[tab_nav type=”two-up” float=”none”][tab_nav_item active=”true” title=”14 Meaningful Quotes”][tab_nav_item title=”Transcription “][/tab_nav][tabs][tab active=”true”]Whether it’s media or fans, almost all of us are guilty. We so often complain about vanilla press conferences. The clichés, the short answers, the long answers that don’t end up answering anything at all. Sometimes we deserve boring replies because the questions asked aren’t all that good. But in the NFL, if “they didn’t say anything,” it’s usually a product of general managers and coaches treating all relevant thoughts with CIA-like secrecy.In his 15 months since coming to Carolina, Dave Gettleman hasn’t spoken to the media often. Yet in the half dozen or so times the Panthers’ general manager has met with us as a group, he’s actually said plenty. You may not catch it all right away. You may have to re-listen at least once. But when Gettleman talks football, I learn.Apparently I’m not alone.
I received that tweet while Gettleman and head coach Ron Rivera were chatting with us Tuesday. Sure, they didn’t end up breaking any news, but it wasn’t a glorified waste of time like many pre-draft press conferences around the league. I’m guessing if we re-listen after the draft, we’ll find they dropped plenty of hints about what they end up doing next week.You can read the entire press conference by clicking the “Transcription” tab on the top of this page, and FWIW, here are 15 Gettleman quotes that stuck out to me:
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“(Our) board’s not even remotely close to being finished. Not even remotely close.” See – honesty.
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“In this day and age, especially in the top three rounds, you’ve got to draft guys that can assimilate very quickly and that can help us now. We got that last year and that’s what we’re looking for. Anything you get on the third day is a bonus.” Essentially, with their first three picks, the Panthers need to find three guys who can start either Week 1 or at least sometime in their rookie year.
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“We’ll be finished with the coaches (scouting feedback) by Thursday and then Friday and Saturday we will spend time watching film, breaking ties, doing those kinds of things, and then Sunday we’ll set the horizontal. That’s where it’s giving guys their value, making sure, and we’ll do it Sunday. We’ll step back, maybe take a break, we’ll do it Sunday night. Step back, do it Monday. Just keep looking at it and making sure that we’re 100 percent comfortable with it.” Proves that no matter how many mock drafts you read, even the Panthers don’t know what they’re going to do.
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“If you trust your evaluation process don’t fight city hall. You guys can look at me like I’m nuts, but if there’s a ‘blue goose’ pass rusher there or a ‘blue goose’ defensive tackle sitting there I’m not going to be afraid.” The ‘blue goose’ was Tuesday’s star, but can we talk about the ‘city hall’ line as well?
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“Everybody’s got a philosophy of how they’re going to construct their team and you guys have figured out that we believe in defense. The goal is to get to the Super Bowl and win and if you look at the teams, if you look at the NFC conference and who was in it, it was the teams with the best defenses. Seattle was (No.) 1, we were (No.) 2 and I think San Francisco was (No.) 4 or (No. 5). I’ve just seen it too often, it’s really hard to win with an average defense, it’s really is. It’s very hard.” This was interesting because it was a tangent off an explanation for ‘blue goose.’ Defense hadn’t been brought up, but this could have been another hint the Panthers aren’t as completely focused on offensive needs as many on the outside are.
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“We’d like a left tackle. The guys we have that are competing there, we have confidence in them, but again, it’s a matter of playing there, it’s a matter of reps. You’d like a young wide receiver. Wouldn’t be mad if a corner was there. I’m not going to lie to you. Again, it doesn’t mean we’re going to sit here and say we’re taking a wide (receiver), we’re taking a tackle, we’re taking a corner, because again, you guys are going to get tired of me saying it, you’re going to get tired of hearing it – when you reach you get screwed. I shouldn’t have said that. When you reach you’re in trouble.” Probably the most important lines to remember going into next Thursday.
