Speaker 1: Welcome to the Official Jets Podcast powered by Amazon Web Services.
Speaker 1: Ethan Greenberg, Eric Allen, joined by the Assistant GM of
Speaker 1: the New York Checks, Rex Hogan. Rex, thanks for joining
Speaker 1: us here. Yeah, one of the one of the busiest
Speaker 1: men in the National Football League this week since in
Speaker 1: the New York Jets. Yeah, you know what, what about
Speaker 1: how the processes maybe changed because it's a made for
Speaker 1: TV event now the workout it's NFL Network televising these
Speaker 1: guys um in prime time and for years I'd look
Speaker 1: for you guys and at night you would be actually
Speaker 1: doing formal interviews. I gotta imagine a lot of things
Speaker 1: are flipped for you. It's exactly what it is. It's
Speaker 1: been flipped early part of the week. It's pretty much
Speaker 1: the same schedule, but just now we've changed it so that,
Speaker 1: like you said, the prime time prime time schedule from
Speaker 1: four pm to eleven o'clock at night on Thursday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Speaker 1: and then Sunday it will be starting it too and
Speaker 1: then go to a probably nine o'clock at night. So
Speaker 1: it's just different. We're having the interviews earlier in the
Speaker 1: morning now and on Wednesday, Thursday today it will be
Speaker 1: much more extended with the interviews throughout, So you just
Speaker 1: adjust to it. It's part of it. And you know
Speaker 1: pressures put on the players too in terms of that
Speaker 1: having how the where they've come from, in terms of
Speaker 1: their preparation that they might have been getting up early
Speaker 1: in the morning and now all of a sudden they've
Speaker 1: got to start training a little bit differently and preparing
Speaker 1: their bodies to be ready from that four o'clock to
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock window. I remember a few years ago and
Speaker 1: your first stint with the New York Jets. We sat
Speaker 1: in Lucas Soil watching some of the drills and I said,
Speaker 1: what do you try to get out of this? And
Speaker 1: you said, what you're trying to see here is that
Speaker 1: what they do on the field bell at dates the
Speaker 1: tape exactly. And it's part of the process. And we
Speaker 1: always call you each aspect of it is a certain
Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle, and this is obviously a major
Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle. But it's good because you can
Speaker 1: see them, you know who the guys are kind of
Speaker 1: rise the cream to the top in terms of each
Speaker 1: one of the position groups from a competitive standpoint, and
Speaker 1: you just see those guys kind of shine and when
Speaker 1: they when they get under the lights, and it's a
Speaker 1: whole different situation for him, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you see like guys start to separate themselves. So if
Speaker 1: it's say a three horse race, a receiver defensive act,
Speaker 1: the guy who's the best usually kind of shows themselves.
Speaker 1: I was also told once that it kind of the
Speaker 1: combine can break up the clusters. To your point, if
Speaker 1: there's like a group of guys that have similar grades,
Speaker 1: maybe the combine helps set the order. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you about the interviews because now that the
Speaker 1: interviews are earlier and the bench press is going on
Speaker 1: right now behind us, So so if you hears some
Speaker 1: other noise, it's that, Um, is there a different feel
Speaker 1: to the interviews being at a different time, Like, I
Speaker 1: know the structure will remain the same, but is it
Speaker 1: at all different that the drills and everything comes later
Speaker 1: in the day and the first thing is the interview. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that'll be a little different for him because
Speaker 1: in the past, on the day that they work out,
Speaker 1: they don't have interviews in the morning. But so that'll
Speaker 1: be a little bit of something from them to adjust to.
Speaker 1: But they're traditionally the same, you know, aspect in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, what we want to find out from over
Speaker 1: in terms of their background, what they know in terms
Speaker 1: of football, their football intelligence, type of system they were
Speaker 1: in their ability to communicate what they played in and
Speaker 1: their football knowledge overall. March eighteenth, the start of free agency.
Speaker 1: You are the assistant general manager the New York Jets.
