Chargers GM Tom Telesco meets with the media at the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine.
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00:00preparation, board work is very important. So we'll start that here a little bit,
00:04getting more of that into March. But as far as the draft class goes, it's pretty
00:09good.
00:15Generally speaking, a lot of attributes that Philip Rivers had, you know, you
00:20want that intangible part to is very important for the quarterback to be able
00:23to lead to have work ethic, preparation skills, handle adversity, all of those
00:27skills. That's so important for a quarterback. And then obviously you
00:30want the physical skills to, you know, have, um, quick decision maker on the
00:35field, arm strength, feet in the pocket, all that stuff. So that's all part of
00:39scouting.
00:45Yeah, part of that is really talking to people at the school who spend every
00:49day with these players. And part of it's on us watching them play the game,
00:54especially our scouts that go to see players play live. They get a feel for
00:57their leadership when they come off the field after a bad series, when they
01:00come to the sideline, how they handle their coaches, how they handle their
01:03teammates in those those instances. So trying to put that whole picture
01:07together.
01:14Not leaning in any which way. I mean, right now we have Tyrod Taylor is a
01:17starting quarterback. We're confident we could win with Tyrod. And then, you
01:21know, we'll look at all the other options that are out there. We're still
01:23early in the process right now, but we're just looking for a quarterback
01:26that we can win with. We think we can win with Tyrod, too.
01:35Well, I've been asked the question. I can't tell you how many different ways
01:38and different times. You know, way I've kind of answered is this. We're early
01:43in the process. Wait truly to eliminate anything right now. Like we're more in
01:46wide, wide lens, um, evaluation process to see what fits, what doesn't fit.
01:51We'll narrow things down later on, but we'll see.
01:56Yeah.
02:01Or trade back.
02:03Yeah, I've never seen a GM going to a drive and say, I'm not gonna trade up
02:07or I'm definitely trading up. I mean, yeah, of course, you possibly trade up
02:10for any player or trade back. I don't know. It's way too early to determine
02:14that.
02:20I mean, down the road, you may have that right now. It's just way too early.
02:23You know, it's a lot of it comes down to leverage how badly a team wants to
02:26move that you're working with. But, uh, no hard thoughts on that yet.
02:36Uh, yeah, I think the style would probably change a little bit. Um, I
02:41love his makeup intangibles, which I talked about for quarterback is a one
02:44very, very important. And then he's got great fuel in the pocket. He makes good
02:48decisions with the football. He's got plenty of arm strength. He's got great
02:51feet and mobility, and his teammates believe in him. So it's a pretty good
02:55traits right there.
03:04On our football team or the draft of free agency or our football team? Um,
03:10well, obviously, Melvin Gordon's a free agent. Um, Austin Eckler is a
03:13restricted free agent. Justin Jackson will be back. So, um, we have some
03:18players there, and one of them is a free agent with Melvin Gordon,
03:20obviously. So we kind of see how that shakes out.
03:25All of our free agents. We've probably had some discussion, but some of them
03:29leading up to the combine will have by time we get the combine will talk with
03:33everybody and go from there.
03:38Yeah, a little bit.
03:39Yeah.
03:45Uh, by and large, it hasn't. Um, no, they've always been great discussions.
03:51Um, his representation is doing their job. Never contentious. Um, and that's
03:56where these things go. Sometimes you try and get to a place where both people
03:59thinks it's gonna work. It didn't quite get there last year during training
04:01camp, but we always had good, constructive, constructive discussions
04:05with them. We'll probably have him again here. Um, but, you know, it is
04:09what it is right now.
04:16Uh, certainly could be it. I mean, it could be a consideration for him and
04:19sure would love a long term extension to
04:28Oh, it's unbelievable. Yeah, it's great. And, uh, he's young enough that he
04:32wasn't there when I was there, but I knew his dad a little bit. He's comes
04:35from good stock, and he was a heck of a high school football player at ST
04:39Francis. But, uh, it's really cool to see him kind of come up the ranks. Um,
04:43worked his way up just like his dad did, just like I did. And that's to see him
04:46in a leadership position right now. It's pretty cool.
04:54Yeah, it's it's. It's very unusual. Obviously, we all got luckier. I got
04:57lucky because I happen to go to the same high school is Bill polling his
05:00kids so that I had a little bit of advantage there. So, um, but no, I think
05:04we were, uh, I'm biased. But, you know, we were taught the right way at high
05:08school at Buffalo ST Francis, and it kind of carried over to now.
05:20I mean, continuity is always nice, but it's not the number one overriding
05:23factor is trying to put the best crew together.
05:25Yeah.
