Executive Vice President, Football Operations and General Manager, Andrew Berry (2.3.26)
Andrew, what’s been made of the process? And can you expand a little bit more on it maybe? And the uniqueness of it compared the way other organizations do it?
“Yeah, so I can’t speak to the way that other organizations do it, Chris (Easterling). I guess when we look at the head coaching position, like it’s a lot like if you were in the business world, you’re hiring a CEO or COO, right? This is a position that, you know, across the league you may spend, call it 50 to 100 million on the hire, plus another 75 million on their staff, plus the impact that they have on the organization. And there has to be a level of thoughtfulness when you’re going through that hiring process. So, the way that we looked at it is like, okay, generally speaking, you have a four-week period to make, really a monumental hire for the organization. Somebody that can alter your path, alter your strategic direction in a very positive way or if you make the wrong hire, a very negative way. And so, the way we went through the process is – one, we wanted to define, okay, what are we asking this individual to do in this phase of our team’s life cycle? Two, what are the characteristics and attributes that we’re seeking that would allow them to be successful? And then three, how are we actually going to measure that? And the way we looked at it was, number one, it’s performance, right? It’s a performance-based business. We want someone with a good track record. We want to know what it was like working with these individuals from the people who have been with them over a long period of time. And then we also wanted to test their critical thinking skills in role-specific areas. And that’s what the interview process was, that’s what the assessments were and the work sample. So it was simple like that. That guided our interviews. I know a lot of teams, they may do it the flipped way where they’ll interview to like funnel. We did a lot of research on the front end to guide who we would actually even submit a slip for and then use additional parts of the process, the interview process, to ultimately arrive at a result.”
Andrew, is Todd (Monken) someone that shocked you or is someone that is always for you going to be ready?
“No. The way we went through is like for us to get to the point where we felt comfortable submitting a notification form – they’re called notification forms. You submit to the team, you submit it to the league. We had done a lot of research on the front end to make sure that they matched what we needed and what we were looking for in the head coaching position. So, it wasn’t just like, okay, let’s just submit for, you know, a number of different coaches and kind of go scattershot. We had done the homework on probably starting 50 coaches. Then we funneled it to 23 and then ultimately the eight external candidates that we submitted for before we even got to that point.”
Andrew, I got two Jim (Schwartz) questions. One, is there still a chance that he can come back as defensive coordinator?
“Yeah, Scott (Petrak), I’d say again, I repeat what Todd said, where we have a ton of respect for Jim and everything like that, there will be a time for that. But this is not the setting.”
It’s a fact, Andrew, that as you’ve acknowledged, the offense needs the most work. How did that affect your coaching search?
“I’d say this, Jeff (Schudel), it affected from the standpoint that for every candidate, you want to hear their vision or their plan for the offense. But like, that doesn’t mean that you’re searching for a coach with an offensive background. There are plenty of defensive coaches or kicking game coaches that are very thoughtful in all three phases of the ball and very knowledgeable. You know, you can look at the Super Bowl, two of the most high-powered offenses in the sport. You know those teams, they’re led by defensive coaches – in Mike Vrabel and Mike Macdonald. And so I know when people hear offense, they say okay, well, they’re just going for like an offensive coordinator. That wasn’t necessarily the case. We met with a number of outstanding defensive coaches throughout this process. But we felt Todd was the best fit for us.”
You said the next coach would have a large say so, a big say so in the quarterback situation. Is that more input than the last head coach had?
“Yeah, Tony (Grossi), I’d say that we’ve always, I don’t know an organization that wouldn’t have their head coach have input into the quarterback situation. So, I wouldn’t say that there’s anything fundamentally different from that perspective.”
And how optimistic are you that once Todd has an opportunity to dig into what he has in the quarterback room that you have right now, that he will find what he’s looking for right there in your quarterback room, or do you think there’s a chance that he might want to look in the draft or free agency or trade market?
“You know, Mary Kay (Cabot), I think for us, I think I’ve mentioned it to at least all of you here, that we go into each offseason as if we have an expansion team. Particularly a quarterback, where it’s the most important position in sports. We’ll always do research in terms of like what opportunities are available on the veteran market and in the draft market. We’ve got to hire a staff first. After that, we’ll certainly pick up the internal assessments with our own roster. But quarterback no different than a number of other positions. You know, we’ll spend a lot of time assessing what options are out there.”