Speaker 1: So not only are you getting ready for the draft
Speaker 1: in late April, you guys have twenty one on restricted
Speaker 1: free agents, a couple of our phase, and of course
Speaker 1: you're looking elsewhere exploring contracts. How do you go about
Speaker 1: making a board for the draft and making a board
Speaker 1: for free agency in terms of targets is a very similar, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Just so throughout the fall we've going we do a
Speaker 1: progress in terms of, you know, the college scouts are
Speaker 1: on the road. They're doing a great job of identifying
Speaker 1: the college prospects for us. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: the pro personnel department is doing the same thing. So
Speaker 1: we've got guys tagged and alerted that everybody know, say
Speaker 1: this guy is gonna be a u f A or
Speaker 1: an r f A, you know, potential cap cut. So
Speaker 1: somebody we need to know about and so throughout the fall,
Speaker 1: those are you know, those are taking priority in terms
Speaker 1: of what they're the pro scouts are looking at as
Speaker 1: well as their individual teams. So it kind of sets
Speaker 1: a board for us for when we go into our
Speaker 1: January meetings and then you know, we have our January
Speaker 1: meetings with pro going to a pro personnel free agency meeting.
Speaker 1: We just had college scouts in for eleven days and
Speaker 1: so they we went over to the guys who were
Speaker 1: you know, draft prospects, priority free agent prospects. So we're
Speaker 1: setting the board. But they make a long story short.
Speaker 1: It's a delicate balance between both, you know, a good thing.
Speaker 1: We've got a great pro staff, we've got a great
Speaker 1: college staff, and you know, helps us make our jobs
Speaker 1: easier in terms of building up to the selection process.
Speaker 1: In April. I talked to Joe Douglas about it yesterday,
Speaker 1: said that during those draft meetings UM in February prior
Speaker 1: to coming here in Indianapolis, you guys have an initial board.
Speaker 1: We do, we do. We We've got the board initially
Speaker 1: set um just from of the scouts grades that come
Speaker 1: in from the fall and from what they what they've
Speaker 1: seen and usually there's some conflicting grades, and so when
Speaker 1: we get together as a groups and an opportunity for
Speaker 1: us to to hear the reports and to watch tape
Speaker 1: as a group and collectively discuss you know, hey, what
Speaker 1: what do you see his strengths? What do you see
Speaker 1: as weaknesses? What do we ultimately what do we see
Speaker 1: this guy? What's his value for the Jets? So it's
Speaker 1: good it helps us having a board, you know, just
Speaker 1: an idea of going into it before we kind of
Speaker 1: mold it into to what we want as a group.
Speaker 1: What's this week been like for you coming back to
Speaker 1: Indianapolis obviously where you lived and used to be a
Speaker 1: part of the Colts, So what is it like for
Speaker 1: you to come back to this place. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a little surreal, do you know? Flying in, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I was in the transition back in June
Speaker 1: when I when I left there to come here, so
Speaker 1: I was other than moving out of my house and
Speaker 1: in past July, that's the first time that I've been back,
Speaker 1: so you know, it was like I felt like just yesterday,
Speaker 1: but at the same time felt like so long ago,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So it was cool to be back,
Speaker 1: you know, I had some buddies from the old neighborhood
Speaker 1: come down and meet me for dinner the other night.
Speaker 1: So always good to connect man see, and not only
Speaker 1: guys with the Colts, but you know, stadium employees and
Speaker 1: other people around the city who you've seen and gotten
Speaker 1: to know over the past two years. So I had
Speaker 1: to connect. I know they are very different people obviously,
Speaker 1: but maybe some similarities an approach between Chris Ballard and
Speaker 1: Judge Tom Joe Douglas, because when I think of the
Speaker 1: Colts and what you guys did there is you build
Speaker 1: it from the inside out you want to and you
Speaker 1: guys formed maybe the best offensive line and all football.