05:28As of right now, we're kind of set with where we are. We've got Shane's a
05:31coordinator. Obviously, he's been a quarterback coach. Um, we've moved Rip
05:36Shear to more of a senior assistant offensive coach, and Rip has a pretty
05:39long history with quarterbacks. So I kind of feel like we can handle it in
05:42house right now.
05:49No, I don't. If you've been around Rip Rip Shear Rip's been in football as a
05:53college head coach at a high level. It's been in the NFL for a long time.
05:56Long history. Um, obviously, Shane is offensive coordinator with a quarterback
06:01background as a player and as a coach. So no, actually, we have two guys
06:05really putting a lot of work into that position.
06:11You must have just showed up. Yeah. Um, yeah, I've said numerous times. Um,
06:18we're very confident. Tyra Taylor. We're confident. We signed him last
06:20year. We knew we signed him last year. He's coming in in a backup role. We knew
06:24that, and he knew that coming in, but we felt like he was a backup that has
06:28starter ability. If something happened to Philip last year, God forbid if you
06:31get hurt, Tyra could come in and run the offense, and we can still score
06:35points and win games. So very confident with him. He's been in Anthony's
06:39offense before. And, uh, but I also said we'll probably look at the whole
06:43wide lens of where we are free and see draft and, you know, kind of see what
06:46shakes out. But I like where we are with Tyra as well.
06:48Apologies.
06:50That's okay.
06:58Yeah, when it comes to all free agents right now, since there are other teams,
07:01I don't think it'd be real good for me to comment specifically about players
07:05that are out there. Obviously, we know he's a good player, but I wouldn't talk
07:08about any specific free agents that aren't really free agents yet till
07:11March 18th.
07:19You also put in time the year before.
07:28Yeah, you know, when we go to those games, it's not to go scout one player.
07:31You know, there are a lot of prospects on both teams, and obviously with
07:34Justin, since he's a senior, we've seen a lot of them. Um, but like I said,
07:38with free agents, I don't like to talk specifically about football players as
07:41far as their ability. They're in the draft, probably not not a great trait
07:44for GM to have before the draft. But I think, you know, his track record
07:48kind of speaks for itself and what he's done in his career and how he even
07:51did at the end of the season, um, with the bowl game with the all star game.
07:55So he did a real nice job.
08:09I mean, they played in the Rose Bowl, right? I mean, I thought they did pretty
08:12well, but they moved the ball. Um, they were running back from San Diego is
08:16an excellent player. They have some receivers. They have an excellent
08:18offensive line, and they want to games. I didn't see any issue with their
08:22offense at all.
08:29No, no change with him with us. Yeah.
08:33Nope.
08:37He hasn't been cleared yet, so we're still in kind of open period with him
08:41right now.
08:46The duration of an entire season.
08:52I guess it defends how you how you define lead guy. Um, he can handle the
08:57ball as a running back and as a receiver. He could handle the touches,
09:00and I think you can do it over a full season. Um, you know, would you want to
09:04carry? Have him carry the ball 30 35 times again, which hardly anybody does
09:07anymore. Um, you know, I think we want to pair him with anybody. It doesn't
09:11really matter. Even if he was, you know, 6 ft 2 30 and compounded in between
09:15the tackles. You want to pair running backs with with each other, but you can
09:18do so much with the football with the amount of touches he gets, and it
09:21doesn't have to just be as a running back. We put him in a slot. We could
09:23put him out wide. He's a pretty dangerous player for us and a big part
09:27of our offense. He's gonna play a lot.
09:39Who was that?
09:42Okay.
09:45Honestly, I don't have a good question. I have a good answer for that. Good
09:49question. But why aren't there more left handed quarterbacks? Don't quite
09:52now.
09:54No, not at all. Not at all. I know. As a receiver catching a ball from left
09:58handed quarterback, it looks funny for the first couple of throws, and after
10:00that you don't think about it anymore. But I don't think there's any hard
10:03reason that there's a higher bar for left handed quarterbacks. If there is,
10:05I don't know about it.
10:06In an ideal world, will you guys hope to get a contract extension from Rafa
10:10to join Arizona? What's your thoughts on that one?
10:13I don't really have a timetable on it. I really don't. But I know he's a
10:16building block player. We've wanted him here a long time, but I don't have a
10:18real timetable on it.
10:28Well, when you have Keenan Allen and Hunter Henry and Melvin Gordon and
10:32Austin Eckler, there's only so many balls go around. And Mike took
10:35advantage of every situation he had as a big play receiver for us. And I
10:39think he still has a lot of growth in front of him. He had a great season for
10:43us. He really did. He was banged up for majority of it, and he played through
10:45it. Um, but he has an innate ability to make plays down the field. He's
10:50actually pretty good route runner, too, for a bigger man to get in and out of
10:53cuts. And like I said, you know, I don't know how many catches you had if it
10:57was under 50. But, you know, big plays, big average hours per catch. And we
11:01gotta make sure we get Keenan the ball, too. So there's so many footballs go
11:04around.