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“I remember when I was in New York and it was the last wide-receiver-heavy draft. It was (Michael) Crabtree, (Darrius) Heyward-Bey, (Jeremy) Maclin, those guys, Hakeem (Nicks) and Kenny Britt. It was those five. The two guys that stuck out were Crabtree and Maclin. Maclin was pro-ready; there was no doubt about it. I was shocked that at Missouri he ran the full complement of routes. Maclin was pro-ready. As a pro guy, what I would do and what (Director of Pro Scouting) Mark (Koncz) is going to do for us, is he’s going to put together a sheet of team needs – legitimate, from his department’s viewpoint as evaluators, not the perceived, but what they really need. I had said to (New York Giants general manager) Jerry (Reese), Jerry had asked me to look at it and I said I think in order to get Maclin you’re going to have to go right in the middle, you’re going to have to be in the mid-teens. He felt comfortable enough obviously that if Hakeem would fall we would take him.” Another tangent, but also an interesting story Gettleman shared after he was asked about his philosophy on moving up in the draft. Which he then answered with …
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“Thinking that you’re one player away is as bad as reaching for a guy, it really is, because you’re more than one player away because that one player that you get, what happens if he gets hurt and you’ve traded away three draft picks?”
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“History tells you that (wide receiver) is a very difficult position to assimilate into, especially with the current game being played at the college level. This is a draft-heavy wide out class. I’m looking at them. I look at a guy and he’s caught 95 balls. I put the touch tape on of every ball thrown to him. Of those 90, 45 were flash screens. The other 45 he caught, he ran to three spots. So, do they understand coverage? They’re going to have to learn the whole route tree. How long is it going to take them to assimilate? It’s an issue. It’s a problem. That’s why we spend as much time with these kids on the road, bringing them in, to figure that out.” Hence Ricky Proehl’s uptick in frequent flier miles.
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“When I was in Denver we got Terrell Davis in the sixth round. His second year is when he hit it and I had a scout buddy of mine ask me, ‘How did you guys know on Terrell Davis?’ I looked at him and said, ‘If we knew what we were doing we would have taken him in the first round.’ We got stupid lucky.” More honesty, plus some background on one of the more famous late-round picks in NFL history.
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“The other misconception is people talk about ‘He’s got left tackle feet. He’s got to have left tackle feet.’ There are only so many elite tackles. There’s only so many of them. When I say that, I say that as an evaluator. There are plenty of guys playing left tackle in this league that don’t have classic left tackle feet. ‘Ah, he can’t play left tackle.’ There’s a lot of them that can. Let me tell you something, if you only had left tackles that had classic left tackle athletic ability there’s only 15 teams that would send an offense out there with 11 guys because the other 15 wouldn’t have a guy to play left tackle.” I can’t be the only one learning something here, right?
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“We went out in free agency, and again, I’m not a liar, I told you folks we were cap challenged and that’s what happened. The (wide receivers) we brought in, and again, I know it’s not sexy, but often times the answer is on your roster. We’ve got a couple of younger guys that we have confidence in terms of them becoming contributors. So, we’re at where we’re at, nothing we can do about it. We’re not unhappy with where we’re at, I’ll tell you that right now.” He told us they were cap challenged in January, and in February, he didn’t flat-out lie about Steve Smith, even if that’s what many would have preferred him to do.
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“Nine, ten total.” In Gettleman’s opinion, that’s the number of first-round-worthy tackles and receivers in this draft. Many are trying to guess who they are, but don’t forget to factor in which position could have the “best player available” when the Panthers are on the clock.
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“What’s happened on the college level is those running backs aren’t doing any blitz pickup stuff. That takes a lot of time. So you take a running back up in the first round, he better be a three-down guy right now and there can’t be any question in your mind that he can figure out the blitz stuff because it’s a real problem. It’s a real issue. The number of running backs that come out of the college level with legitimate blitz pickup ability, it’s scarce. They’re rare, they really are. There are some guys you can watch 10 tapes on and they never pick up the blitz. They’re gone. Third down, let me run my arrow, let me run my circle, let me run my screen. That is a big problem with it.” The devaluation of running backs has been a hot topic this offseason. This was an interesting explanation about another group largely ill-prepared to go from college to the pros.
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“We’re going steady, it’s official.” Gettleman’s quip after a reporter mentioned this is his second draft with Rivera. There was plenty to learn, but that one was unexpected.
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Dave Gettleman: Just to give you a little bit of information on where we are (in the pre-draft process) – First of all, I want to congratulate (Director of College Scouting) Don Gregory and the college scouting staff. They’ve done a great job gathering information, evaluating the players and they should all be commended. Being a road guy has become more difficult. There’s almost a second scouting season because of the number of juniors that are coming out. The number jumped from 70 to 103 and it puts a strain on those guys because they’re back out on the road in January and February and March and don’t have a lot of time to catch their breath. So, they’ve done a great job and we’re in a good place right now.