Andrew, you mentioned almost like in passing that you thought you probably had maybe the youngest roster in the league. Where does that come from? Is that the plan?
“That’s just what we’re projecting based on the amount of draft resources we have and then probably just anticipated activity and free agency – that combined with having a very young defense, we would anticipate that we’d be a very young team. We’re not necessarily going to be in the phase where we’re going to sign, you know, a bunch of mid-30s veterans to like put us over the top, so to speak. That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to participate in free agency or participate with veteran players. But the reality of having, you know, 10 selections, eight that are in the top 150 and already a very young defense and with pretty heavy investment on offense, in most worlds, we’re probably going to be one of the younger teams in the league.”
So a few weeks ago when I asked you about the defensive system and you said you don’t believe your scheme specific, but obviously you like the way you guys play. And Todd talked about, you know, anticipating that scheme stays the same regardless of what happens with Jim (Schwartz). Just how important was that and I guess are you guys satisfied with that outcome with that side of the ball?
“Well, we’re certainly satisfied with the outcome, and part of the reason because we hired Todd. But the second part I’d say is like in terms of the flexibility with the defensive system, we did talk to a number of coaches that we thought very highly of that would have had some alterations with it. That was not necessarily a non-starter for us. We were looking for the person who best fit the characteristics we were looking for in this phase of the team. But yeah, we think they played the style particularly well.”
Andrew, two questions about 2019. Todd had mentioned you being a point of contact for him. What kind of relationship did that lead to? And then the second question is, I know you went to Philly, but in the interview process, what did he convey to you about his familiarity with the franchise and what he learned that year?
“That’s a great question, Nate (Ulrich). Because the interesting part is when we were supporting Freddie (Kitchens) with building out his initial staff, he’s right. I was the point of contact. So we talked about, you know, things during the interview process, supported him to get him up and running. And then I think maybe like a week later, I had gone to Philadelphia. The flip side is, when I was in the interview process for the general manager’s position here, I called him and I was like, okay, like, essentially, hey, what happened in 2019? You know, obviously, you can infer from the outside, but there are a lot of good people; there are a lot of good players there. I’m surprised the season went as it did. And he was very honest and forthright, and so we always, like, kept in contact. I can’t say that we were incredibly close throughout that time, but it was always a bunch of it was really always a lot of mutual credit. You know, texted him after they won the national championship in Georgia. We always talked and texted, like, throughout the season when he was with the Ravens. Just always had a lot of respect for him. So I’m super pumped to have the chance to be able to work with him.”
It was reported that one of the testing questions or assessment questions was, what is your plan? Or how would you develop Shedeur Sanders? I guess just why was it important to include that question? Is that maybe indicative of the organization’s hopes for him going forward?
“So when we talk about player development, one of the things that we wanted to get a feel for with all the candidates was less about the specific player, but more about the player archetype, so to speak. So Shedeur, right, is naturally, that’s like an example of, like, a young quarterback and see what thoughts candidates had on that. We also had another young player on defense, and we also had a position coach as part of that because we wanted to see how the head coaching candidates thought about those things globally, given everything that’s asked for them in that seat.”
Offensively, obviously there’s a lot of work that you have to do. You’ve talked about, hey, you can’t fill every hole in one offseason. Jimmy just mentioned, hey, he does expect the team’s going to be more fun to watch this year, win at least more games than you did last year. So what’s that balance and timetable look like from your perspective as you go to work this offseason trying to put that offense together with Todd?
“Daryl, I think honestly, you just try and make the best decisions as they become presented to you. I think it’s as simple as that. I think we believe in being very process-oriented and feeling if we have good process, it’ll lead to good results. Todd’s obviously very flexible in terms of what has been built for him and how successful he’s been. But a big part of it does come maybe a little bit back to Mary Kay’s (Cabot) question, I know she was talking about it more with quarterbacks, but just player availability in the marketplace. Like what types of players, what styles of players and at what positions are they available? I guess, like maybe by way of example, if we were sitting here last year and you would have said, hey, look, you’re going to take a running back and an off the ball linebacker in the early second round. (I would have) said, okay, that’s probably unlikely based on the player markets, that type of thing. But that’s what we did because like, we felt like Carson (Schwesinger) and Quinshon (Judkins) made the most sense in that moment and they could be long term fixtures on the roster. For even my own sake, I’d like to have a little bit more clarity there. But the reality of it is we have a lot of work to do.”
