Commanders

During an appearance on the 89 podcast with Steve Smith and James Palmer, LB Von Miller spoke about choosing the Commanders over the Super Bowl-winning Seahawks.

“Obviously, I picked the wrong team on that one. For me, with the Washington Commanders, I just felt like Jayden Daniels was poised for another great season,” Miller said, via Jacob Camenker of USA Today. “His rookie season went all the way to the NFC Championship, and last year, he got hit with injuries, not just at the quarterback position, but all over the place. And those are some of the things that you just can’t calculate on teams.”

Cowboys

Cowboys HC Brian Schottenheimer commented on the team trading during the draft to select S Caleb Downs, who was at the top of their draft board.

“We were nervous,” Schottenheimer said on the Twins Take Podcast. “We had four guys targeted that we really felt really strongly about that would fit great in our culture and our football team, and Caleb was at the top of that list. We actually had a deal in place, we had a trade in place with Kansas City that we were hoping to be able to make a move for. Well, they moved up early in the draft [from No. 9 to No. 6] for Mansoor Delane and so we were kind of like, OK, we’ve lost that opportunity. But the the draft is the unknown. And so as Caleb started to fall, he was sitting their at No. 9, No. 10. The Giants were on the clock at 10. We thought they would take him because we knew Coach Harbaugh had talked about how much he saw him as a generational safety. And when they didn’t take him, he fell to 11, the phone rang, we were talking back and forth with Miami. We could have sat and waited, but we were concerned someone might move ahead of us at 12. We knew everyone was interested in Caleb.”

Eagles

Eagles DL coach Clint Hurtt recalled advocating for the team to draft rookie DL Uar Bernard despite him not having played football before.

“I understand he hasn’t played,” Hurtt said, via The Athletic. “But this guy’s got more talent in his body physically than some of the guys that got drafted in the first two days.”

Hurtt talked about Bernard’s workout and said he was impressed by how prepared he was.

“He was ready to go at 7:45 — full lather, full sweat, the whole deal, and that, to me, means a lot,” Hurtt said. “And then when I started the workout with him, it was like anything he had made a mistake on, he immediately jumped back up and wanted to do it again, and a lot of guys are not like that. So, for me, it was, what are the intangibles? How eager was he to learn? What was the work ethic like? Because you got to have that in order to be able to fulfill the physical talent, and I felt good about that.”

Hurtt reiterated that Bernard’s work ethic was what caused him to look past the refinement, which he believes he can coach out of him.

“Sometimes not every kid you get when you’re coaching college kids has played football since they were six and seven. Sometimes you get kids who didn’t start playing until 11th or 12th grade,” Hurtt said. “Obviously that’s still more football knowledge than (Bernard) currently has coming into it, but at least I can kind of lean back on that. So, you’re teaching kids how to get into a stance — not only the rules and the do’s and don’ts of football, but obviously schematics and why you do what you do, and all those kinds of things, getting a stance, alignments, adjustments, and things of that nature.”

The Eagles have a great track record of developing unrefined talent, with LT Jordan Mailata serving as a prime example. Mailata said he doesn’t want to compare Bernard’s situation to his.

“Every case is different. I think we should not draw comparisons (between) my story and Uar’s story,” Mailata said. “I think two different positions, two different people. I think my story has influenced people’s opinion of whether it will work out or not. I think it will work out, but only time will tell. It’s how much time he pours in, and I’m going to make sure that he pours in every little bit, every last drop into that bucket, and so we can get another great story out of Uar and he can represent his country, his family, his people on one of the biggest stages in the world.”