Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni

Howie Roseman: We picked LB Jihaad Campbell. We made a small trade up just to ensure that we could get him. There were a lot of trades in the twenties, and so we just wanted to make sure that someone didn’t jump ahead of us. Excited to have him. Really excited to have him. Wasn’t really something we anticipated. Understand some of the other teams may have reasons for taking other players, but for us, this is a really easy pick. He’s a really explosive player. He can play inside. He can be an edge rusher. I just really feel fortunate to bring him home back to Philly.

Q. There were reports that you were trying to trade up a little bit earlier with that for LB Jihaad Campbell. (John McMullen)

Howie Roseman: It was. Again, this was a top-10 player on our board. We do not have any long-term concerns with his health. We look at the draft as a long-term opportunity for our team. We have a lot of confidence this guy’s going to be here and play at a really high level for a long time. When you’re in a draft and you’re picking at the end of the first round, you don’t have an opportunity to get a top-10 player on your board. A guy who can affect the quarterback, a guy who can affect the passing game. For us, it was a no brainer. Local kid, great character. So we were really excited to add him.

Q. I heard Executive Vice President/General Manager Howie Roseman say that he has the pass rush ability as well. How do you view him and how he can be used in the defense? (Dave Zangaro)

Nick Sirianni: Yeah, we think he’s a versatile player who can do a lot of different things. So obviously, the main thing that you see is the energy that he plays with, the speed that he plays with, and relentless effort that he plays with, and that fits on defense.

Q. Is he far enough in his rehab that he could be ready, do you think? For training camp or opening day? (Ed Kracz)

Howie Roseman: We’ll get all into that when we bring him in here. Obviously, our guys had an opportunity to see him at the combine and the re-checks, and we’re very excited about what he’s going to bring to the team from our perspective. All that stuff will be sorted out. But again, we’re looking at this, this wasn’t a need-pick. This was, for us, a player we had tremendous passion about, and somebody that when we started the process and continued through the process was very high on our boards. We’ve got to look at the draft that way. Obviously, there were other players we liked at the spot we were picking, but this stood out to us and very excited to get him and we didn’t want to lose him.

Q. Howie, how would you describe what you’re like when you see a player falling and you’re trying to trade for him? How would you describe your mannerisms, your mood? (Bob Brookover)

Howie Roseman: I don’t know.

Q. Maybe asking you is better, Nick. (Bob Brookover)

Howie Roseman: I mean, persistent determined. Would that be fair?

Q. Did you think that he was falling or that this is where you felt— (Jeff McLane)

Howie Roseman: I think we get enough information before the draft that we started to feel like it was a possibility in the last few days. And so, we had gone through scenarios where he was going to fall. We knew that there was probably a sweet spot that we could try to get up at, and we had done a lot of planning about that, so we understood some of the questions that were going on on him. We spent a lot of time with our doctors and our medical staff ensuring that we were all seeing it the same way. Again, we have a lot of confidence in our edge rushers on this team and our inside linebackers on this team, but for us, this we thought was one of the best players in the draft.

Q. Is he going to start off with Defensive Ends/Outside Linebackers Coach Jeremiah Washburn or with Inside Linebackers Coach Bobby King? (Zach Berman)

Howie Roseman: I think we will go through that here, but this is a guy who was recruited from IMG at Alabama as an edge rusher. Hand in the dirt edge rusher. They had some injuries at Alabama. They played him off the ball. You see his explosiveness and his speed, and really, it’s kind of interesting, and we talked about this a lot. You see Penn State give them a lot of credit for what they’ve done. They’ve had guys off the ball move to edge rushers. Obviously, their last two guys who’ve been drafted really high, they started off the ball and they moved to edge rushers.

[Defensive Coordinator] Vic [Fangio] does a tremendous job with getting guys who have pass rush ability to be versatile players like that. I think what’s really fun is that those guys who have that versatility who can go out on the edge and get pressure as a rusher and he’s got speed, he’s got power as an edge rusher, he was trained as an edge rusher. And then, he’s got the versatility to play off the ball and blitz from depth and play in space, in pass coverage, as an off-ball linebacker.

And so, it’s the things that you can do and keep all these players on the field. So for us, we always want to improve the front seven and we view him as a front seven player who’s got incredible versatility and a skillset to do both those things. And the appeal is that he’s got this rush skillset. And he’s 21 years old. He turned 21 on February 24th, so he’s got upside to grow and get bigger and his frame is such that he can put on more weight and more strength. And so as you can tell, excited about the player.

