DENVER BRONCOS



centertop0DENVER BRONCOS PRE-DRAFT PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES (4/20/20)PRESIDENT OF FOOTBALL OPERATIONS/GENERAL MANAGER JOHN ELWAYOn how the mock draft went and his thoughts on OLB Von Miller’s response to his COVID-19 diagnosis“First of all, the draft went smooth. It got off to a little bit of a hiccup when we first started, but other than that it went really smooth. There were really no problems with it, so we got more comfortable with it. It should be fine and go on without a glitch. I’m sure there’ll be a couple glitches here and there, but actually for the first time I thought it went pretty well. Then as far as Von, I’m proud that Von’s coming out and helping everybody with the seriousness of the COVID-19 virus. It goes to show you that it can affect anybody. I’m glad Von’s doing fine which is good, but also hopefully it brought more attention to it. I’m proud of Von.”On how he sees the receivers in the draft separating themselves “It all depends on—it’s kind of what flavor you like because it’s a very deep draft when it comes down to receivers. I think everybody obviously is going to have different views on what they think is the best fit for them. Obviously, there are a lot of good wideouts. It’s hard to say exactly how it’s going to fall. I think the good thing is and the fortunate thing is for us as you said, we do need a wideout—It’s a deep class. We’ll just have to see how things fall.”On if there is good depth and value at offensive tackle in the second and third rounds“Yes, there is some good depth at tackle too. I think that’s one of the stronger positions. That’s the thing that we’ll continue to do our mock drafts the next couple of days, just kind of play with different scenarios to see how they fall and fall with other positions and what direction we may go. We’re just really going to do that with the mock drafts and try to cover all the different situations because being virtual it is a little bit different. We’re trying to cover everything we possibly can cover before we go live in the draft and make sure that we’ve hopefully got every scenario. We won’t be able to get every scenario covered, but hopefully we can get a lot of them covered so therefore we have a good idea of which direction we would go depending on how the draft falls.”On how many prospects he was able to talk to on Zoom and if he was able to get as much information through those as he would through usual Top 30 visits“We had several—the coaches talked to a lot of the players. I didn’t have any discussions with them. The time that I spent was with some of the players at the combine. We had coaches that spent a lot of time on the phone with several of the players. I don’t have the exact number. There were several coaches with several guys on the line. Obviously, it’s not like meeting them in person, but I think that we had a chance to get to personally know a lot of them and what kind of person they are. The coaches have their opinions, so we’ll be able to use that information.”On where S Justin Simmons’ contract stands “As far as Justin, we’re in negotiations right now. We’ve given them an offer. They gave us an offer back. We’re in active negotiations with Justin.”On if he took himself in the mock draft“No, but we did take somebody else (laughing). They didn’t let us use the name. It was pretty well set. We thought we’d have a little sense of humor, but it didn’t show up. I’ll tell you later who it was.”On if the run-up to this draft influenced where he injured players with an injury history on the board“A little bit, but we got our medical meeting in the morning, so we’ll get a better feel for where Greek (Director of Sports Medicine Steve Antonopulos) is and our medical staff is on these certain players. I think obviously we’re going to get all the information we can. We’re not going to have as much as we’ve had in the past. In some situations, there may be a little leap of faith. We’re doing the best we can to get all the medical [information] we can possibly get.”On if he is exploring to trade up in the draft and his history trading during the draft“I think we’re preparing ourselves to go in either direction, so kind of depending on how it falls. We always look at the possibility of going up, and we’ll continue to do that. We’re also looking at going back. We can play around with the scenarios going up, but really it becomes dependent on who’s available whether you’re going to go up or if you sit or if you go back. We’re looking at all those combinations.”On what gives him confidence in QB Drew Lock “What we saw in Drew—we drafted him last year in the second round with the idea that hopefully he was going to be a guy that could step in. Obviously, we had [former Broncos QB] Joe [Flacco] at that point in time and didn’t know exactly how that was going to work out. [We] thought it would work out better than it did, but it didn’t. Then Drew got an opportunity to play late in the year and I think he came in and showed us a lot of the things that he can do. Obviously by no means has Drew ‘made it.’ We believe he’s got the potential to do it, and we think he’s just going to continue to get better and better. He’s still in the learning process and know that he’s going to have to get better. We really liked what we saw. We liked what we saw last year when he was on IR and how he tried to prepare himself and get ready to play when he had a chance to play. Then he came in and played very well, won four out of the last five games. We feel that he’s that guy. [QB] Jeff Driskel came in. He’s going to be the backup. He’s coming into camp as the backup. He got some playing time until he got hurt last year in Detroit. There are some quarterbacks that are still available, but we decided that we’re going to build around Drew and give him that opportunity to take the job.”On if the trades will be set pre-draft due to the virtual nature of this draft, and if he feels the team can get back into the playoffs if the offense is improved the draft“First of all, it will be interesting to see. I think like we said, the mock draft that we had today everything was kind of predetermined, so it made it a little easier than I think it’s going to be. Obviously, the time constraints—being virtual and not having everybody in the same room makes it more difficult. That may lead to less trades. I still think there are going to be trades. If anything, I think it makes up prepare a little bit harder to have an idea at each position of where we are right now whether we go up or back. Not only in the first round but in the second, third and fourth rounds and have an idea what the compensation may be in each one of those. Being virtual makes it tougher and therefore the time is going to be—there’s going to be more of a time crunch. