very
[29:58] Speaker 1: talented to elite players at premium positions, what was that discussion, like,
[30:05] Speaker 1: does it still feel real? Will it feel more real
[30:08] Speaker 1: when you see it at training camp?
[30:11] Speaker 3: I would say it does not. It does not feel real.
[30:14] Speaker 3: It was it was a it was a whirlwind. But
[30:16] Speaker 3: I think when I think about the team building being aggressive,
[30:21] Speaker 3: you know, trading draft capital, a lot of it comes
[30:24] Speaker 3: from the fact we've had success doing it and there's
[30:26] Speaker 3: a level of comfort doing it, and I think when
[30:29] Speaker 3: those opportunities present themselves, there's no fear going on, there's
[30:34] Speaker 3: no second guessing going on. If we feel like it's
[30:36] Speaker 3: the best decision for the organization, we're going to move
[30:39] Speaker 3: forward with it. And so I think that that's the
[30:42] Speaker 3: cool thing is not one person flinches at the idea
[30:44] Speaker 3: of trading a first round pick or you know, whatever
[30:47] Speaker 3: it may be.
[30:48] Speaker 1: Oh, we know, we know by now, we are aware.
[30:54] Speaker 3: Yes, Catain obviously, but I think with Trent and Miles,
[30:58] Speaker 3: it's it's unique because those two trades happened for different reasons.
[31:03] Speaker 3: I think you look at the Trent acquisition at the
[31:06] Speaker 3: beginning of the offseason, again, it was you know, we're
[31:10] Speaker 3: always putting things together, what players may be available, what
[31:13] Speaker 3: players should we call on, whatever it may be, And
[31:16] Speaker 3: that's a that was a move that was made more
[31:18] Speaker 3: out of it out of a need, Like we felt
[31:20] Speaker 3: like corner was a position we needed to upgrade, maybe
[31:24] Speaker 3: rehul the room, revamp the room. How can we, you know,
[31:26] Speaker 3: approach things differently. And Trent was a great example of
[31:30] Speaker 3: the process fully coming to life in the sense that
[31:33] Speaker 3: Trent was a player that we loved out of college,
[31:35] Speaker 3: had a ton of like for is an incredible human being,
[31:38] Speaker 3: incredible player, has played incredible football for Kansas City. So
[31:43] Speaker 3: he checked every box possible. And I think when he
[31:46] Speaker 3: got picked, we might have been drafting like one hundred
[31:48] Speaker 3: that year, so it's not.
[31:48] Speaker 2: Like we even had a chance at him, but we
[31:50] Speaker 2: loved him so.
[31:51] Speaker 3: But but you know, we're we're having those conversations that
[31:54] Speaker 3: and that came out of more of a need, you know,
[31:56] Speaker 3: we're talking through the free agency class. We obviously ended
[31:59] Speaker 3: up adding Jalen as well, but we really wanted somebody
[32:02] Speaker 3: who we felt like, could you know, we could tilt
[32:04] Speaker 3: coverage towards and kind of change the map defensively, and
[32:07] Speaker 3: Trent was a guy that can do that, playing inside
[32:09] Speaker 3: or outside.
[32:11] Speaker 2: So we we worked through that one.