Let me say this right now: I’m not going to discuss individual players. Just so you guys understand that.
In terms of where we are in the draft process, we started meeting on Thursday and the first go-round is just the college scouts – Don, his staff, myself and Ron (Rivera), of course, and (Director of Football Operations) Brandon (Beane). What we did was go through the readings and just initially place players where we think they belong. We finished that Sunday. The process we’re in now is we’re meeting with the coaches so the coaches have their say, and it’s more of them presenting the players that they’ve seen. When they’re finished, when they leave, we’ll do some adjusting, but the board’s not even remotely close to being finished. Not even remotely close.
We’ve also, in terms of the process, we’ve meet with our (director of) security, Lance Emory. We met with him on players we had security questions on. We met with the medical staff last night and they’ve given us players that have medical issues, and we’ve also met with our HRT people, which is our psychological profile. So that’s where we are in the process and we’ve got a lot of work to do, but I feel like we’ll be pleased when it’s all over.
RE: If the team has completed its 30 visits from college prospects
DG: We brought 26 in. We didn’t use all 30 last year either. I think we had 28 last year. We’re not going to bring in guys just to bring them in, there’ll be specific reasons. We’re pleased with the process that we used. It gives the coaches a great chance to do a real, legitimate one-on-one with them, both as people and on the board, which is important because in this day and age, especially in the top three rounds, you’ve got to draft guys that can assimilate very quickly and that can help us now. We got that last year and that’s what we’re looking for. Anything you get on the third day is a bonus. A.J. Klein did a great job for us last year in terms of Chase (Blackburn) got hurt and he stepped in that San Francisco game and we didn’t miss a beat. That’s a plus. But that’s part of the process of scouting and evaluating and being thorough. Like I said, where I started from is you have to feel comfortable that when they come in it’s not going to be too big for them and they’re going to be able to mentally handle it, and we’re assuming they can physically handle it.
RE: If the Panthers have given their scouting department time off this week because of the extended time prior to the Draft
DG: Last year we brought the scouts in 18 days before the draft. Well, we had some crazy idea we’d do that this year. So the scouts had time off before they got here.
RE: If Gettleman is set on selecting an offensive lineman or wide receiver like many are projecting or if he is set on taking the best player available regardless of position
DG: It’s going to be the best player. I’m not going to insult your intelligence, you all know it’s a heckuva wide receiver draft and there’s a solid tackle group. Once we get the board set up, once we finish all the readings, which will be by the end of this week. We’ll be finished with the coaches by Thursday and then Friday and Saturday we will spend time watching film, breaking ties, doing those kinds of things, and then Sunday we’ll set the horizontal. That’s where it’s giving guys their value, making sure, and we’ll do it Sunday. We’ll step back, maybe take a break, we’ll do it Sunday night. Step back, do it Monday. Just keep looking at it and making sure that we’re 100 percent comfortable with it. And once the board’s been set, now it’s a matter of value.
I’ve said this before – when you reach, when you have made up your mind, you’re locked in and you’re going to take a position because you feel a need to fill that spot, more often than not you’re going to make a mistake. Last year, K.K. (Short) was obviously the best value in that second round pick. A.J. was obviously the best value in the fifth round pick. If you trust your evaluation process don’t fight city hall. You guys can look at me like I’m nuts, but if there’s a “blue goose” pass rusher there or a “blue goose” defensive tackle sitting there I’m not going to be afraid.
RE: If Gettleman could define the term “blue goose”
DG: Well, defensive tackle it would be Merlin Olsen. If there’s a great player there we’re going to take him. If there’s a guy we feel can help us right now, a guy we feel is going to play immediately and help us. Everybody’s got a philosophy of how they’re going to construct their team and you guys have figured out that we believe in defense. The goal is to get to the Super Bowl and win and if you look at the teams, if you look at the NFC conference and who was in it, it was the teams with the best defenses. Seattle was (No.) 1, we were (No.) 2 and I think San Francisco was (No.) 4 or (No. 5). I’ve just seen it too often, it’s really hard to win with an average defense, it’s really is. It’s very hard.
