John Dorsey on First Round Pick Marcus Peters
JOHN DORSEY: “It’s been a long day. Now here we are at the end of the day, I don’t want to hold everybody up here. We feel we got a really quality player here. I think everybody knows with regards to his person. I think it’s an example of us going to do our extensive research in terms of what his person is all about. But as a player, there is no doubt in my mind that this is a very fine football player. With that, I’ll take your questions.”
Q: Do you see this as a risky pick?
DORSEY: “No. Once you meet the kid, once you see where he’s from. We go through a research process in terms of trying to find that out about players. If the truth be told, the kid came here. We met him at the combine. He sat with all the position coaches at the combine. I had the chance to have a side bar with him at the combine. We brought him here to the building for a day. And then, just this past week, Monday and Tuesday I believe it was, we sent Chris Ballard out to Oakland. He had a chance to sit down with the kid, his parents. We did very extensive research in regards to this person and we talked to his coaches, his former coaches. Listen, you know what the kid is: competitive. He’s a very competitive kid. He’s not a malicious kid whatsoever.”
Q: You don’t see this as being anymore of a risky pick as Eric Fisher or Dee Ford?
DORSEY: “I do not. Not after seeing the kid. You guys have known me long enough, if I didn’t think he would fit in the culture or the environment of this community or the organization, he wouldn’t be here.”
Q: How do you suppose he’s going to handle it once emotions start boiling?
DORSEY: “I think he will be fine. I really do. I think he will be fine. What we have is a unique locker room. In this year three, this locker room that we have here, we have some strength in this locker room, especially the defensive side of the ball. That’s what good teams do, they take those veteran leaders and they tell the young guys, ‘Ok guys, here is where the bar is set, come reach with us.’ Then you have a Hall of Famer, an All-Pro as your teachers. Then you have Bob Sutton and on top of that you have a leader like Andy Reid, who is no nonsense, very matter of fact. No problem at all.”
Q: What happened? What is your understanding of what led to him being dismissed from the team?
DORSEY: “Well, I think when you get a chance to meet him. You all have probably talked to him. You have to speak to him very directly. You have to treat him like a man. I think that’s how you do it. Tell him the truth. He might have been caught up in the culture of the old regime that recruited him into a new regime. Sometimes it doesn’t always mesh properly.”
Q: How would you describe him as a football player?
DORSEY: “I think that he has probably got the best ball skills of any defensive back in this draft. I think he is incredibly physical in run support. I think he’s got an incredible feel for the game of football. As one very famous defensive coordinator told me, he’s the best defensive back in the last four years. He just sent me that text.”
Q: Where do you suppose he would have been drafted if he hadn’t been dismissed?
DORSEY: “Top 10.”
Q: Who does he remind you of?
DORSEY: “Marcus Peters.”
Q: What do you think of his on-field temperament? He’s aggressive and competitive.
DORSEY: “He’s a family guy. When you watch him around his family it’s a very loving thing. He has a baby now and to watch him interact with his family, his siblings, his community, he’s very proud. He’s a proud person and I think once you get him here and you get a chance to meet him, you’re going to like him.”
Q: But on the field.
DORSEY: “He’s competitive.”
Q: How do you square that away to keep him from crossing the line? There was the incident with the head butt.
DORSEY: “There was never an incident with a head butt.”
Q: Supposedly he choked one of his coaches.
DORSEY: “That’s rumor. We’ve even talked to his former head coaches that never happened.”
Q: There was the head butt on the field. He was ejected from the game.
DORSEY: “Maybe it was on the field, I apologize. I mean, he’s competitive. They are out there playing the game. I’m not going to fault him for his competitive spirit.”
Q: The way he plays the game.
DORSEY: “He’s a defensive player.”
Q: He’s not the classic cornerback that you’ve brought in the past couple years, he’s just under six foot. Is it the way he plays the game that you liked?
DORSEY: “He does. He can be very physical in press. He can instinctively turn and mirror routes with receivers. On run support, nice strong run support, sheds the receiver’s blocks. He’s a square tackler. I just like the way he plays the game of football.”
Q: Do you agree with that assessment of whomever texted you, that he could be the best corner in the last four drafts?
DORSEY: “I believe he will come in and compete. We will be very happy to have him. We are going to be very happy to have him because he is going to add depth and competition to what we are looking for.”
Q: Do you see him making an immediate impact?
DORSEY: “I think you have to wait and see. I think he is very talented and I think he is very prideful and very competitive. I think you have to let that process unfold. I think he has all the physical traits to do that.”
Q: Best player available or best player available at that position?
DORSEY: “Best player available.”
Q: Did Sean Smiths suspension or it being the last year of his contract have anything to do with it?
DORSEY: “No, it just seemed to unfold that way. We had three guys right there and it just unfolded the way it wound up.”
Q: What were you looking to learn by sending Chris Ballard to Oakland? Was it a little late in the process to still have questions about a player?
DORSEY: “No actually, we had a lot of questions answered here. I think it’s important to understand a person’s surroundings, his environment, his family, what his makeup is, to meet his parents, I think that’s important and we got a chance to do that. I think it was well worth it.”
Q: Do you do that with a lot of players?
DORSEY: “You try to. It’s a part of the process, especially in today’s environment in football. You want to find out what makes this person drive, what makes them tick. At the end of the day when we walked away from this we had no reservations.”
Q: Was that trip Monday-Tuesday of this week?
DORSEY: “This week.”
Q: How many people do you think that you guys talked to about him?
DORSEY: “15-20. That’s not out of the norm. We do that with everyone. It all depends on who that person is, but we try to do great lengths on our research in finding out about a player.”
Q: That’s typical for what you did for say, Dee Ford last year?
DORSEY: “Yeah.”
Q: It was said that the current staff at Washington didn’t rave about him but the previous staff was a little bit more upbeat about him. Is that true and how do you weigh that in the decision making process?
DORSEY: “I think it depends on the relationships you have with different coaches around the country. It deals with relationships on staff. It’s just communication is what it is. Not only did we talk to the coaches, there were some players we talked to as well. Had a chance to talk to them and see what their thoughts were on that.”
Q: You mentioned that there are about 10-12 impact players in this draft, is Peters one of those players?
DORSEY: “Maybe.”
Q: Can we take that as a yes?
DORSEY: “You always do that. Yes.”
Q: Six wide receivers off the board now, what are your general thoughts about that?
DORSEY: “Actually we were just talking about that upstairs and I was looking at the list of receivers, I’m going ‘Hmm. There are some receivers still there.’”
Q: Are you going to tell us who?
DORSEY: “No, maybe tomorrow night.”
Q: Did you attempt to move up?
DORSEY: “Actually we had one call to move up and three calls about going down. I find it fascinating at 18 there were, as we were on the clock, there were a lot of teams calling. I know what they were calling to get up to.”
Q: Was it your guy?
DORSEY: “I don’t know.”
Q: You just said you did?
DORSEY: “I know.”
Q: Shane Ray was still sitting there at 18, did you consider him? Was he highly rated on your board?
DORSEY: “We had a really good rating on him. He wasn’t at that position, what we had him. To answer your question, I don’t think we would have taken him at 18, no.”