Andrew, could you clarify when you interviewed offensive minded coaches, how much of the conversation was there about Schwartz as a defensive coordinator? They’re reporting you demanded it, you suggested it – couldn’t have been avoided, right?
“Yeah, I think honestly that naturally comes up with staffing decisions, Tony. You always ask, okay, hey, look, what’s your plan on each side of the ball for staff? What are the roles and responsibilities that you see as you round out your staff and then, you know, do you have familiarity or what do you think with your existing assistants? I’d say that’s pretty standard across coaching interviews, Tony. And that was pretty standard with us.”
Andrew in terms of Todd, from when you first met him in 2019 to now and seeing him at Georgia and Baltimore (Ravens), where have you seen him make the most evolution or growth?
“I’ll be honest, I actually think the most impressive part of, and maybe it’s a little bit unfair to say growth but he was one of the early air raid coordinators in college right – shotgun, one back, spread it out, up tempo. He goes to Tampa Bay (Buccaneers). They’re probably like the early adopters of like the hard play action – hit the drifts over the middle of the field, get the ball out, have explosives with easy passes for the quarterback. And then you know, Georgia, they’re a little bit of a marriage of a bunch of different things. I actually thought the coolest evolution was the contrast in his first two years in Baltimore. So he gets hired in Baltimore. You know, they were largely a power QB run based offense under Greg Roman. They were looking to see Lamar (Jackson) take another step as a passer. He wins his second MVP where they’re very much a pass-oriented offense and he has one of the greatest passing seasons in NFL history. They go out and sign Derrick Henry the next year. I shouldn’t say they completely changed their approach but philosophically they were much different. They were power run, downhill and they have another phenomenal offensive season and like to see that level of change just in a single year adapting to like the strengths of the personnel, it’s very impressive.”
Todd’s got a lot of personality. He’s not afraid of showing it in front of the camera. Jimmy (Haslam) said he likes that Todd feels like a guy up there. What sort of asset do you think that can be for a coach?
“Yeah, I actually think people and players in particularly, appreciate coaches that are authentic. Like everybody comes in different packaging. Everybody in this room comes in different packaging and all we want people to do is be themselves. Because if Todd can be himself, he’s incredibly knowledgeable, he’s incredibly credible, he’s incredibly funny. I just think people will respect that.”
Andrew, what did you make of Myles Garrett’s reaction the day of both the hire and Jim supposedly leaving the building mad. What do you think Myles’ response to all this is going to be? I don’t know if you know or not.
“Yeah, I didn’t see it to be honest, Mary Kay. We kept Myles abreast the process throughout. So you know, he obviously he knew the news before you all did. So Myles is a great team player and I’m not really worried about that.”
Andrew this was your first time as GM going through a coaching search. Did it go kind of as you anticipated? If there were challenges along the way or disagreements on the way, how did you kind of work through those things? Just what was kind of your overall takeaways from it? What did you learn and how did you kind of combat things?
“Yeah, I’d actually say it’s pretty similar to the ones that I not led but been a part of previously at previous stops – you learn and meet a lot of people. One thing I just want to say, the NFL coaching community is in really, really good shape. I know people talk about like, oh, there aren’t big name camps. There are a lot of really, really talented, really, really good coaches in this league, if people take the time to look. And we learned a lot, throughout the past several weeks, we met with a lot of incredible people and we were very happy with the process and how it turned out.”
Andrew, that being said, can you just talk about the collaboration process? Obviously there’s some rumors that you wanted (Nate) Scheelhaase and Jimmy wanted Monken. Can you just shed some light on just the back and forth with you and Jimmy during this entire process?
“I would say, very respectfully, I think there is an underlying and stereotypical assumption for why people would say that. And I think that’s completely unfair.”
Andrew this is kind of adjacent to Daryl’s question. I know you don’t have a timeline for it, but how important is it for you guys to establish an identity, to create that identity early, both on offense and special teams? I know you want to keep the defense the same, but how important is it for you guys to create that and get a feel for what you have with Monken and what this team ends up being come the start of the season?
“Well, I think it’s certainly important to have the identity before September 1st, that type of thing. But I think the time leading up to it and as we go through the different personnel avenues and the personnel cycles and things like that, we have time and we’ll do it slowly and deliberately and thoughtfully.”
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