RE: The team’s biggest positions for improvement
DG: Again, I’m not going to treat you people like you don’t know what you’re looking at. We’d like a left tackle. The guys we have that are competing there, we have confidence in them, but again, it’s a matter of playing there, it’s a matter of reps. You’d like a young wide receiver. Wouldn’t be mad if a corner was there. I’m not going to lie to you. Again, it doesn’t mean we’re going to sit here and say we’re taking a wide (receiver), we’re taking a tackle, we’re taking a corner, because again, you guys are going to get tired of me saying it, you’re going to get tired of hearing it – when you reach you get screwed. I shouldn’t have said that. When you reach you’re in trouble.
RE: Gettleman’s philosophy on trading up in the first round
DG: Again, it’s how much you’re giving up, and it’s looking at the board too. I remember when I was in New York and it was the last wide-receiver-heavy draft. It was (Michael) Crabtree, (Darrius) Heyward-Bey, (Jeremy) Maclin, those guys, Hakeem (Nicks) and Kenny Britt. It was those five. The two guys that stuck out were Crabtree and Maclin. Maclin was pro-ready; there was no doubt about it. I was shocked that at Missouri he ran the full complement of routes. Maclin was pro-ready. As a pro guy, what I would do and what (Director of Pro Scouting) Mark (Koncz) is going to do for us, is he’s going to put together a sheet of team needs – legitimate, from his department’s viewpoint as evaluators, not the perceived, but what they really need. I had said to (New York Giants general manager) Jerry (Reese), Jerry had asked me to look at it and I said I think in order to get Maclin you’re going to have to go right in the middle, you’re going to have to be in the mid-teens. He felt comfortable enough obviously that if Hakeem would fall we would take him.
It’s how much you’re willing to give up and in this day and age, to give up a boatload of picks it’s almost like I’ve told you guys when you’re in free agency, the biggest danger is when you think you’re one player away and it’s that guy. That’s the guy we have to have. If it’s unrestricted free agency maybe you screw your cap up. It’s going to get you in trouble. Thinking that you’re one player away is as bad as reaching for a guy, it really is, because you’re more than one player away because that one player that you get, what happens if he gets hurt and you’ve traded away three draft picks? It’s nothing different, it’s about value. Is it possible? Anything’s possible.
RE: If Gettleman has found that typically impact wide receivers must be taken in the first two rounds
DG: It’s like anything else. History will tell you that wide outs don’t assimilate quickly. I felt good about our process. Again, I’ve said this to you guys, I trust our evaluation process. We had two wide outs in the first round last year, that was it, and both of them had really solid rookie seasons. History tells you that it’s a very difficult position to assimilate into, especially with the current game being played at the college level. This is a draft-heavy wide out class. I’m looking at them. I look at a guy and he’s caught 95 balls. I put the touch tape on of every ball thrown to him. Of those 90, 45 were flash screens. The other 45 he caught, he ran to three spots. So, do they understand coverage? They’re going to have to learn the whole route tree. How long is it going to take them to assimilate? It’s an issue. It’s a problem. That’s why we spend as much time with these kids on the road, bringing them in, to figure that out. There’s always going to be a guy that falls that people just underestimated, didn’t evaluate properly, gets drafted in the sixth round and becomes a great player. When I was in Denver we got Terrell Davis in the sixth round. His second year is when he hit it and I had a scout buddy of mine ask me, “How did you guys know on Terrell Davis?” I looked at him and said, “If we knew what we were doing we would have taken him in the first round.” We got stupid lucky. When you get down (in the draft) a lot of those guys are underdeveloped, haven’t been used properly and that’s an evaluation we make. So you get into that. History will tell you, analytics will tell you, your great players and your starters come from the first three rounds, that’s the percentage.