[32:12] Speaker 3: It was it was probably a little more sped up
[32:15] Speaker 3: in the sense that we we were. It was right
[32:18] Speaker 3: as free agency was coming, and you know, we felt
[32:20] Speaker 3: like we needed to get it done. And it was
[32:23] Speaker 3: a good It was a good conversation. There was people dissenting,
[32:27] Speaker 3: there was people, you know, but but ultimately we all
[32:30] Speaker 3: came together in lockstep. Our contract group did a tremendous
[32:33] Speaker 3: job obviously getting over the final hurdle, and so that
[32:37] Speaker 3: was a acquisition we were super excited about. We felt
[32:41] Speaker 3: like giving up the twenty ninth pick, we weren't gonna,
[32:44] Speaker 3: you know, have a player of his caliber be available
[32:47] Speaker 3: at that part of the draft, and then you know,
[32:49] Speaker 3: we parted with some other draft capital. But where we
[32:52] Speaker 3: were as a team, we felt like, you know, hey,
[32:54] Speaker 3: having a ton of picks this year is maybe not
[32:56] Speaker 3: the best thing. We have a what we feel like
[32:59] Speaker 3: is a very deep roster, a difficult roster to make,
[33:02] Speaker 3: so we didn't want to have a bunch of draft
[33:04] Speaker 3: picks that we you know, we were going to have
[33:06] Speaker 3: to release some of them and guys weren't gonna be
[33:08] Speaker 3: able to make the fifty three. So we felt like
[33:10] Speaker 3: comfortable with, you know, parting with what we parted from
[33:13] Speaker 3: a draft capital perspective, and then when you pivot to
[33:17] Speaker 3: Miles and look at that acquisition, I think it's that's
[33:20] Speaker 3: an opportunity to like, how can we elevate this team,
[33:22] Speaker 3: how can we take this team to another level? Obviously
[33:25] Speaker 3: Jared versus a tremendous player, will have a tremendous career
[33:28] Speaker 3: and a guy that we love, but you know, we're
[33:31] Speaker 3: looking to elevate and change things defensively, how can we
[33:34] Speaker 3: become a defense that you know, people are afraid to play?
[33:37] Speaker 3: And you know, obviously, the ability to acquire a guy
[33:41] Speaker 3: like Miles Garrett, who's, you know, one of the best
[33:43] Speaker 3: players in the NFL, like that doesn't come around very often.
[33:46] Speaker 3: But I don't think one person flinched at the idea
[33:49] Speaker 3: of being able to add him, whatever the draft capital
[33:52] Speaker 3: may have been. So it was cool to watch those
[33:55] Speaker 3: two come to life for different reasons and at different
[33:57] Speaker 3: points of the offseason. But I look at Tramp in
[34:00] Speaker 3: an ad for a you know, a need and obviously
[34:02] Speaker 3: you're you're elevating that.
[34:04] Speaker 2: You know, you're taking the.
[34:05] Speaker 3: Need away and adding a great player in the Miles
[34:08] Speaker 3: really being able to take us to the next level
[34:10] Speaker 3: as a pass rush when you look at a guy
[34:12] Speaker 3: with this finishing ability and things like that. But the
[34:15] Speaker 3: cool thing about both of them too, is like it
[34:18] Speaker 3: was always rooted in the tape. Like with both of
[34:20] Speaker 3: the decisions, we sat down, we watched a lot of
[34:23] Speaker 3: tape together, we talked through all the positives. There was
[34:26] Speaker 3: basically no negatives, but you know, we talked through all
[34:29] Speaker 3: the different things we could do and made sure the
[34:31] Speaker 3: vision was something that could come to life. So I'm
[34:34] Speaker 3: excited to finally see both of them together on the
[34:38] Speaker 3: grass when we get to get to training camp.
[34:40] Speaker 1: Yeah. Still probably won't feel real at that point, oh truly. Yeah,
[34:45] Speaker 1: because you guys been trying to get Miles first since
[34:47] Speaker 1: twenty two. I mean I've written about that, like that
[34:50] Speaker 1: he's been like the dream, right, like.
[34:53] Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, yes, you could say that. I think he's
[34:57] Speaker 3: I think he's everybody's stream.
[34:58] Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, Well I like what you said about
[35:01] Speaker 1: the McDuffie trade because I think that one of the
[35:04] Speaker 1: things when you're when you're taking especially high value draft picks,
[35:08] Speaker 1: like your first round picks have been when you've had
[35:10] Speaker 1: first round picks and packaging them into trade capital for
[35:15] Speaker 1: a proven player at a premium position as corner is,
[35:18] Speaker 1: as Trent McDuffie is, you're also understanding either a what
[35:22] Speaker 1: you're not or B what the position is not and
[35:25] Speaker 1: what I think the position is not. Of the position
[35:28] Speaker 1: of corner specifically and perimeter corner. I know you can move,
[35:31] Speaker 1: but perimeter corner specifically is predictable. Development especially at that
[35:37] Speaker 1: position is not predictable. It's you guys do a lot
[35:40] Speaker 1: of projections in your scouting process. I think receiver is
[35:43] Speaker 1: where we really see it, but it's everywhere, and that
[35:48] Speaker 1: position in particular is the player's development from rookie to
[35:53] Speaker 1: second contract is all over the all over the map,
[35:57] Speaker 1: even a high round, even high round picks. So so
[36:01] Speaker 1: my theory is that in order to take risks the
[36:03] Speaker 1: way that you guys have, you have to also know
[36:06] Speaker 1: what you're not right And I guess what level of
[36:11] Speaker 1: the kind word is self awareness, but I guess, like
[36:14] Speaker 1: what level of criticism or critique. Do you have to
[36:16] Speaker 1: have on yourself as an organization all the time to know, hey,
[36:20] Speaker 1: this is not going to be a known quantity at
[36:23] Speaker 1: a position for us across the league it's not, but
[36:26] Speaker 1: we should go out and go for someone that is.
