Ravens Scout Media Availability Following Denver Trade

[kgreene829]

 

Hello I am Kgreene829 the lead scout of the Ravens organization and I am here to talk about our recent trade with Denver. First off I just want to say that I wish Glenn Sosa and Wayne Sutton the best of luck in Denver they are great players and any team would be lucky to have them. We made the tough decision to trade them since we are not in a position to win now and we wanted to do right by them and give them a chance to compete. We talked to both of them and told them we would be shopping them around not just for us but we wanted to give them a chance to compete. Each player was asked to give a list of teams they would like to be traded to and while we will not reveal the full list Denver was near the top for both of them so when alexfall862 came to us asking about them we were happy to accommodate. If either of you are listening remember my offer to return later in your careers when your almost ready to retire is still on the table you will always have a home in Baltimore. Just needed to get that out of the way before I began.

 

Now lets talk about the fun stuff, our return. As we are not in a position to contend right now it was very important for us to get young players we that we know can blossom into great players and picks. We were so lucky to get 2 of each with 2 4th round picks we have a lot of flexibility to pick some really great kids or flip these picks if we don't see anyone we love at that spot. But now for what we are most excited about the 2 STUDS we got in return.

 

First up is OLB Patrick Viola, Viola was someone that me and SyndaKyt really liked going into the draft he was the 3rd best OLB in the class for us we were hoping to snag him up in the 3rd round and were so upset when Denver took him before we could this is one of the reasons we traded out of the 3rd round we had some other guys we were looking at but everyone on our board at the time was too far back in our mind to warrant selecting someone. It is so hard to talk about Viola because he just does so much right he is so smart and just understands the game on a whole other level than I have seen from anyone his age. He is a lockdown LB and looks like in a couple years he will be able to cover WRs if we need him too. I can keep talking about his great strength and agility and how he can just make holes in opposing O-Lines out of thin air we are so happy to have him on our team and he is going to hate us but I really hope he sees that we are just going to be hard on him because we know he has the potential to be a top LB in this league.

 

Second is A.J. Hicks, Hicks was not a guy we had eyes on going into the draft and he just kind of flew under our radar but while looking at Denver's young players we saw this guy who impressed us and we thought had great potential so we asked if we could talk into who ended up being A.J. Hicks who we fell in love with. Hicks doesn't come from a big football college graduating from Liberty and that shows he works hard for everything and doesn't take anything for granted. He is just so humble and has a great work ethic we knew we needed to get this guy on our team because he can really lead by example. If the team comes in for practice and sees a rookie OT already sweating and putting in the work and staying behind for a couple of extra reps then that will motivate everyone else to work harder too. I really think that Hicks could be a great leadership guy for us in the future and I have talked to him about paying for leadership courses to help him out with being more comfortable in that role. His response confirmed everything I thought of him he turned to me and said "Anything I can do to help the team, but are you sure I am the best guy for the job?" I was in a room with him praising him and telling him all these things and he's so humble that he starts questioning his qualifications.

 

That's all I have to say so I will be taking questions now and since I rarely get the chance to do press conferences I will answer every question no matter the topic if for some reason you want to know how many times I have been to the bathroom today I will answer it, not sure why you would want to know though, and also 2 so with that being said the floor is open for questions.

[subsequent]

Two questions for you here coach -

 

1. With Sosa moving on, who do you expect to be the next man up to fill in that space? Melo or Due?

 

2. How many times did you think about going to the bathroom today but ended up not doing it?

[kgreene829]

Well Bread Boi first I just want to say thank you I always have fun with your questions because you seem to just ask tough, hard hitting questions that everyone is thinking but is just too scared to ask.

 

To answer your first question I would have to talk to SyndaKyt and we will come to a decision together after having an open competition but that is a great question. Melo and Due are both outstanding players but between the 2 as of now I would give Due the edge Melo is great but Due is a year younger and has more potential so we have an incentive to play him to aid in his development. This isn't such an open and shut question though. We are not going to give up but with us out of contention for a playoff spot we are open to being a little experimental we have a lot of great OLBs depth with William Munch, Michael Baston, Mark, Hildebrandt, Scott Potash, and now Patrick Viola. We plan to play the people who deserve to play and in my opinion if that means that we try out some of our OLB's at ILB then so be it everyone will have to work but a sneak peak at my ideal LB core would be Luther Due with Patrick Viola and Scott Potash sandwiching him. I do want to reiterate that nothing is set in stone we will have to see how hard each player works to start and we may change it up from week to week but that's what I am thinking right now.

 

Now getting to your second question only once, I haven't had much to eat or drink today so while I have been to the bathroom twice I haven't had to think about it too much.

[subsequent]

I take my job very seriously, thanks.

 

Have a fantastic season, coach.