Chargers GM Tom Telesco meets with the media at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 preparation, board work is very important. So we'll start that here a little bit,
00:04 get in more of that in March. But as far as the draft class goes, it's pretty
00:09 good.
00:09 Generally speaking, a lot of attributes that Philip Rivers had, you know, you
00:19 want that intangible part to is very important for the quarterback to be able
00:23 to lead to have work ethic preparation skills, handle adversity, all of those
00:27 skills that's so important for a quarterback. And then obviously you
00:30 want the physical skills to, you know, have, um, quick decision maker on the
00:35 field, arm strength, feet in the pocket, all that stuff. So that's all part of
00:39 scouting.
00:40 Yeah, part of that is really talking to people at the school who spend every
00:49 day with these players. And part of it's on us watching them play the game,
00:54 especially our scouts that go to see players play live. They get a feel for
00:57 their leadership when they come off the field after a bad series, when they
01:00 come to the sideline, how they handle their coaches, how they handle their
01:03 teammates in those those instances. So trying to put that whole picture
01:07 together.
01:07 Not leaning in any which way. I mean, right now we have Tyrod Taylor is a
01:17 starting quarterback. We're confident we can win with Tyrod. And then, you
01:21 know, we'll look at all the other options that are out there. We're still
01:23 early in the process right now, but we're just looking for a quarterback
01:26 that we can win with. We think we can win with Tyrod, too.
01:28 Well, I've been asked the question. I can't tell you how many different ways
01:38 and different times. You know, way I've kind of answered is this. We're early
01:43 in the process. Wait truly to eliminate anything right now. Like we're more in
01:46 wide, wide lens, um, evaluation process to see what fits what doesn't fit.
01:51 We'll narrow things down later on, but we'll see.
01:55 Area where
01:56 or trade back.
02:02 Yeah, I've never seen a GM going to a draft and say I'm not gonna trade up
02:06 or I'm definitely trading up. I mean, of course, you possibly trade up for
02:10 any player or trade back. I don't know. It's way too early to determine that.
02:14 I mean, down the road, you may have that right now. It's just way too early.
02:23 You know, it's a lot of it comes down to leverage how badly a team wants to
02:26 move that you're working with. But, uh, no hard thoughts on that yet.
02:30 Uh, yeah, I think the style would probably change a little bit. Um, I
02:41 love his makeup intangibles, which I talked about for quarterback is a one.
02:44 Very, very important. And then he's got great fuel in the pocket. He makes good
02:48 decisions with the football. He's got plenty of arm strength. He's got great
02:51 feet and mobility and his teammates believe in him. So it's a pretty good
02:55 traits right there.
02:55 On our football team or the draft of free agency or our football team. Um,
03:09 well, obviously Melvin Gordon's a free agent. Um, Austin Eclair is a
03:13 restrictive free agent. Justin Jackson will be back. So, um, we have some
03:18 players there and one of them is a free agent with Melvin Gordon, obviously.
03:21 So we kind of see how that shakes out.
03:23 All of our free agents. We probably had some discussion, but some of them
03:29 leading up to the combine will have by time we get the combine will talk to
03:33 with everybody and go from there.
03:35 Yeah, a little bit.
03:45 Uh, by and large, it hasn't. Um, no, they've always been great discussions.
03:51 Um, his representation is doing their job. Never contentious. Um, and that's
03:56 where these things go. Sometimes you try and get to a place where both people
03:59 thinks it's gonna work. It didn't quite get there last year during training
04:01 camp, but we always had good, constructive, constructive discussions
04:05 with them. We'll probably have them again here. Um, but you know, it is
04:09 what it is right now.
04:10 Is it?
04:10 Uh, certainly could be it. I mean, it could be a consideration for him and
04:19 sure would love a long term extension to
04:21 Oh, it's unbelievable. Yeah, it's great. And, uh, he's young enough that he
04:32 wasn't there when I was there, but I knew his dad a little bit. He comes
04:35 from good stock and he was a heck of a high school football player at ST
04:39 Francis. But, uh, it's really cool to see him kind of come up the ranks, um,
04:43 worked his way up just like his dad did, just like I did. And that's to see him
04:46 in a leadership position right now. It's pretty cool.
04:49 Yeah, it's it's it's very unusual. Obviously, we all got lucky. I got lucky
04:58 because I happen to go to the same high school is Bill polling his kids. So I
05:01 had a little bit of advantage there. So, um, but no, I think we were, uh, I'm
05:06 biased, but we were taught the right way at high school at Buffalo ST
05:09 Francis and it kind of carried over to now.
05:11 I mean, continuity is always nice, but it's not the number one overriding
05:23 factor is trying to put the best crew together.