RE: If Gettleman would have to know that a tackle would have to be able to play the left side if he were to use a first-round draft choice to select him
DG: Of course. Generally speaking, you’re not going to take a guy in the first round and have him stand next to Ron (Rivera) and have him hold his hand and give him Gatorade. You’re not going to do that, he’s going to be on the field. The other misconception is people talk about “He’s got left tackle feet. He’s got to have left tackle feet.” There are only so many elite tackles. There’s only so many of them. When I say that, I say that as an evaluator. There are plenty of guys playing left tackle in this league that don’t have classic left tackle feet. “Ah, he can’t play left tackle.” There’s a lot of them that can. Let me tell you something, if you only had left tackles that had classic left tackle athletic ability there’s only 15 teams that would send an offense out there with 11 guys because the other 15 wouldn’t have a guy to play left tackle. That’s the fact. That’s just the way it is.
RE: The second draft together for Gettleman and Rivera
DG: We’re going steady, it’s official.
RR: Well, it’s better. I think it’s smoother because Dave takes immaculate notes, he really does. I think it’s a reflection of him having been a pro scout for so long. So we sit down and he pulls those notes out and he goes over them and he talks about things that he wanted to do again or differently and we put those into motion. I think a lot of it relies also on the fact that there’s so many different moving parts that Dave has to handle on all of them. Everything from the scouts, to the coaches, to me in terms of what we’re doing. We use those visits. We bring in 26 players. We send our coaches out and we accumulate all this information and Dave gives us direction in terms of what he wants us to look for. I think that what we did last year, we’ve improved upon. But again, we won’t know until it’s time to pick. But, the whole process, the way it’s done, there’s an inclusion with everybody that I think has been very effective for us. Go back to last year and we look at it. We’re not there yet but once the board is finally set and as Dave said, everybody is given a line, the linear grades are up there, then we’ll really see and have a really good feel.
DG: It’s going to be smoother because the coaches understand that they’re included and they’ve articulated to us exactly what they’re looking for, and we’ve tightened that up since last year, which is huge. The other thing that makes it better this year is, I’m less dumb. So, I like to think I’m a little better at what I’m doing, and I think I am, I’m throwing a dart here, but anyhow.
RE: If Gettleman anticipated filling more wide receiver roles than just Steve Smith
DG: We went out in free agency, and again, I’m not a liar, I told you folks we were cap challenged and that’s what happened. The players we brought in, and again, I know it’s not sexy, but often times the answer is on your roster. We’ve got a couple of younger guys that we have confidence in terms of them becoming contributors. So, we’re at where we’re at, nothing we can do about it. We’re not unhappy with where we’re at, I’ll tell you that right now. We’re pleased with the group, so now it’s a matter of seeing where we go from here.
RE: How close they are to the initial offseason plan
RR: I like the direction we’re headed. We talked about it before, with the quarterback we have the philosophy to be able to protect him and put playmakers around him, we’re working towards that. I do know, and to answer the previous question, we feel really good about what we have as far as the wide receivers. The one thing that we became a little bit more of last year was a running team. 15 out of the 16 games, we rushed for over 100 yards. We controlled the ball, we were fourth in the League in terms of ball control, time of possession. There’s some things that play into it, to what we’re doing, the direction we’re headed. And again, there’s some things you’d love to have and some things that you don’t have. On the defensive side, our front seven, we feel very, very good about it. Our back four, we feel good about the direction we’re heading with those guys. But again, you never know until it’s time to play. I mean, we go through training camp all year last year as we were preparing for it and I would turn to Dave and say, ‘Am I really seeing what I’m seeing?’ Or, ‘I’m hoping to see this.’ And then, lo and behold we get into crunch time and we start rolling and everything came together. But you just don’t know, that’s why you plan it, that’s why you map it and you hope to stay on course. We had a good week last week in terms of our offseason program. We had, I think it was, a little over 95 percent participation every day. We had a couple of guys that were excused because they had prior commitments, but for the most part we had great participation. So, as far as the offseason plan, yeah it’s going very well.
RE: If Cam Newton’s ankle surgery will have an impact on the run game
RR: The thing about the injury is, again, it’s an old injury that he’s been dealing with and he’d been fighting through for years. This injury, the surgery is going to fix it, it’s going to repair it, it’s going to put it in better shape than it has been. Cam’s going to play the way he plays. He’s going to play to his ability, the best of it. Do we want him to run? No. Not unless we ask him to. But, with Cam, he may pull it down and run on his own. Is there a thought you’ve got to be careful with him? Yeah, but you know, if this surgery is going to make it better than it’s been in a long time, you want him to play the game the way he plays it best. You don’t want to take away a weapon either. If you said, alright guys he’s only going to run three times a game. Well, you’ve taken something out of his… same thing with linebackers, you sit there and say well you don’t want Luke (Kuechly) blitzing downhill, because somebody might hit him. You’re taking away one of his tools, one of his weapons. We don’t want to do that, we want to use our players to the best of their ability and put them in position to have success as best we can.