[36:30] Speaker 3: I think yeah, like you said, corner is a very
[36:33] Speaker 3: challenging position to evaluate because if you look at production
[36:38] Speaker 3: and where guys are picked whatever, it's never sticky, like
[36:41] Speaker 3: guys can have up years, down years, whatever it may be.
[36:44] Speaker 3: The ball may get thrown at them more, the ball
[36:46] Speaker 3: may go away from them more, and it might look
[36:48] Speaker 3: like they have a great year, whatever it may be.
[36:50] Speaker 3: Trent for us was about as consistent as we've seen
[36:54] Speaker 3: a player on film through his first four seasons as
[36:57] Speaker 3: we've found. And he was that way too, So I
[37:01] Speaker 3: think we felt like we were truly buying an unknown
[37:04] Speaker 3: commodity at the position because he's shown us nothing from
[37:07] Speaker 3: his college film. He was extremely consistent his pro film.
[37:10] Speaker 3: He's been extremely consistent. So we felt like it was
[37:13] Speaker 3: a good a good bet to make, and I think
[37:16] Speaker 3: that's a challenging thing with corners. I think when we
[37:19] Speaker 3: looked at it and it was like, are we going
[37:21] Speaker 3: to go into the draft feeling like we have to
[37:23] Speaker 3: draft a corner when we don't, I mean, we can
[37:26] Speaker 3: be as confident as we want to be in our evaluations.
[37:28] Speaker 3: There is there's a growth curve that comes at that position.
[37:32] Speaker 3: It's a challenging position to play be successful out as
[37:35] Speaker 3: a rookie, and I think Trent made us feel really confident, like, hey,
[37:39] Speaker 3: we're getting a really consistent player, but we're also getting
[37:41] Speaker 3: a really good player like that we have not probably
[37:44] Speaker 3: had maybe since Jalen at that position. In Jalen when
[37:48] Speaker 3: we made that trade in twenty nineteen, he was about
[37:51] Speaker 3: as consistent as as any corner in the league at
[37:53] Speaker 3: that point. So we felt a lot of parallels and
[37:56] Speaker 3: that standpoint. Obviously they're very different physically and what they
[37:58] Speaker 3: can do and what they're good at, but we've felt
[38:01] Speaker 3: a lot of parallels in those decisions with their level
[38:03] Speaker 3: consistency and a guy that we can move hard downs to,
[38:07] Speaker 3: we can move around. And then the biggest thing with
[38:09] Speaker 3: both Trent and Miles is they're incredible human beings and
[38:13] Speaker 3: they're going to elevate our locker room. They already have
[38:16] Speaker 3: elevator our locker room. They're infectious. We have Jimmy Lake here,
[38:20] Speaker 3: who's with us in college, who couldn't have said better
[38:23] Speaker 3: things about about Trent when we brought him in, And
[38:26] Speaker 3: he's shown that in a couple of months that he's
[38:29] Speaker 3: been here, and I'm sure that he'll continue to show
[38:31] Speaker 3: that throughout his RAMS career.
[38:32] Speaker 2: So we're fired up.
[38:35] Speaker 1: You've touched on something that I wanted to ask you
[38:37] Speaker 1: about in terms of that the intangibles and quantifying intangibles,
[38:41] Speaker 1: and every team has a different way that they do this.
