Archives for April 16, 2019

‘[Phase One consists of only strength and conditioning exercises and rehab work. Only strength and conditioning coaches are even allowed to be on the field with players.’

‘“We got Josh, but there was no scenario where we got Josh and Tremaine,” he said. “I told you, I screwed that up last year. Sometimes I do dictate the mock and I do say, ‘You can’t take this player’ or ‘these three players have to be gone before we pick,’ just to mix it up so we don’t end up with the same thing going. Last year, I screwed that up and we did all sorts of trade-ups and trade-backs with the first one, but I never did it with pick number 22. We always made a pick at 22 or, in scenarios, used that pick to move up, so we didn’t have it.”’

‘Although many believe teams use some of their pre-draft visits to throw other teams off the track and make them think they’re interested in drafting a player they aren’t, Beane says that’s not the case with the Bills. He told me that although there are players who visit he knows they might not draft in the end, he doesn’t use the visits as flat-out smokescreens. Each team only gets 30 of them and there’s a purpose behind each one. He said that if a player come in, it means there are questions the team needs answered about them, whether that’s character, medical, off-the-field issues, or of course on-the-field related.’

‘“There’s one word [to describe Oliver’s game], motor,” Duarte said. “It’s one that doesn’t have an off switch. He came in as a five-star recruit and Houston doesn’t get those types of players. He made an impact from day one. His first game in college was against Baker Mayfield and Oklahoma, and he made life miserable for Baker. He’s a high-energy guy, doesn’t take plays off, goes sideline-to-sideline, and is just powerful. When you look at his strength, it was like a man playing against boys.”’