Speaker 1: Welcome to the Commanders Today Podcast. I'm Julie Donaldson. The
Speaker 1: Commander's rookies made their way to Ashbourne today for the
Speaker 1: start of Rookie Minicamp. I sat down with the head coach,
Speaker 1: Ron Rivera to recap the draft and take a deeper
Speaker 1: dive into the Commander's Draft class. When you go through
Speaker 1: this whole process, the planning of it, the leading up
Speaker 1: with it, the working that you have to do with
Speaker 1: your team, to making the phone calls to be able
Speaker 1: to bring the families in here, what is the best
Speaker 1: part of the draft for you? You know, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you this year, one of the best parts of the
Speaker 1: draft was getting me Johan's parents. Okay, you know, just
Speaker 1: knowing that his mother's going through the struggle right now
Speaker 1: with her health, but just kind of getting to know
Speaker 1: them briefly, but then watching the pride in which they
Speaker 1: had when he got up there and did his press conference.
Speaker 1: I thought was really neat. I really did. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of you know, remind you, you know,
Speaker 1: the culmination of of of you know, Johan's dream um
Speaker 1: coupled with his parents' support was really cool. It was
Speaker 1: and it was so nice too, because we've been in
Speaker 1: COVID for so long. Oh yeah, we haven't been able
Speaker 1: to have those moments. Yes, you know, and that was precious,
Speaker 1: Yes it was and that that that made it to
Speaker 1: me and made it really special, really did. So let's
Speaker 1: go through your picks and let's start with Johan Dotson. Um.
Speaker 1: When did you know that he was your guy and
Speaker 1: you just would want to trade back to get him
Speaker 1: or did you ever consider maybe even just reaching for
Speaker 1: the sake of making sure you had him? Um? No,
Speaker 1: we we we felt going backwards and he would be
Speaker 1: there and and you know, you try to predict it
Speaker 1: and you're hoping, and we did, um, and he was there.
Speaker 1: Here's a guy that we really do feel as a
Speaker 1: is a fit for us. We believe he is a
Speaker 1: plug and play guy. He's versatile, he's got a tremendous
Speaker 1: catch radius. He's going to line up at the at
Speaker 1: the different wide receiver spots for us for differ circumstances,
Speaker 1: and he has some special team's value in terms of
Speaker 1: punt return. This is a draft for the wide receiver position.
Speaker 1: Was kind of like glorified a little bit, right. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of good names of folks that they thought
Speaker 1: to come out. And as you said, it's all subjective
Speaker 1: and it's what you really needed. Why was he the
Speaker 1: guy that you're saying, Okay, he's going to help compliment Terry,
Speaker 1: He's going to be that ad to our receiver room
Speaker 1: that we need. I think he was probably one of
Speaker 1: the guys that was really I think season ready. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a guy's going to come in, he's he's he's
Speaker 1: a pro already. He understands what he's supposed to do,
Speaker 1: how he needs to do it. You know, we didn't
Speaker 1: bring him in on a thirty visit because we felt
Speaker 1: we knew who he was and that that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that you know, we used the thirty
Speaker 1: visit to get to know the guys we didn't have.
Speaker 1: We had a few questions on We didn't have any
Speaker 1: questions on him. You know, we had six people present
Speaker 1: at his workout at Penn State, and they did a
Speaker 1: lot of behind the scenes stuff for us. You know,
Speaker 1: they interviewed different people, different personnel to ask them about Johan,
Speaker 1: and so we came away feeling pretty good about I
Speaker 1: kind of found that fascinating a little bit that somebody
Speaker 1: that you were taking and we talked to the Heathstone
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of meetings with Washington. But it's
Speaker 1: because you didn't need to, right you're already confident in
Speaker 1: who he was and what he's going to be. So
Speaker 1: we're excited to see that play out. Though we did
Speaker 1: that one time in Carolina and turned out to be
Speaker 1: a little quickly. We didn't spend an a nord town
Speaker 1: amount of time, you know, interviewing or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's just that when when when you get to a
Speaker 1: point and you feel very comfortable, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: want to show our hand. Makes sense. Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: to the second round. Uh. Fiderian mathis really a big body.
Speaker 1: You watched the film on him. He seems to kind
Speaker 1: of he'll just take on those double teams. We call
Speaker 1: that the dirty work. He's not afraid to do. We
Speaker 1: reached out to a couple of their coaches there and
Speaker 1: had an uportunity to talk with them, and a very
Speaker 1: selfless guy, very unselfish, willing to do the dirty work.
Speaker 1: As you put it, is not unusual this day where
Speaker 1: the sacks are glorified. Well I think they are, but
Speaker 1: you know, he's still had a good number of sack.
Speaker 1: He had nine this last season. Didn't have total in
Speaker 1: his career, but the nine this year is a pretty
Speaker 1: substantial number for a defensive tackle, especially a guy that
Speaker 1: does the dirty work. So that's one of the things
Speaker 1: that you felt good about. But one thing he did
Speaker 1: very well was he held the point of attack. He
Speaker 1: absorbed the double teams. He allowed the linebackers to run,
Speaker 1: you know, and they had a couple of linebackers we
Speaker 1: really liked too, but he allowed them to run and
Speaker 1: be productive. And that's one of the things that you know,
Speaker 1: I always go back to back in the day watching
Speaker 1: guys at brand well as linebackers. That's because they had
Speaker 1: people up in front of him that really knew how
Speaker 1: to absorb those blocks. Next week marks a new chapter.
Speaker 1: On Monday, May night, Commanders Today will officially become the
Speaker 1: Command Center podcast, your home for analysis and insight into
Speaker 1: all things Washington Commanders. You can also tune into the
Speaker 1: launch of Command Center on NBC Sports Washington at five
Speaker 1: thirty pm, and while you're at it, follow at Commanders
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Mm HM