11:05Yeah, I think Anthony's pretty flexible. We'll tweak the offense to
11:14whoever's whoever's behind center.
11:18That would be the plan going in. Um, we actually haven't get enough thought on
11:23that yet, but we love what he's doing. He's gonna be a good player in this
11:26league.
11:31I mean, I haven't spoken in specifically, but, you know, kind of go
11:34from there.
11:36What's your overall?
11:43I mean, from a player standpoint, you're always looking for, you know, to
11:47get better. But I think Michael's a solid starting corner in this league,
11:49and we've seen him improve every single year,
11:53including this past year. He's got long arms. He runs extremely well. He could
11:57run with a lot of speed receivers in this league. Um, he's improved his
12:00tackling and run support since he came out of college, and he's made more
12:04plays in the ball now than he did, say, his rookie year. So he's really come
12:06along for us.
12:13Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit of work in progress. It is. And, uh, so that
12:17it's, uh, obviously, it's a priority in the offseason to kind of look at it,
12:21see what the best fit is the best five. Um, see who's healthy and see who isn't
12:26and kind of take it from there.
12:28Yeah.
12:34He'll have a huge say, huge say and very excited by James Camp and coming
12:38in long track record at Green Bay. Excellent veteran offensive line coach.
12:43And, uh, yeah, he has a huge say on what he thinks fits what we have.
12:47Luckily, from what I've seen so far, the players we have fit the style that
12:50he wants to run that him and Anthony want to run up front and would be good
12:54to have a new, fresh set of eyes in that in that room.
12:58Yeah.
13:01I too early to say, too early to say.
13:13There's definitely a learning curve. Um, Kenan came on a little quicker than
13:17most is his rookie year, but it's definitely a learning curve from college
13:20to professional receiver. Um, you know, right now we have Kenan who can play
13:25outside and inside. We have Mike Williams, who's probably more outside
13:28than inside. Um, you know, we love that another receiver that mix who could
13:33probably do a little bit of both inside and outside. That way it could be more
13:36flexible with Kenan. Um, but yet that being said, it's a it's a difficult
13:40position for young player to come in. But I will say the last, uh, I don't
13:44know, 34 years, more rookie receivers are coming in and producing early than
13:48they used to. Um, I think that's part of where high school football is
13:51nowadays. You're throwing the ball where college football is. So there's
13:55there's no reason to believe a young guy couldn't come in and kind of get
13:57with the offense.
14:03I think both.
14:10I think the cool thing about him, I think it fit in a number of different
14:12ways. I think you can fit it free safety. Um, I think you could fit it.
14:16Nickel. Um, should he played corner at Delaware for a little bit? Um, we can
14:21probably use them in some nickel and dime packages. I think there's a lot
14:24of things we can do with them, but we need to see him on the field to be able
14:26to really verify that
14:32he was the starter to end the year and he had a pretty good year.
14:37Sure.
14:46Sure. I don't know how many touches he had in the first couple of games, but
14:50he was very productive with him. But I think whoever, whatever back comes out
14:54of the tunnel first, there's gotta be somebody to or one or two other guys
14:58that's Island that comes in and spells those guys. It's a long season.
15:06Stay healthy. Stay on the field. Pretty simple.
15:14He was very. He's one of our I think it was a waiver claim from Denver when we
15:19first arrived, came in, won the job, and he's been a steady performer for us
15:24since the day he got in here. So, uh, it's in a great job. I don't think he's
15:27missed a day of practice since he arrived. So, you know, he falls in the
15:30group with all the other free agents. See what fits.
15:36It's certainly different than what we're used to. It's been. I don't know
15:40if this is my 25th combine. 26 combines been the same schedule for those 25
15:44years. So this is different, but we're doing the same work. It's just the
15:48schedule just flipped a little bit. So for us, it doesn't change for the work
15:52we're doing it just on the timing of it. Um, but I think it's good. It's it's
15:56it needs to freshen up a little bit. So it's trying something new. We'll see.
16:00I see how it works.
16:04We'll see. I mean, we added some Jeff Foster's on a great job with all the
16:07logistics of this combine and the changes that we've made. Um, there's a
16:12combine committee of a couple of us that have worked on some of the changes,
16:16some of the drill changes just to try and freshen it up, maybe take out a
16:19couple of drills and maybe a little stale, put a couple of new drills in
16:22the end. They all pretty much show the same thing, but just try something
16:25different. Just kind of freshen it up a little bit.