Coughlin's Comments

Here's the transcript of Tom Coughlin's press conference on the No. 1 pick.

With our 15th pick we took Jason Pierre-Paul. We had an opportunity to investigate him quite thoroughly. We traveled down to South Florida for his pro day. We brought him in just prior to the draft and spent extra time with him with regard to that. Much has been said about his one-year stay at South Florida. But that is fine. That speculation is fine. He is a very, very talented young guy who is very healthy, who tests out in all categories very well; long arms, rushes the passer very well. He has played down inside on the guard. He gives you a nice mixture in combination of people utilized in pass rush combinations. I think he can play the run. He has played on both sides – left and right defensive end. He has done that. He is very well thought of by the coaching staff. His position coach was retained and we did have a chance to spend quite a considerable amount of time with him. He had a lot of very nice things to say this young guy. He comes from a very humble background. Interesting introduction to the sport - his high school coach got him to play in a playoff game when he was a junior in high school. He hadn’t played football – he was a basketball player. That started his career and of course his senior year in high school he became a football player. The rest is well documented. But this is a very, very talented young man with outstanding upside. It gives us tremendous flexibility in terms of the number of people that we have in our pass rush rotation. We expect that he will come in here and learn well. It will be an opportunity for him to spend a lot of time on the football – the playbook aspect of the game – probably something that he hasn’t had the opportunity to do in his short number of years that he has played the game. So it will be a very important part for him when he reports out here to our rookie camp first and then in mid-May.

Q: What did his college coach say?

A: That he is a very eager young man; eager to learn, obviously doesn’t have a great wealth of background in this sport but when you watch him play right away he certainly knows enough to adjust and maneuver on the field because he does. His pass rush arsenal includes inside moves and outside moves, a spin move. So he was very thorough in his description of this young guy and what he said is backed up by the tape.

Q: Did you get the impression that he can pick things up quickly?

A: I did. And according to all of the tests, that part of it is not an issue. The first thing that happens, as I have said many times before, is that the play book terminology is Chinese. It is something that they have to learn to understand what the terminology is. And that is the biggest problem for a young guy learning a new system. He has learned a new system each and ever year. But I think that he won’t have a problem with the learning part of it; some of which you will have some obvious inexperience, you will have some things that he is asked to do that he has never done before. But as I said, he has played down inside, he has played both left and right defensive end.

Q: At number 15, it is a relatively high pick; a little more of a risk/reward kind of pick?

A: Yeah, but I think one of the things that we all did was, as you looked at the grades that were given to this guy, he was substantially graded. All of his tests came through and verified exactly where he was taken in terms of not only his ability but his off the field – his medical and all of those kinds of things. And we felt that as the round unfolded that here was clearly a guy who had outstanding grades, who was the highest graded guy on board when we took him. And I think you could find something about a lot of people. Some of the players that went before him seemed to have some aspect of their game which is questionable. So I don’t think there is any greater risk here than another guy – a young guy who is very, very talented, who has tremendous upside, who we are looking forward to working with.

Q: When he played against Rutgers this year his name wasn’t called a lot in that game. Did you guys watch the film of that game?

A: Yeah, we saw it, sure. Although it wasn’t called a lot, am I wrong in saying there were two sacks in the game? Florida State, he had two sacks. So he may not have had his name called --- maybe they didn’t know how to say his name. It is that P-P thing, you know what I mean?

Q: You have a lot of defensive ends now.

A: That is a good thing.

Q: Exactly. Some of them though have said things about wanting to start and not being really happy. With so many of them, do you have a delicate balancing act now?

A: Go play; let’s play the game. Let’s get on the field. Everybody has a chance to play. Everybody is going to contribute. It is a long season. We didn’t rush the passer very well last year, so let’s get back to playing football and rushing the passer and stopping the run and doing those kinds of things. And let’s go back to what we did a couple of years ago. And we didn’t do a whole lot of talking; we played. And I think that is something that we can do. We have had an outstanding offseason. With all of these defensive ends that are here, they are working hard. And we certainly would like to think that we have added to that group of young men who are good people and good football players. We have had success when we had depth and let’s work at that aspect of it again.

Q: When you have a new coordinator like Perry Fewell, do you go to him and say, “Okay, when we get this guy, how are we going to use him? Do you see if it is on his agenda?

A: His agenda is my agenda. That is how the discussions will go. Have we talked about how this particular player will be used? Not yet, but we will when we approach the mini-camp and beyond.

EP