Q. What were the conversations like with Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio in the pre-draft process about how he might fit in the defense and how that versatility might be able to be an asset for the defense? (EJ Smith)

Howie Roseman: Tremendous respect for Coach Fangio and the accomplishments he has and what he sees in defensive players. I think for us, we’re having those conversations with every member of our coaching staff and certainly our coordinators. Obviously, Vic with the success that he’s had, those conversations go deep. And so, understanding that he’s got a vision for the player, but we’ve seen what he can do with guys with this kind of skillset.

You just look around the league, the teams that we have to get through to get where we want to go, they have fast explosive quarterbacks, players in their backfield that we’ve got to bring down at all levels of our defense, and we need a tremendous amount of front seven players to contain those guys. It’s always been a priority for us. This doesn’t deviate what we believe. We believe in affecting the passing game on offense and defense, and this guy can affect the passing game on defense.

Q. There’s been guys here before, local guys from this area, who’ve struggled with being a pro near home. Just the demands on them, having their friends in the same town and stuff, and taking requests and all that. Is that something that is– do you look into that at all? Is that something you kind of consider with a local kid? (Reuben Frank)

Howie Roseman: Yeah, I rely on [Senior Advisor to the GM/ Chief Security Officer/ Gameday Coaching Operations] Dom [DiSandro]. I rely on Dom to get to know these kids and he knows all these kids and the background that they come from. I think that– I don’t know necessarily who you’re talking about, I could probably think of one that wasn’t as high a pick, but I don’t have any doubt about this player’s character, this player’s work ethic, or this player’s desire to win.

Q. You mentioned Defensive Coordinator Vic Fangio, how much has he expanded your view of what an off-ball linebacker could do in terms of value for a defense? (Brooks Kubena)

Howie Roseman: I don’t want to put this player in that box. That’s what I’m saying. This guy can grow into anything you want. And what I’m saying is Vic has done a tremendous job with kind of educating me on the way that he looks at things and the way I look at things, and we have a lot of these conversations about it, and obviously, those are great conversations for me. I’m continuing to learn every day.

That’s the beautiful part about the job that we have. But at the end of the day, you see it and what’s going on in the league. And [LB] Zack Baun’s a great example. I mean these guys, they can rush from the edge, they can play in space, they can affect the quarterback from depth, from the edge, and that’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for guys like that. And the league has changed. I think the league is a speed game, and when you have guys with those kind of explosive qualities, you want to get as many as you can.

Q. Does LB Nakobe Dean’s injury timeline affect his projection at whatever position? (Brooks Kubena)

Howie Roseman: No, we have a lot of confidence in Nakobe Dean, and this has nothing to do with Nakobe. This had to do with the fact that we had a top-10 talent on our board who we love the player and we love the versatility. And for us, that was it. That was really it. It wasn’t about– we start drafting for need or we start turning down top-10 players when we’re picking in the thirties, it’s not going to be good for our football team.

Q. You thought that he may drop a little bit just based upon the injury concerns and you trust your doctors. What is it from your team’s evaluations of him medically that you think that he’s going to be—(Jeff McLane)

Howie Roseman: When we do our medical meetings, we share medical grades with other teams. Obviously, they all go to the combine. So I don’t want it to be like we’re the only team that was confident with him medically. I’m not going to go into the medical stuff. I don’t do that with any of our players. I would say for us, we look at this as long-term investment and we think this guy’s going to be playing a long time for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Q. In a press conference last week, you spoke about how player comps come up in those meetings. What player comps came up with LB Jihaad Campbell? (Zach Berman)

Howie Roseman: It’s funny because we were watching on the NFL Network and the first few guys are Hall of Famer comps. So we’re looking at that and we’re going, ‘Whoa, those are big shoes to fill.’ So I think for us, those are conversations we have with our staff and that puts coach in a bad spot.

Q. Are you sensing any reluctance from other general managers around the league to do deals with you given your recent run of success and the draft and with trades? (Tim McManus)

Howie Roseman: I wasn’t feeling that way. Again, we’re all in the business of making our teams better. I think that when we find opportunities to make our team better, we’ll do the trade. When other teams find the opportunity to make their team better, they do the trade. I think we just traded with the team we played in the Super Bowl. We moved up one pick and gave them some value. So I think all the conversations we’re having– I think what happened in this draft was the trades started to pick up and the value of the trades started to pick up. So, that always makes it different. Once one trade goes down, the market kind of changes, so you got to adjust with that. But feel fortunate that we got him.