[38:43] Speaker 1: You guys have been evolving, workshopping, fiddling with your way
[38:48] Speaker 1: of evaluating character all the time and when those in
[38:52] Speaker 1: order to get to where you're at now in this
[38:55] Speaker 1: team build model, where you are as top heavy as
[38:58] Speaker 1: you are, where you are as star star powered as
[39:00] Speaker 1: you are, A lot of that first had to come
[39:04] Speaker 1: from that sprint rebuild building through those two draft classes
[39:08] Speaker 1: of twenty three and twenty four, where one of the
[39:12] Speaker 1: main points of emphasis was who is this person now?
[39:16] Speaker 1: And who will this person be a few years from now?
[39:20] Speaker 1: And what will this person be able to endure when
[39:25] Speaker 1: hard things, challenges are thrown at them? And do they
[39:28] Speaker 1: love football? And I'm saying it very very simply there's
[39:32] Speaker 1: a whole formula on it. I know that, But what
[39:36] Speaker 1: did you have to learn? What did you maybe take
[39:38] Speaker 1: from those two classes in terms of evaluating those those
[39:42] Speaker 1: intangibles or in terms of like, Okay, this is how
[39:45] Speaker 1: we're going to build a team.
[39:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when I think about that, I think
[39:50] Speaker 3: back to twenty three drafts. I think we ended up
[39:53] Speaker 3: drafting like fourteen players that year. And we went into
[39:57] Speaker 3: that draft with I think forty two players or forty
[40:00] Speaker 3: four players on the roster out of ninety, so we
[40:02] Speaker 3: had we had really had to strip things down.
[40:04] Speaker 1: And a lot of dead money. Don't forget a lot
[40:06] Speaker 1: of dead money.
[40:08] Speaker 2: I don't forget. I yes, I remember, uh.
[40:12] Speaker 3: And so we went into that draft knowing we were
[40:15] Speaker 3: you know, we had to add a lot of players,
[40:17] Speaker 3: and both in the draft and in free agency, we
[40:19] Speaker 3: were fortunate we had a bunch of picks through playing
[40:22] Speaker 3: the conflict pick formula and a couple of trades here
[40:26] Speaker 3: and there. So the biggest thing was like when you
[40:29] Speaker 3: had that few, like these guys are going to have
[40:31] Speaker 3: to play right away, and we knew they were gonna
[40:34] Speaker 3: have to play right away at a at a lot
[40:36] Speaker 3: of premier spots So what we really tried to lean
[40:39] Speaker 3: into that offseason was like, how can we get guys
[40:42] Speaker 3: who are ready for it right away? What are the
[40:44] Speaker 3: types of traits and tangible traits character traits that lead
[40:50] Speaker 3: to a guy being ready to play right away? And
[40:52] Speaker 3: we really leaned into that, really intangibly driven players we
[40:56] Speaker 3: fol we had We drafted a lot of players that
[40:58] Speaker 3: were older from age respect They've had a lot of
[41:00] Speaker 3: experience in college, and we felt like, hey, when this
[41:04] Speaker 3: guy comes in OTAs and he's the starting left guard
[41:07] Speaker 3: or whatever he may be, he's gonna be ready for it.
[41:09] Speaker 3: Like he's not going to be too big for him,
[41:11] Speaker 3: because we knew that they were going to have to
[41:13] Speaker 3: get on the grass and play quickly and learn a
[41:16] Speaker 3: complicated scheme quickly. So going through that offseason, I think
[41:20] Speaker 3: we found a lot of who we wanted to be
[41:23] Speaker 3: in terms of team, the scouting team, and what kind
[41:26] Speaker 3: of players we want to scout and the things we
[41:28] Speaker 3: want to lean into. And then we're always trying to
[41:30] Speaker 3: find different ways to quantify intangibles and you know, how
[41:34] Speaker 3: can we you know, put metrics together and have our
[41:37] Speaker 3: scouts put you know, scores on certain things to help
[41:41] Speaker 3: us build things, and and and show us an actual
[41:43] Speaker 3: score for intangibles and and how can you find that?