05:24 As of right now, we're kind of set with where we are. We've got changed the
05:31 coordinator. Obviously, he's been a quarterback coach. Um, we've moved Rip
05:36 Shear to more of a senior assistant offensive coach, and Rip has a pretty
05:39 long history with quarterback. So I kind of feel like we can handle it in
05:42 house right now.
05:43 No, I don't. If you've been around Rip Rip Shear Rip's been in football as a
05:53 college head coach at a high level of in the NFL for a long time, long
05:56 history. Um, obviously, Shane is offensive coordinator with the
06:00 quarterback background as a player and as a coach. So no, actually, we have,
06:04 you know, two guys really putting a lot of work into that position.
06:07 You must have just showed up. Yeah. Um, yeah, I've said numerous times. Um,
06:17 we're very confident. Tyra Taylor. We're confident. We signed him last
06:20 year. We knew we signed him last year. He's coming in in a backup role. We
06:24 knew that and he knew that coming in. But we felt like he was a backup that
06:28 had starter ability. If something happened to fill up last year, God
06:31 forbid, if you get hurt, Tyra could come in and run the offense and we can
06:35 still score points and win games. So I'm very confident with him. He's been
06:38 in Anthony's offense before. And, uh, but I also said, we'll probably look
06:42 at the whole wide lens of where we are free and see draft and, you know, kind
06:46 of see what shakes out. But I like where we are with Tyra as well.
06:48 That's okay.
06:50 Just considering how long you've been in the league and how long it's not
06:53 very especially what have you seen from him over his career, especially in
06:55 last few years in the event state?
06:57 Yeah, when it comes to all free agents right now, since there are other teams,
07:01 I don't think it'd be real good for me to comment specifically about players
07:05 that are out there. Obviously, we know he's a good player. Um, but I wouldn't
07:08 talk about any specific free agents that aren't really free agents yet till
07:11 March 18th.
07:19 You also put in time the year before
07:21 Yeah, you know, when we go to those games, it's not to go scout one player.
07:31 You know, there are a lot of prospects on both teams and obviously with
07:34 Justin, since he's a senior, we've seen a lot of them. Um, but like I said,
07:38 with free agents, I don't like to talk specifically about football players as
07:41 far as their ability. They're in the draft, probably not not a great trait
07:44 for Jim to have before the draft. Um, but I think, you know, his track record
07:48 kind of speaks for itself and what he's done in his career and how he even did
07:51 at the end of the season, um, with the bowl game with the All Star game. So he
07:55 did a real nice job.
07:56 I mean, they played in the Rose Bowl, right? I mean, I thought they did
08:12 pretty well, but they moved the ball. Um, they were running back from San
08:16 Diego is an excellent player. They have some receivers. They have an excellent
08:18 offensive line and they won the games. I didn't see any issue with their
08:22 offense at all.
08:22 No, no change with him with us. Yeah.
08:31 Nope.
08:34 He hasn't been cleared yet, so we're still in kind of open period with him
08:41 right now.
08:42 Yeah.
08:42 I guess it defends how you how you define lead guy. Um, he can handle the
08:57 ball as a running back and as a receiver, he can handle the touches and
09:00 I think you can do it over a full season. Um, you know, would you want to
09:04 carry have him carry the ball 30 35 times a game, which hardly anybody does
09:07 anymore? Um, you know, I think we'd want to pair him with anybody. It
09:11 doesn't really matter. Even if he was, you know, six ft 2 30 and compounded
09:15 in between the tackles. You want to pair running backs with with each
09:17 other, but you can do so much with the football with the amount of touches he
09:20 gets and it doesn't have to just be as a running back. We put him in a slot.
09:23 We could put him out wide. He's a pretty dangerous player for us and a
09:26 big part of our offense. He's gonna play a lot.
09:29 Who was that?
09:40 Okay.
09:42 Honestly, I don't have a good question. I don't have a good answer for that.
09:48 Good question. But why aren't there more left handed quarterbacks? Don't
09:52 quite now.
09:53 No, not all. Not at all. I know as a receiver catching a ball from left
09:58 handed quarterback, it looks funny for the first couple of throws and after
10:00 that you don't think about it anymore. But I don't think there's any hard
10:03 reason that there's a higher bar for left handed quarterbacks. If there is,
10:05 I don't know about it.
10:06 I don't really have a timetable on it. I really don't. But I know he's a
10:16 building block player. We want him here a long time, but don't have a real
10:18 timetable on it.
10:19 Well, when you have Kenan Allen and Hunter Henry and Melvin Gordon and
10:32 Austin Eckler, there's only so many balls go around and Mike took advantage
10:35 of every situation he had as a big play receiver for us. And I think he still
10:40 has a lot of growth in front of him. He had a great season for us. He really
10:43 did. He was banged up for majority of it and he played through it. Um, but he
10:47 has an innate ability to make plays down the field. He's actually pretty
10:51 good route runner to for a bigger man to get in and out of cuts. And like I
10:54 said, you know, I don't know how many catches you had if it was under 50, but
10:57 you know, big plays big average hours per catch and we gotta make sure we
11:01 get keen in the ball to so there was so many footballs go around.
