NFL Notes: Draft, Bears, Jets, Rams, & Redskins

Draft

• LSU DE Danielle Hunter will enter the 2015 NFL Draft.

Bears

New Bears GM Ryan Pace told reporters on Friday that he wants to get to know QB Jay Cutler before drawing any conclusions about him.

“I have previous things with Drew Brees that I had in my mind that I know why he was successful and those are ingrained in me,” Pace said, via NFL.com “but I want to get to know Jay (Cutler), I want to get to know him further before I come to these conclusions.“

• Pace also said that he wants to focus on building the Bears’ defense and running game to help with their ball-control.
• Pace will have final say over the team’s 53-man roster and will assist Ernie Accorsi in the process of finding a new head coach.
• Pace said that while appreciates analytics, his background in evaluation and building through the draft: “I don’t want you guys thinking I’m some ‘Moneyball’ GM. That’s not me.“

Jets

• Manish Mehta of New York Daily News suggests the Jets could use an “innovative and creative offensive mind” to help them groom and develop a young quarterback.
• Mehta believes the perfect playcaller for Jets would be Kyle Shanahan.

Rams

The city of St. Louis unveiled their plan to build a new stadium of its own on Friday, which could be a new home for the Rams or possibly to attract a new team if they leave for Los Angeles.

The city acknowledged that the Edward Jones Dome is obsolete by current NFL stadium standards.

The proposed stadium would have 64,000 seats for football games and 34,000 for soccer games, per Jim Thomas.

It would be built and opened by 2020, but would cost roughly $900 million with close to half of this figure coming from public financing and the remainder made up by the NFL and Rams owner Stan Kroenke.

The problem though could be that it’s too late to change the team’s plans to relocate to the Los Angeles market.

Maggie Crane, a spokesperson for St. Louis mayor Francis Slay, mentioned that Kroenke hasn’t responded to them or even returned their calls recently, which seems like an indication that he’s not interest in negotiating a stadium deal at this point in time.

Redskins

New Redskins GM Scot McCloughan stressed the importance of the draft in his introductory press conference on Friday.

“I honestly think (the) draft is the lifeline of an organization,” McCloughan said. “… The thing I liked about what we did in (San Francisco), what we did in Seattle: we drafted our own, molded our own and re-signed the ones we wanted to re-sign.“

McCloughan added that free agency moves will be considered, but he considers the draft-and-develop strategy to be the “best-case scenario” for building a roster.

“… I think the best-case scenario is you draft and mold your own and re-sign your own. But free agency is still there to be used, make a roster strong — can’t lose sight of that,” McCloughan said.