Speaker 1: And now when you hear Joe talk says that's gonna
Speaker 1: be an emphasis for us, not only this year, but
Speaker 1: moving forward forever long I'm here. Yeah. Absolutely. We always
Speaker 1: talked about that in in Indianapolis, and you know pretty
Speaker 1: much everywhere else does it as well. It's hey, you
Speaker 1: gotta build inside out. It starts with the front makes
Speaker 1: life easier on the back end for both sides of
Speaker 1: the ball. So that's something we're gonna continue to do
Speaker 1: here and develop within the the Jets organization, develop within
Speaker 1: our our roster in in terms of a competitive situation
Speaker 1: where we're constantly bringing in guys to push those those
Speaker 1: starters and potential starters and guys we can developer down
Speaker 1: the road. So I just want to get into your
Speaker 1: background a little bit before you get going here, because
Speaker 1: you're a very busy man as the assistant GM. So, like,
Speaker 1: where were you, Let's just say twenty years ago this
Speaker 1: time of year, probably years ago, I was at Notre Dame. UM,
Speaker 1: we had just finished up going in weird preparation, finishing
Speaker 1: up with the draft class and going into the off
Speaker 1: season for two thousand season, which it turned out to
Speaker 1: be a great season for us. We ended up going
Speaker 1: to the Fiestavo lost unfortunately. But yeah, it twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: was right after signing day and you're already transitioned into
Speaker 1: the next class, and so yeah, it brings back good
Speaker 1: memories back in the state. Again, what stands out to
Speaker 1: you most about your long run with Chicago Bears? And
Speaker 1: maybe you could talk about a couple of our mentors
Speaker 1: along the way, Uh name Jerry Age? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So I had gotten to know Jerry when I was
Speaker 1: at Notre Dame as a pro liaison had a chance
Speaker 1: to come through, and he kind of developed relationships with
Speaker 1: guys who want to talk about you know, players, and hey,
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about this guy. What do
Speaker 1: you think about it? And so it kind of helped
Speaker 1: you like clear your mindset in terms of an evaluator
Speaker 1: at the college level and how we had to project
Speaker 1: from high school to college. You do the same thing
Speaker 1: in in the NFL, projecting guys from college to the pros.
Speaker 1: But Jerry really helped me with that. You know, we
Speaker 1: had a great run there. I went to the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: lost to the Colts again. Yeah, but you know, and
Speaker 1: competed in the NFC Championship, uh second time, you know,
Speaker 1: after winning it on that year that we went to
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. But man, it was a great run,
Speaker 1: great city, great time. We had a lot of great guys.
Speaker 1: Our our college staff was was awesome. We had you know,
Speaker 1: Chris is now the general manager for the Colts. So
Speaker 1: I had a really good group, a lot of good guys, man,
Speaker 1: a lot of good mentors. Helped me out and get
Speaker 1: into the league. How did your roles change over time there? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, progressed from an area scout into uh, the
Speaker 1: national scout going over the top. Uh, not only west
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi for a few years, and then east
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi living in Nashville and my wife working
Speaker 1: at Vanderbilt. You know, Southeast was always a kind of
Speaker 1: a stronghold on college football. So I was able to
Speaker 1: to stay there and live there and get a good
Speaker 1: balance of not only the SEC but all over the country. Ville.
Speaker 1: It's a great city, great city, van it was. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. We were there twelve twelve years,
Speaker 1: and my wife worked there at Vanderbilt for eleven eleven
Speaker 1: years and eleven seasons. Saw a lot of good football
Speaker 1: college football players come through there. And you know, Jay
Speaker 1: Cutler was a quarterback for Vanderbilt at that point, and
Speaker 1: then James Franklin came in and took over. They had
Speaker 1: a nice run as well. So we had we ended
Speaker 1: up having a lot of players on the on the
Speaker 1: roster in Chicago from Vanderbilt. You know, at one point
Speaker 1: we had Jay Cutler, Chris Williams, Earl Bennett, D. J. Moore,
Speaker 1: and Hunter hill Am. I yeah, nice group of guys
Speaker 1: and starting players and played well for us. You played
Speaker 1: collegiately at Austin pe But what late. What led you
Speaker 1: to Notre Dame because you mentioned Notre Dame to start
Speaker 1: here twenty years ago you were with the Fighting Irish
Speaker 1: and Urban Meyer. But how did you lay in there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Networking more than anything else, you know, I was I
Speaker 1: was working in private business sector in Nashville, and uh
Speaker 1: was at the point I was like, man, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And so called a guy who had a connection with
Speaker 1: a family friend had a guy who was an insistant
Speaker 1: athletic director within the athletic department, and they were looking
Speaker 1: for an internship within the for an intern within the
Speaker 1: athletic department, and went up on an interview and guests
Speaker 1: did well enough to get the job and started out.