11:04 Yeah,
11:05 yeah, I think Anthony's pretty flexible. We'll tweak the offense to whoever's
11:15 whoever's behind center.
11:16 Uh, that would be the plan going in. Um, we actually haven't get enough
11:22 thought on that yet, but we love what he's doing. He's gonna be a good player
11:26 in this league.
11:31 I mean, I haven't spoken in specifically, but you know, kind of go
11:34 from there.
11:35 I mean, from a player standpoint, you're always looking for, you know, to
11:47 get better. But I think Michael is a solid starting corner in this league,
11:49 and we've seen him improve every single year. Um, including this past year,
11:54 he's got long arms. He runs extremely well. He could run with a lot of speed
11:58 receivers in this league. Um, he's improved his tackling and run support
12:01 since he came out of college, and he's made more plays in the ball now than
12:05 he did say his rookie year. So he's really come along for us.
12:07 Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit of work in progress. It is. And, uh, so that
12:17 it's, uh, obviously it's a priority in the offseason to kind of look at it,
12:21 see what the best fit is the best five. Um, see who is healthy and see who
12:25 isn't and kind of take it from there.
12:27 He'll have a huge say. You say and very excited by James Camp and coming in
12:39 long track record at Green Bay. Excellent veteran offensive line coach.
12:43 And, uh, yeah, he has a huge say on what he thinks fits what we have.
12:47 Luckily, from what I've seen so far, the players we have fit the style that
12:50 he wants to run that him and Anthony want to run up front and would be good
12:54 have a new fresh set of eyes in that in that room.
12:57 I too early to say too early to say
13:03 there's definitely a learning curve. Um, Keenan came on a little quicker than
13:17 most is his rookie year, but it's definitely a learning curve from college
13:20 to professional receiver. Um, you know, right now we have Keenan who can play
13:25 outside and inside. We have Mike Williams, who's probably more outside
13:28 than inside. Um, you know, we love that another receiver to that mix. You could
13:33 probably do a little bit of both inside and outside. That way can be more
13:36 flexible with Keenan. Um, but yet that being said, it's a it's a difficult
13:40 position for young player to come in. But I will say the last, uh, I don't
13:44 know, 34 years, more rookie receivers are coming in and producing early than
13:48 they used to. Um, I think that's part of where high school football is
13:51 nowadays. We're throwing the ball for college football is so there's there's
13:55 no reason to believe a young guy couldn't come in and kind of get with
13:57 the offense.
13:57 I think both.
14:03 I think the cool thing about him, I think you fit in a number of different
14:12 ways. I think you can fit it free safety. Um, I think you could fit it.
14:16 Nickel. Um, should he played corner at Delaware for a little bit? Um, we can
14:21 probably use him in some nickel and dime packages. I think there's a lot
14:24 of things we can do with them, but we need to see him on the field to be able
14:26 to really verify that
14:28 he was the starter to end the year and he had a pretty good year.
14:34 Sure.
14:37 Yeah.
14:38 Sure. I don't know how many touches he had in the first couple of games, but
14:50 he was very productive with him. But I think whoever, whatever back comes out
14:54 of the tunnel first, there's gotta be somebody to or one or two other guys
14:58 that's not that comes in and spells those guys. It's a long season.
15:06 Stay healthy. Stay on the field. Pretty simple.
15:09 He was very. He's one of our I think it was a waiver claim from Denver when we
15:19 first arrived, came in, won the job, and he's been a steady performer for us
15:24 since the day he got in here. So, uh, it's in a great job. I don't think he's
15:27 missed a day of practice since he arrived. So, you know, he falls in the
15:30 group with all the other free agents. We see what fits.
15:33 About the
15:34 it's certainly different than what we're used to. It's been. I don't know
15:40 if this is my 25th combine 26 combines been the same schedule for those 25
15:44 years. So this is different, but we're doing the same work. It's just the
15:48 schedule just flipped a little bit. So for us, it doesn't change for the work
15:52 we're doing it just on the timing of it. Um, but I think it's good. It's it's
15:56 it needs to freshen up a little bit. So it's trying something new. We'll see.
16:00 I see how it works.
16:01 Yeah,
16:02 we'll see. I mean, we added some Jeff Foster's done a great job with all the
16:07 logistics of this combine and the changes we've made. Um, there's a
16:12 combine committee of a couple of us that have worked on some of the changes,
16:16 some of the drill changes just to try and freshen it up, maybe take out a
16:19 couple drills and maybe a little stale, put a couple new drills in the end.
16:23 They all pretty much show the same thing, but just try something different.
16:25 Just kind of freshen it up a little bit.