RE: How Gettleman has seen psych profiles and character evaluations evolve over the years
DG: I think the biggest value of the psych is who’s doing the evaluation. That’s the biggest thing. It’s part of the process. Obviously, it’s come a long way. Because, again, every draft pick is gold and you’re not interested in drafting a guy who’s going to bust out because he can’t handle himself off the field for whatever reason. It’s part of the process and it has evolved and we use it as part of the evaluation. It’s part of it. Would you not draft a guy because of it? Based on that and a lot of other information? You might not take him. But, so it is definitely part of the process.
RE: How many first-round wide receivers and tackles Gettleman thinks are in the Draft
DG: Nine, ten total.
RE: If they’ve liked, disliked or are indifferent to the extra two weeks prior to the Draft this year
DG: The way we reacted to this extra two weeks or whatever it is, we didn’t. They set the day of the draft, Thursday the 8th, and we just worked backwards. It was nice for me, because it gave me more time to watch film. So that was nice for me, but does it draw it out, probably for some. You just adjust, don’t lock your knees.
RR: The hard part for us really was we lost a week in terms of working with our players. Last year we started on the 16th, this year we started on the 21st. I would have loved to have started on the 14th. Just having our guys back has been great, it really has been. It’s good to be able to interact with them and spend time, and so for us having it set back and then the League set it that the 21st would be the day you get to have your players come in, that made it long for us. But, at the same time it gave us an extra week to do a little bit more evaluations for the scouting part of it, and believe me, we used it. I thought we used it very well. We sent coaches out in the last week to get those last couple guys. We brought the last few guys in for their visits and I thought those went very well. I’m kind of partial to having our players in as soon as we can get them in so we can be around them and they can be around us.
RE: If protecting Newton is more important or giving him a weapon
RR: Both. I think protecting him. Because again, you have so many opportunities to have playmakers on the field, other than the quarterback, there are five other guys that can make plays for you. I think right now with what we’ve done in bringing in the guys that have the ability to make plays for us, I feel very comfortable with that. I look at it and I’ve alluded to it, we’ve got to be able to replace 10 catches a game on the average by the wide receiver position. How explosive those plays are will determine the type of players we have on the field. But I do know that if we continue to run the ball successfully and play the quality of defense we played last season, we give ourselves a chance to win a lot of games and that’s exciting about what we’ve become as a football team. We’ve got to pick up right where we left off and go forward with that. We’ve got to be better than we were last season if we expect to get to the next step.
RE: Status of tackle Byron Bell
DG: He’s on the team.
RE: If Bell signed the restricted free agent tender
DG: We don’t talk contracts.
RE: If there is a chance the team would sign Bell to a long-term contract
DG: We don’t talk contracts.
RE: Gettleman’s opinion about the perceived devaluation of the running back position in the draft
It’s really evolved. I think the typical NFL run game is very different from the college run game so there’s an adjustment for those guys. Eddie Lacy comes out of Alabama, that’s a prototypical NFL run game. Like I said, there’s fewer guys coming out with that type of background. The position has been deemphasized at the college level. I think it’s a tough adjustment. The other thing, too, is you’ve got blitz pickup is a huge issue. It’s big. What’s happened on the college level is those running backs aren’t doing any blitz pickup stuff. That takes a lot of time. So you take a running back up in the first round, he better be a three-down guy right now and there can’t be any question in your mind that he can figure out the blitz stuff because it’s a real problem. It’s a real issue. The number of running backs that come out of the college level with legitimate blitz pickup ability, it’s scarce. They’re rare, they really are. There are some guys you can watch 10 tapes on and they never pick up the blitz. They’re gone. Third down, let me run my arrow, let me run my circle, let me run my screen. That is a big problem with it.
RE: Report the Panthers gave Greg Hardy a salary advance tied to offseason workouts
DG: We don’t talk contracts.
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I’ll say this, Gettleman is night and day different from Hurney’s draft pressers.