Speaker 1: You know, the wages were small, but the job was
Speaker 1: in mys was was huge and it was a great,
Speaker 1: you know, opportunity. I grew up a huge Notre Dame fan,
Speaker 1: so I had a younger brother who was enrolled in
Speaker 1: school there at that point too, so it was good.
Speaker 1: My my whole family grew up Notre Dame fans, So
Speaker 1: it was kind of like a lifelong dream. Well what
Speaker 1: did you what did you do it Notre Dame for
Speaker 1: Urban and then later on you must have did a
Speaker 1: good job because when he went to Utah, he said, Rice,
Speaker 1: come on, I got another position for Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: was working in the recruiting and operations aspect there with
Speaker 1: the football team, and uh, Bob Davy was our head coach,
Speaker 1: and on that staff we had, you know, tremendous staff.
Speaker 1: We had Urban Meyer head coach and as well as
Speaker 1: he's done Steven Dazio, who's been a head coach at
Speaker 1: Temple and Boston College now at Colorado State. Dan Mullin
Speaker 1: was a graduate assistant now the head coach of Florida.
Speaker 1: And then John D. Philippo was a graduate assistant who's
Speaker 1: gone on and had been successful in the in the NFL.
Speaker 1: Is an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach. So really good staff,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know he had a good ability with
Speaker 1: not only him, but Greg Madison was another guy who
Speaker 1: served it, you know, mentor in terms of evaluations and
Speaker 1: the way they saw players. And so, yeah, Urban and
Speaker 1: I hit it off. He went to Bowling Green with
Speaker 1: Dan Mullin. From that aspect. He went for two years
Speaker 1: and then trans transitioned into the University of Utah. So
Speaker 1: gaming an opportunity to go with him as director of
Speaker 1: operations and recruiting coordinator. So I went out there, but
Speaker 1: or transition to Chicago. Yeah, did you think you're gonna
Speaker 1: be in the college game for a while? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought so with the change in in the recruiting aspect,
Speaker 1: and and Jerry Angelo, you know, made a great point
Speaker 1: to me, Hey, what do you what do you want
Speaker 1: to do see yourself doing five years from now? You know,
Speaker 1: let's see you light up when you start talking about
Speaker 1: player evaluations as opposed to the operations aspect. So he
Speaker 1: was right on, spot on with it and then talk
Speaker 1: to me into making the transition, making the change to
Speaker 1: to the NFL, and seventeen seasons later, Man, it's been
Speaker 1: a great run. Go ahead. I was gonna say, for
Speaker 1: somebody that's been in the college game now the pro game,
Speaker 1: and you have so many different roles, and clearly you
Speaker 1: love football. Anyone that's sitting where you are as an
Speaker 1: it'sistant GM loves football. But what is it about the
Speaker 1: sport that you just makes you that originally made you
Speaker 1: want to be a part of it and still to
Speaker 1: this day you love about it. Yeah, it's the competition
Speaker 1: and the camaraderie and in the relationships that you build
Speaker 1: because it's everybody. You know, it's a very unique sport
Speaker 1: as we all know that. You know, there's a eleven
Speaker 1: guys in one common goal of winning. And you know
Speaker 1: it's so much different from the basketball from baseball that
Speaker 1: you can have some individual you know, accolades in terms
Speaker 1: of performance and one guy can carry five guys in basketball,
Speaker 1: but it's tough for one guy to carry eleven in football.
Speaker 1: But more than anything else, I think it's the common
Speaker 1: goal and the common drive that it's winning above everything
Speaker 1: when you get down to it, and if everybody's focused
Speaker 1: on that and has competitive drive in the passion for it,
Speaker 1: then everything's gonna you know, progress. Well for you organization,
Speaker 1: What do you think about this group that you're working
Speaker 1: with now? Uh, Joe up at the top, but then
Speaker 1: Jed Alexander, we talked to him yesterday. Um Phil Savage
Speaker 1: and the experience he brings to the team. John Carr,
Speaker 1: I mean, we can go to the pro side and
Speaker 1: talked about Greg Nama, but well, what can you what
Speaker 1: can you say about these guys behind the scenes? I mean,
Speaker 1: because Joe obviously at the forefront. Yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a great group. Man. We've you know, I knew everybody
Speaker 1: previously from being on the road, and you know, the
Speaker 1: scouting community is a small world when you get out
Speaker 1: on the road and you make school visits and you
Speaker 1: develop relationships and along the way, and you know, I
Speaker 1: got to know Joe, I guess you know, Chad, I
Speaker 1: got to know phil Um. Didn't really know Greg until
Speaker 1: my first run run with the Jets. But it's been great, man.
