James Gladstone

evaluate the group of young players you brought in?

Yeah, I think that's a really fair question to ask.

The idea of the rookie contributions, it's a fun one to talk through.

Obviously, as we think back to our priorities heading into the draft and really where we wanted to place our points of emphasis, it's certainly a clear sign when you

wrap up a season and have double digit rookies take either an offense or defensive snap throughout the course of a season that you can feel good about a sort of the experience heading into year two.

Beyond that, obviously,

injuries or something that take place over the course of a natural season right and for it to happen to a few of our rookies over the course of this first year is on a level disappointing would have loved to see more and obviously with Travis having gotten to a place mid-season where he felt like he was starting to peak and really make a real dent and

The plan for post-bye was to continue to enhance that.

Tough not to be able to see that come to life down the back stretch.

With Caleb, obviously the fact that he never got a chance to even step on the grass for a regular season game was not ideal.

Both of those guys are attacking their rehab process in the way that you would expect and really looking forward to what their future holds for us and really their place on the football team into 2026 and beyond.

Obviously with Wyatt having experienced an injury in preseason,

game three that impacted the first half of his season.

By the end of it, being able to see levels of his game take steps was really a positive sign.

Beyond that, obviously got some contributions from day three players, which is always a helpful piece to the puzzle.

In particular with Jalen McLeod, not unlike Caleb, not getting a chance to step on the grass was not ideal, but nonetheless getting experience and

and taking steps throughout his recovery process in a way that makes you feel optimistic about what the future holds for him.

And then beyond just the draft selections themselves, to get contributions from undrafted college free agents like we did in two defensive ends was certainly cause for optimism, especially knowing that that was not just through special teams, but also on the defensive side of the ball.

it's not easy to find people at that position in particular and undrafted college free agency.

So to walk away with two, uh, got to give a lot of credit to our coaching staff and our scouting staff who worked through the undrafted college free agent committee process, uh, to identify those players and, and be able to, uh,