[41:46] Speaker 3: So we're always working through that and we kind of
[41:49] Speaker 3: built a system in those two years that allowed us
[41:52] Speaker 3: to do that, and it's something that we've continued to
[41:54] Speaker 3: lean in on, uh in the team building process since then,
[41:58] Speaker 3: even before then. But really that that Sprint rebuild made
[42:02] Speaker 3: us like focus on those kind of guys and understand, hey,
[42:05] Speaker 3: we got to shrink the board down a little bit
[42:07] Speaker 3: and stay focused on these type of guys. And a
[42:09] Speaker 3: lot of those guys have played a lot of really
[42:11] Speaker 3: good football for us. I've gotten extended and helped us
[42:14] Speaker 3: win a lot of games. So obviously we're fortunate that
[42:18] Speaker 3: that those picks you know, hit the way that they have,
[42:20] Speaker 3: but it was also very intentional in terms of the
[42:23] Speaker 3: types of players and the types of people we're bringing
[42:25] Speaker 3: in in those two off seasons, and we're just something
[42:29] Speaker 3: it's something we're always going to stay focused on, you know,
[42:32] Speaker 3: moving forward and kind of what makes the building what
[42:35] Speaker 3: it is now.
[42:36] Speaker 1: Sort of a Galaxy brain question for you here on
[42:41] Speaker 1: off of that. I know you've never heard a Galaxy
[42:43] Speaker 1: Brain question from me before in your life, but when
[42:47] Speaker 1: you're building these data sets and it's a it's a
[42:50] Speaker 1: it is something that you've done for a long time.
[42:52] Speaker 1: What is a RAM, right, you've done that for a
[42:54] Speaker 1: long time, but really accelerating it into I would say,
[42:57] Speaker 1: some of the technology we have available and then some
[42:59] Speaker 1: of the some of the just different processes and trying
[43:02] Speaker 1: things and trying to meld things together in really interesting
[43:05] Speaker 1: ways to get a better understanding of what it is
[43:07] Speaker 1: you're looking for. It's a couple of years now, in
[43:11] Speaker 1: eight years, you'll have a decade of data on this.
[43:15] Speaker 1: Is there anything that you think can be known about
[43:20] Speaker 1: quantifying in tangibles that maybe we don't yet know. Is
[43:22] Speaker 1: there anything that you all are seeking I think every
[43:25] Speaker 1: team is seeking it first and foremost everyone's doing it
[43:29] Speaker 1: in a different way. Everyone's trying to figure out how
[43:32] Speaker 1: you guys did it with those two draft classes. But
[43:35] Speaker 1: is there something that you want to know that maybe
[43:38] Speaker 1: just isn't possible to be known yet?
[43:43] Speaker 2: You know.
[43:43] Speaker 3: It's it's tough, it's it's it's challenging because I can't
[43:46] Speaker 3: I can't really think of anything off the top of
[43:48] Speaker 3: my head.
[43:48] Speaker 1: He's like, well, we already know everything, so it's fine.
[43:51] Speaker 3: Well, I can go I can't give up secrets, but uh,
[43:55] Speaker 3: you know, it's challenging. We're we're what we're trying to
[43:57] Speaker 3: do is take the formula that we have, look back
[44:00] Speaker 3: at the previous draft classes, and how can we find
[44:04] Speaker 3: tune this formula and make it something that that's even greater.
[44:08] Speaker 3: And I think the more data that comes in, we're
[44:11] Speaker 3: able to find more and more success and more and
[44:13] Speaker 3: more correlations with player success in that formula, and then
[44:17] Speaker 3: from there we can adjust things. People a lot smarter
[44:20] Speaker 3: than me are able to do this. I'm just I'm
[44:22] Speaker 3: just the one talking about it, but but I think
[44:24] Speaker 3: I think that that's what that's what we're always trying
[44:27] Speaker 3: to do. And it's like, how can we evolve what
[44:29] Speaker 3: we currently have and continue to fine tune it and
[44:31] Speaker 3: then you know, when we get to a point where
[44:33] Speaker 3: it doesn't need to be fine tuned or we feel
[44:35] Speaker 3: like it's in a good place. Like it's just making
[44:38] Speaker 3: sure when we get on draft day that we're we're
[44:40] Speaker 3: living by that formula and we're we're living by those
[44:43] Speaker 3: intangibles and making sure that that is always our guiding
[44:46] Speaker 3: light that we're you know, focused on and when we
[44:48] Speaker 3: get between two players, we're you know, going to lean
[44:52] Speaker 3: to the player that's you know, more intangibly driven than
[44:54] Speaker 3: the player that's not. And so I think a lot
[44:56] Speaker 3: of it is putting it into practice and staying true
[45:00] Speaker 3: to it and not necessarily getting tempted, because I think
[45:03] Speaker 3: that that's where things can get a little wonky, when
[45:06] Speaker 3: you end up chasing something that you're like, oh man,
[45:10] Speaker 3: this guy is so fast, and he's just can we
[45:12] Speaker 3: just make this one exception? Like, you really got to
[45:15] Speaker 3: stay true of stay true to exceptions, and and try
[45:19] Speaker 3: to stay focused on your process and use the things
[45:21] Speaker 3: that you have in your toolbox to make good decisions.