Speaker 1: You know, the three guys who we talked about first,
Speaker 1: they each one of them has over twenty years of
Speaker 1: experience in the NFL, and they were all in Baltimore
Speaker 1: and had won Super Bowls. And Joe's transitioned from you know,
Speaker 1: Baltimore with Chicago before he went to Philly and won
Speaker 1: another Super Bowl. So, you know, just just leaning on
Speaker 1: those guys and their perspective of how they did it,
Speaker 1: how they won super Bowls, and hopefully collectively as a group,
Speaker 1: we can bring all that together and mean good things
Speaker 1: for the Jets down the road. You know, real quick,
Speaker 1: before we let you go, you've been on the road
Speaker 1: a lot. Let's your go to snack uh almonds or
Speaker 1: cash us or protein bars, Okay, fair enough, that's all.
Speaker 1: That's all protein. That's the e A diet. You know that. Um,
Speaker 1: So you're excited for what's ahead over the next couple
Speaker 1: of months. Here is before you know it, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be back. You're gonna have your final free agency meetings.
Speaker 1: Then you can be hosting people, talking to people, negotiating
Speaker 1: and yeah, filling some holes. Because Joe said it clearly, Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: we got some holes to fill and we know that
Speaker 1: we're gonna attack them, but we're not going to be
Speaker 1: reckless with our decisions. And then I gotta imagine you
Speaker 1: and your position would echo the sentiments is maybe free
Speaker 1: agency is where you plug those holes. So you never
Speaker 1: want to go into a draft where you're reaching for
Speaker 1: a need, right, but one uf as, like you talked
Speaker 1: about in three r f A s, that's you know,
Speaker 1: twenty four spots that you're gonna have to take care of.
Speaker 1: The free agencies is gonna be tough. We've got we
Speaker 1: have a draft picks, so you know, not only that,
Speaker 1: we also have the you know, undrafted free agents after
Speaker 1: the draft as well, in terms of guys to add
Speaker 1: to to our roster and the competition to add so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's an awesome, awesome moment. When you
Speaker 1: sit down and think about it, you're like, man, we
Speaker 1: got a chance to turn this roster over and to
Speaker 1: add add new life, younger, younger players. Guys are going
Speaker 1: to contribute and make us better as a team. So
Speaker 1: it's really exciting. We talked about it as a group
Speaker 1: all the time of Hey, each day we've got to
Speaker 1: go out and look for jets. How nice of a
Speaker 1: feeling is it to come to Indianapolis and the quarterbacks
Speaker 1: always drive things with the Colts. You guys had Andrew
Speaker 1: Luck for a while, so you knew you were set there.
Speaker 1: Now you have a quarterback in San Donald as a
Speaker 1: Sunday player who's just twenty two years old. How nice
Speaker 1: is it to be in that position as you try
Speaker 1: to continue to build this team. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: comforting feeling, especially with twenty two and and and Sam
Speaker 1: and and how good he's been for us and how
Speaker 1: he's gonna continue to get better. So he's just scratching
Speaker 1: the surface in terms of what he can be as
Speaker 1: a player. Yeah, like you said, he's twenty two years old.
Speaker 1: I think there's guys who are quarterbacks in this year's
Speaker 1: draft too, are older Row six months older than right,
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's a very comforting fact to
Speaker 1: know that that we can add pieces around him and
Speaker 1: build around him. And we've got our franchise quarterback of
Speaker 1: the future so are currently presently so we're going to
Speaker 1: continue to build around him. So yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a great feeling to have and we'll just add pieces,
Speaker 1: all right. Rox Well, thanks for coming on the Official
Speaker 1: Jet Podcast powered by Amazon Web Services. We'll see him
Speaker 1: running down the hallway exactly. We'll see you do your
Speaker 1: fort r dash down the skywalk here in forever. Thanks
Speaker 1: appreciate guys. Thanks