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes. I think as the draft goes and once we get through the first day and get through the second day, by the time we get to the third day, everybody we’ll have a pretty good feel for it. We should make it through it just fine. As far as our football team with the things that we did in free agency, we feel good about that on the defensive side as well as [G Graham] Glasgow on the offensive side and some of the other players that we added. Again, we’re going to try to go into this draft—obviously we would love to get the best player on the board at the position in the position of need. Ultimately we’re going to try to find good football players who can help us win.”On how the process of undrafted free agency will work remotely “It’s going to work pretty much as it has in the past except it’s just going to be done virtually. All our scouts will be on Zoom with ‘Starky’ (Director of College Scouting Brian Stark) and [Director of Player Personnel] Matt [Russell] and we’ll be able to round those guys up once the draft is over. We’ll be able to get on the phone with them. Obviously, it’s always a difficult time but even more so this year with it being virtual. We’re fortunate in the fact that with our numbers, we shouldn’t be—we don’t need too many CFAs. It’s a good year to be in a position that we’re in. Again, it’s going to be more difficult because of it being virtual. Hopefully when the draft’s over we can at least add seven, eight, nine CFAs that can have a chance to maybe make our team.”On what has been the worst part of preparing for this year’s draft“I think it’s just been a matter of adjusting. I think that a lot of times we get set in our own ways and get set in our routines and comfort zones and then all of a sudden when that gets disrupted things become more difficult. For the most part as an organization we’ve been trying to be flexible and go with things that we can control. The things we can’t control we’ll go through that and do the best we can to comply with all the things that we can’t control. I think the hardest thing about the whole thing and we’re very lucky our IT people have been tremendous — [Director of Football Information Systems] Tony Lazzaro and [Senior Vice President of Information Technology] Russ Trainor and [Chief Communications Engineer] Rick Seifert and [Senior Information Technology Analyst] Mike Corey and [Senior Information Technology Engineer] Gil Bencomo and [Senior IT Engineer] Nick Burris and [Video Director] Steve Boxer. It’s been very difficult—[Senior Applications Developer] Karl Schreiner— it’s been very difficult all the different things that they’ve had to do. They’ve been tremendous. When it comes down to the NFL and the draft, the heroes have been the IT people.”On why he has never drafted anyone from the University of Alabama “It just kind of fell that way. There’s really no reason. I know that obviously we have a great deal of respect for the program down there that [Alabama Head Coach] Nick Saban has and the football players that they have in their system. It’s just kind of fallen that way. There’s really nothing more than that. It just hasn’t worked out. I think to be able to say there’s a reason we haven’t drafted anybody from Alabama—we really don’t have a reason other than the fact it’s just not fallen that way.”On whether he thinks the first round will be more unpredictable than normal“I don’t know if it’s more unpredictable in the fact that it is just a little bit more difficult because of the aspect of being virtual with everybody and being able to communicate via Zoom or whatever teams may be using. It’s more difficult not being able to sit in the same room and talk. It slows things down a little it. The unpredictability, I guess I wouldn’t say that because maybe people may sit more in their spots than in the past, and therefore make it more predictable.”On the cornerback depth in the draft and an update on CB Bryce Callahan “I’ll start with Bryce. It sounds like he’s coming along. Until he gets out there and runs around, feels comfortable with his foot and works through that to where hopefully he gets into a position to where is comfortable to play. We’re hopeful that things are coming along, and he’ll be ready by the time we get to training camp and then work back into things. We’re hoping that Bryce can come back, play this year and play the way we think he’s capable of. As far as corners, there is some depth at corner. Again, you go back and determine what you like. Obviously, [Ohio State CB] Jeff [Okudah] has been the top-rated guy for a lot people. And then you’ve got [Florida CB CJ] Henderson, [Alabama CB Trevon] Diggs and [A.J.] Terrell from Clemson. You have a lot of players. Again, it goes back to how different teams look at them.”On whether it will be more difficult to make trades after not having the face to face conversations at the March league meetings“I think we’ve been fine. I don’t know there is a huge difference because when we’re at the owners’ meetings it’s usually right after free agency and going into the draft. There is chatter. If anything, there is less chatter that makes things less confusing. With the less chatter, it’s kind of less confusing. Obviously, as everybody knows, there is always a lot of smokescreens out there this time of year. If anything, it may have eliminated some of those smoke screens.”On characteristics in the 2018 and ‘19 drafts that he is looking for in this year’s draft “Yeah, we’ve really concentrated—we had a couple of misses back there, and I think the misses that we had were people that were character concerns. I think we’ve kind of focused and turned around a little bit more than we have. We’ve always concentrated on the locker room, but I think more so—when you go through years like we’ve going through the last couple of years, your locker room is very important. The influences that you have in your locker room when things are tough, you need those guys to lead us and to lead that locker room through the tough times to be able to get back to the winning ways. I think we’ve suffered a little bit there. We haven’t had that leadership in the locker room that has been able to dig us out of this hole. I think that’s why we’ve concentrated more on going on character guys that can really—because it’s easy to win. I mean it’s not easy to win, but it’s easy to be in that locker room when things are going well, and a lot of positive things are going when you’re winning. But when you’re losing, there is a lot of negative things going in that locker room. It can be very influential on how we play on Sunday and if we’re have a two-game or three-game losing streak to have the leadership and the quality guys in that locker room to be able to pull us out. I think we’ve concentrated on that the last couple of years. We have some really good leadership in that locker room now, positive leadership, and guys that want to win football games. It’s important to them. Instead of complaining about what’s going on, we need guys in there, and like I said, we’ve got guys that can be positive with it and concentrate on doing the right things, the positive things, to get us back on the winning ways.” ................
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