[45:24] Speaker 3: I wish I had a better predictor answer for you,
[45:27] Speaker 3: but I just don't. I don't know if I have one.
[45:29] Speaker 3: I'm not that you know, it's not my it's not
[45:31] Speaker 3: my area of expertise.
[45:32] Speaker 1: Like the matrix avoiding the aggregators right there, avoiding all
[45:36] Speaker 1: the people probably listening to this from from other teams.
[45:39] Speaker 1: I'm last thing for you, John, I'm so grateful that
[45:42] Speaker 1: you joined me here today, and just to explain a
[45:45] Speaker 1: little bit more about what you do and the process
[45:47] Speaker 1: behind it. I'm getting my calendar ready for training camp.
[45:50] Speaker 1: I know yours is probably already set in stone for
[45:52] Speaker 1: the next several months at this point, and I'm just
[45:55] Speaker 1: trying to mark down days and I was just wondering
[45:57] Speaker 1: if you could tell me what day Aaron Donald's expected
[45:59] Speaker 1: to show up, because I want to put on my calendar.
[46:02] Speaker 2: Well, you know, I.
[46:03] Speaker 3: Can't say, you know, I can't say anything about that,
[46:05] Speaker 3: but I will say my if you look at my
[46:09] Speaker 3: YouTube search history, it's probably a lot of kids TV
[46:14] Speaker 3: shows and Aaron Donald highlights and montages. So it was
[46:16] Speaker 3: a fun summer. I'll say, I can't really say anything.
[46:21] Speaker 1: You know, I had to try. I had to try.
[46:24] Speaker 1: So I'm in logistics mode, you know. That's it, not
[46:27] Speaker 1: trying to get anything out, just the logistics.
[46:29] Speaker 2: That's all I get it.
[46:30] Speaker 1: I'm a planner, I get it amazing. Well. John McKay,
[46:34] Speaker 1: assistant general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, thank you
[46:37] Speaker 1: for joining me on NFL Daily's Power Players. Appreciate you man.
[46:41] Speaker 2: Thanks Jordan.
[46:42] Speaker 1: That was, of course, Ram's assistant general manager, John McKay.
[46:46] Speaker 1: I just really enjoyed that conversation. I love process. I
[46:50] Speaker 1: like scouting a lot, as you guys know, and I
[46:52] Speaker 1: liked hearing a little bit more about like the nuts
[46:54] Speaker 1: and bolts that go on behind the scenes of how
[46:57] Speaker 1: to balance a bunch of different things than I do
[47:00] Speaker 1: and you risks at once while still trying to lead
[47:04] Speaker 1: the league in a lot of different areas, including what
[47:07] Speaker 1: they're attempting to build this season on the field with
[47:09] Speaker 1: the acquisition of Miles. Garrett tried to get him on
[47:12] Speaker 1: Aaron Donald. I'm so sorry to the Rams fans out there.
[47:15] Speaker 1: I couldn't quite get him to spill the beans, but
[47:17] Speaker 1: I thought it was a pretty pretty impressive answer. I
[47:21] Speaker 1: just really enjoyed that. So thanks as always for checking
[47:23] Speaker 1: out this episode of NFL Daily's Power Players. Thanks again
[47:27] Speaker 1: to John McKay for his time coming up in your feed.
[47:31] Speaker 1: We're not done with football or with you listeners yet.
[47:33] Speaker 1: We are going to have myself in the other chair,
[47:36] Speaker 1: thank god, and Greg Rosenthal back in this chair going
[47:40] Speaker 1: around the AFC West, coming to your feed on Friday.
[47:44] Speaker 1: We'll see then,

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