Ryan Poles won't stray from 'best player available' approach in NFL Draft
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What is Ryan Poles' philosophy on the NFL Draft?
This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score.
We're listening to Ryan Poles' press conference from the Combine. It is brought to you by your local Hyundai dealers. Let's resume.
Yeah, philosophically, I feel the same. It's going to be the best player available. I know that may not be the most popular thing because people see kind of like on my board have yellow tags where we need to fill in. But at the same time, I do believe, especially in early rounds like one, you really got to stick to the best player available. We saw that last year. I know there's a lot of questions like, yeah, Cole, why would you take Colston? I think we found out that it helped us along the way. So we'll continue to lean in that philosophy.
How tricky is it to navigate the linebacker position with some of the injuries?
Yeah, it's really difficult. We spent a lot of time working through that process.
How does Ryan Poles evaluate players during the draft process?
There's some unknowns there. There's some projections, just in terms of return time. And then you want to know, is that athlete going to return to be the same player he was before? Could they go downhill? So there's a lot of projections, and that makes it a little bit difficult. But I think that's when you lean into versatility, flexibility, and making sure that you get the right person in the room to make sure that that group can be filled out the best they can.
Yeah, I think the big one, and it's not just in Kansas City, you can look across the league.
And it sounds really simple, but you want to take a good football player that meets the criteria that you're looking for in terms of culture fits. play style, intelligence, all of those things. You really want to lean into that. I think sometimes you can get caught in flashy. You're trying to, you know, that guy should have went in the top 15 and he slid because of this reason, but we'll fix that. I think you want a good football player that matches the DNA that you're looking for.
I didn't mean to say that on the air, but let's pause it.
my mic was off so no if you want to stop it let's just say stop it and they'll stop it right guys everybody's on board we're good stop it makes it sound like it's condescending like the old dick a segment on espn where he'd say stop it okay pause how about that is that work yeah which is something it's like stacy king with the telestrator let's go ahead and pause that right there you're just going to pause that right there there you go that is that is where i got that from because stacy does it all the time so can i get my signature on that poster now okay good
What challenges does Ryan Poles face with the linebacker position?
Okay, so that's big to me that Brian Polsetti wants to still go with best player available at 25, and he knows that's not what everybody loves. I understand why he wanted to use Colston Loveland as the comp here, although I actually think the Bears needed another tight end who is more known to be a pass catcher in his arsenal than what Cole Komet was known for. So I think that those are two different roles that we're seeing with Colston Loveland and Cole Komet. If a best player available is another receiver at 25, I'm not real sure how that would work.
I completely agree with Ryan Poles, especially in early rounds about taking best player available. Better example than Colston Loveland would actually be, I was going to say Colston Montgomery, but that joke's passed. It would actually be Luther Burden III, because I think the Luther Burden III was more of a head-scratcher, eyebrow-raising pick in the draft last year than Colston Loveland. Everyone could see them taking a tight end because of Ben Johnson's offense and how things work. It's like, oh, is it going to be Colston Loveland? Is it going to be Tyler Warren? But when that Luther Burton III came in, wait a minute, they already have... And you just go down the list of DJ Moore and Rome and all the other guys.
I think the biggest thing here is to understand... that there's so many good players at so many different positions that at 25, someone's probably going to fall to them. And it's probably going to be better than what they thought they were going to get at 25.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Ryan Poles' philosophy on the NFL Draft?
0:00–1:04
2
How does Ryan Poles evaluate players during the draft process?
1:04–2:46
3
What challenges does Ryan Poles face with the linebacker position?
2:46–4:15
4
How does Ryan Poles handle injuries in the team?
4:15–5:13
5
What are the implications of the best player available strategy at pick 25?
5:13–6:26
6
How does Ryan Poles assess the current roster and its needs?
6:26–7:40
7
What financial strategies are being considered for player contracts?
7:40–8:28
8
How does Ryan Poles plan to navigate the upcoming draft and combine?
8:28–13:35
Speakers
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