that you slipped down the board
to the Ravens. As you saw the draft unfolding. I'm sure you
were a little disappointed that you need to go in the top 10,
but did it make you feel better that you did fall to the Ravens
in their defense?
Yeah, and that's kind of what I was just saying, like, looking
back on it. I mean may feel or seem like a big deal now,
but I mean, I think I felt until the perfect place perfect
situation and
honestly, it's a blessing and I'm just excited to be here.
Kyle Hamilton
slid to number 14, could be one of the best players in this
draft. If he lives up to his potential at the safety
position, the Ravens, know a thing or two about having
great safeties. Peter knows a thing or two about what
the Ravens did. Especially on Saturday round for
an all-important round for the Ravens. They strategized. They
specifically engineered. They knew there would be a lot of
talent there. They got maximum picks, their
sounds. Like it was an interesting couple hours for
you in the draft room.
Mike, a couple of things about this. When I was getting ready
to cover the draft this year, I said, and it's not a real sexy
draft, not great. Quarterbacks, not really a lot of big stars
per se
in this draft. But what there was
was, there were some real strategy by some teams to say,
we're going to trade back and we're going to try to maximize
our value like in the third and fourth rounds. And you say well
why is that in 2020?
The covid football season in college football.
There were fewer good players that came out in the 2021
draft. It was kind of a bare-bones draft, but this year
it wasn't great at the top. But there was a lot of make it
players in the middle of this draft for a lot of teams.
The Ravens got six picks and I arranged with them to sit in
their draft room to witness how they would use their six picks.
So the first Came off the board. Perfect for them
because they wanted coming into that day.
Daniel Follet. Leave the tackle from Minnesota,
Jalen armor. Davis, the corner from Alabama,
and Charlie Kohler,
a tight end from Iowa State, but this is where it really got
interesting. You say. Wow, look at that. They took a punter at
130.
Why did they do that?
And the reason that they did it
is that they had information
that both Abay and Cincinnati were interested in punters.
Right after them
Tampa Bay. In fact, took a George upon her. The Bangles
didn't take upon her, but they had heard that Jordan Stout was
going to be picked soon after them. So they picked him.
And naturally they would second-guess this when eight
pics later
that the Pittsburgh Steelers took, the receiver that the
the Ravens were going to take it one.
39
with pick 138, the Ravens took Calvin, Austin, the third when
that pick came through, the tinny little speaker
sitting on the Ravens, draft desk,
Pittsburgh Steelers, pick number 138 select Calvin,
Austin the third receiver Memphis. The first thing you
heard from one person in the crowd
at the Ravens was
you got to be effing, kidding me.
So what was, but what was really interesting, Mike
is, right? At that moment. I looked at Eric DeCosta, the GM
Ozzie, Newsome, who still in the draft, even though now, he's a
Executive Vice President, / consultant
and John Harbaugh. I looked at them
and there was no emotion. There was no throwing of pads. There
was no all bleepity bleep. There was nothing of that they
just said, okay, let's figure out what we're going to do.
And we're going to go with Isaiah likely the tight end
from Coastal Carolina asking Scouts. Okay, you guys okay
with this? Yeah, asking Greg, Roman. Do you have a spot for
likely? They had just taken another tight end. Yeah. I like
them. Let's do it. So they took
him
and I got a lot of reaction from this in my story
from people who say,
oh the Steelers Trump, the
Ravens, which they did. It's a cool story.
All the Ravens were unprepared.
And they should never have taken the punter.
They could have done
and so here's what I say.
Do you think that this doesn't happen in every draft room
every year?
That some team is getting prepared to take
John Doe and the team right before him says,
will take John Doe. It happens every year with almost every
team. And so this was the Ravens year.
They wanted the Calvin Austin speed to replace
Hollywood Brown and they don't have it.
You know what, though?
Figure it out, but it was a cool experience. And I think in
retrospect Mike, I'm really glad I did it because
it really kind of showed the inside football
of the painstaking approach to a middle round of the draft.
It really is fascinating in many respects and you're right
in every draft form at some point during that three-day
process. You're going to have a team, not get the guy they want
and it's going to happen. Sometimes
five pics before
sometimes one count before. That's just the way it goes.
And that's why
you go into it with enough names. So
you can live, you know, you scouted enough, guys.
You hopefully never get to the point where you're just saying,
I don't know who the hell to take next. You know that.
Always the issue. I don't mean to go too far off
the rails here, when the Bangles of 15 to 20 years ago,
were drafting guys with real off-field issues in like, round
3 4 & 5. That was because they didn't know who else to take,
because they didn't have a real scouting department. They just
told their assistant coaches.
After the season ended. Let's go figure out who we're going
to draft. They would get to the point where we don't know. It
was guys supposed to be a first-round Talent. Let's just
take him and they didn't know who else to take.
Take the good teams will
have more than enough names.
If a guy that's on their list
is gone. They'll pivot directly to someone else. Like
the Ravens did from Calvin, Austin to Isaiah Crowell, Isaiah
likely, and you can't afford to get bogged down. It's moving
too fast.
You can't be emotional.
You can't, you can't get upset
and you just have to accept. There will be guys.
There will be guys, you don't get
and you celebrate the ones you do get and you don't worry
about the ones you don't.
That's that's the one thing that I really learned from that
process. And Mike what was really interesting is that
I wake up Monday morning
and I have a text from
an NFL, general manager,
who texted me and he said,
I was, I was like, Frozen
when I read what you wrote about the Ravens because how
crazy is this?
I was waiting until the Ravens picked at 1:30
at 130 when they picked Jordan Stout. I was waiting
when that pic got announced.
I was going to hit send on a text
to Eric DeCosta
and he detailed that he was going to send this text because
he wanted the 139th pick from the Ravens. He
was going to take Jordan Stout
the punter from Penn State, and he said,
So he said I was so ticked off
when, when they took it and I
and I wrote him back and I said,
do you get
overtly ticked off? Do you, do you really get angry says? No,
you can't afford to, you can't show the people in your draft
room that
oh, woe is us. We missed out on this guy. So he said
that part of it that you wrote
that all of the Ravens guys were just in business as usual.
That's It's the draft. He goes,
I do that every year because we always lose somebody we wanted
and I never show my scouts
or anybody on our staff that were disappointed because then
everybody's going to think. Oh man, we got screwed. So I think
that was a good lesson to take from this whole process.