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Dave Caldwell Draft-Day Interview · The Jacksonville Jaguars Official Podcast Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: General manager Dave Caldwell with us as we lead up
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to the twenty nine NFL Draft, the first round just
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: hours away. How are you feeling overall after all the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: work that's been done. I feel great. I'm ready for
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this draft first round. I'm ready for tomorrow and the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: next day and uh the months after it where we
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: can take a little deep breath. There's a lot of
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: work obviously that goes into this, by your scouting staff
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and everybody involved here, that starts a long time ago.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: This is a long process to get to Draft night,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: first round. Not not just a you know, a year.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's longer than a year, is it is?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It's uh, it's and in some cases it's three years.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: We start tracking these guys, uh, you know, once they
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: get into school and um, we have a full full
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: biography and all these players from high school on up.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: So we get a lot of research, a lot of information,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and and that's what I think the general public, I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: think the easy parts just say, okay, I want to
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: take the best player available. But there's a lot that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: goes into it. Psychological information, medical information, background history, and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: you know, intelligence tests. I mean, you can go on
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and on and on and um, sometimes you just gotta
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: be careful not to have paralysis by analysis. They've called
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: well with a Jaguars general manager. Um, in your tenure here,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: you have not traded back in the first round. Take
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: us through the history of that. Have there been opportunities
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: in the past, How did those opportunities come up? And
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: why did you turn some of them down? Yeah? I
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: think really the the pribabe the best opportunity we had
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: was Jalen gear and uh, we just didn't feel like
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: that the value was there for to pass on a
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: player of his ability. And then uh, Blake's year, we
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: had some conversations. Um, nobody was assertive enough at the time,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and then when we took Blake, I think they became
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: more assertive. But um, we needed a quarterback at the time,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: and again weren't weren't really willing to to pass that up. Either.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Is their activity so far this year? And when do
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: you know when it's real or not? Yeah, we've had
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: We've had a couple of teams calls, some with uh
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: what they consider real offers and us saying politely declining
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that we didn't think it was a real offer. But um,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: but I think there's been some teams that have made
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: some initial inquiries, UM that at seven would like to
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: come up, and so we'll we'll take a look at it.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: It's got to be a good value for us, and
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: we have to realize a what we're giving up and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: be what we can get with those picks. It's nice
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to have to pick, but you got to make make
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: sure you make the most of them, too, right, and
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: you want to go too far down and get out
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: of the realm of first round talent in this draft
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: as well. Um, you said the other week at the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: draft luncheon, before the draft lunch and that you're going
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: to take the best available player's broad Is that still accurate?
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Is that true today? I think that's still true. And um,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: you know, we have our players and the order that
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: we like, and I think we'll go off that order
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of the players that we like. Seven in mind, at
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: least at least for the seventh pick. Right, we at
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: least have seven. We can probably go all the way
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: down to about if we needed to, But uh, I
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: think we were in a good spot there. Final GM
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: checklist Undraft Day. What goes through your list? What do
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: you have to get done on draft Day before you
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: go on the clock. Well, um, the big thing was
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: this morning, getting a little bit of fresh air and
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: work out right in my bike on the beach. Uh check.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Two would be coffee and three is glasses and then
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I think I'm ready to go. No changing of the board,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: no final look at the board. No no, no, no no,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that's that's a bad omen. Changing the board and the draft.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: So unless you uh, one or two things happened. One
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: is you've you've gotten some last minute bad information of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: somebody getting themselves in trouble or something tragically. Um and
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: or two you just over the thought something and or
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you have bad information. They've always appreciate your time. Good
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: luck to you tonight. Thanks Shabby.