Full Transcript: Everything Duke Tobin Said at Bengals Season Wrap-Up Press Conference

CINCINNATI — Bengals Director of Player Personnel Duke Tobin spoke for nearly 64 minutes on Friday. He explained how frustrated he was with the results of the 2025 season, the urgency the organization has to fix their flaws after missing the playoffs for a third-straight season and so much more!

Watch his entire news conference or read the transcript below:

(Opening statement)

"I'll just say a couple of things. I'm normally not a pad guy writing things down, but I've got a lot of thoughts on the season I'd like to share, and I'm sure we'll get to them as we get to the questions, so I won't take very long at all. It goes without saying this season is not what we expect, certainly not what we will accept, and everybody here knows that. It was frustrating, it was challenging, it was disappointing for all of us, but more importantly, it was all those things for our fans. We feel that. That weighs on us. It hurts us because we know they have high expectations for us. We embrace those high expectations. Believe me, we have high expectations for this football team as well. We didn't meet those expectations. The group we put out there did not fulfill those expectations. It motivates us to be better to put a group out there that will make the city proud, that will finish games. We have a lot of work to do this offseason. We are aware of that. We're motivated for it. We're excited about it. We have a football team that has some challenges that we've got to solve. Beyond that, we have a football team that has a lot of positives to build on and a lot of things we're proud of and a lot of reasons for optimism. Those are things that we're excited about. We just have to, this offseason, it's all going to be about the who's doing it, the what they're doing, and how they're doing it. That's the focus. I really believe in the group that we have here. Why do I believe in them? Because they have shown that they can do it. They're a collaborative group; they're a smart group. They've been there before. We have excellent coaches in my opinion. They're good teachers. Our players respect them. We have a team that, despite the fact that we were out of it, was still enjoying being around each other; still working hard, and to the very end of this season, still improving. That makes me feel good, it really does. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the motivation our coaches provided. I'm proud of the camaraderie that our team has within it to do that. I saw a lot of positives even though there was very little to play for. That does make me feel better. I do believe in the people that we have here. I've been here a long time. I don't take this job lightly. I don't take it for granted. It's the only job I've wanted. It's what I've chosen to do with my life. This team is part of my fabric. I wake up with a singular focus of how to make this team better. It's what I do. It's a part of who I am in this city that is my home and it hurts when we're not representing the city the way that we need to. I think we're capable of it, but we've got to find the solutions to win and produce in the critical moments of games. The last two seasons have been derailed by critical moment execution errors. We have to find the group of 11 to put out there that will execute in the critical moments and I believe that we'll do that.

I'm confident. I think there are great days ahead for our football team. There is a lot of work to do. We're motivated to do it. We're excited to be here to do it. I'm excited to be here. I don't take this for granted. I work for a fantastic football team in a wonderful city that's my home. I'm humbled by that, I really am. We have areas of concern; we have reasons for optimism.

(How do you find those players, that 11, what do you need to do make sure you field that team next season?)

"Quite frankly, it's hard work. We have to find what we believe we need the most and then find the players with those traits that will fill those needs. It's a lot of work. We've gone through a week right now of college scouting meetings. Every year, I am so impressed with our group up there with the information, background research, and time on task that they put into analyzing each and every one of these college football players. They are long meetings; they're fun meetings. There are a lot of players that we talk about that you can envision on our football team. That I think makes everybody feel positive that there are answers out there. We've got to make the right decisions. It's on me to point us in the right direction. When we've had failures, I pointed us in the wrong direction. We are a highly collaborative football team; we really are. We want everybody's buy-in on what we're doing. We want them to know the why of what we're doing. The reasons for the decision and what the vision for the individual players that are here is. We want everybody onboard with that. When we get pointed on the wrong guy, it's me. I have to steer the ship away from poor decisions even though it is what we might feel at the time. I have to do a better job of getting us pointed at the right decisions at the critical times. We've done that. We've had good decisions, and they are collaborative decisions. I have to do a better job of weeding out the bad decisions, and we have made some; every team does. We've also made some good decisions."

(Regret not signing more external guys last offseason.)

It was a challenging offseason. We did a lot of things that people didn’t think we could do. At least, they voiced that we could not do. We attacked last offseason in a pretty big way. We re-signed guys we felt fit what we were going to do. We believed in being key contributors for us. You are talking about defense, but really with the offseason signings, I think we wrote well over $400 million worth of contracts last offseason. Well over everything we did. Those aren’t easy. Those negotiations aren’t easy. We were satisfied that we were maintaining clear, top-of-the-league players. We have clear, elite, elite, world-class, best-in-the-world players on this football team. That’s one of the reasons we have high expectations. We didn’t want to lose that. We wanted continuity to build off of. Did we build off of it enough? Was the defense up to it enough? Obviously, it wasn’t. That falls on me. We did at the time what we thought would produce for us.

(Believe in staff and guys, three straight non-playoff years, two of the last 10, why should fans have that belief or belief in you even?)

I understand that they probably don’t right now. All I can do is work us out of it. We have done it before. We have done it before with a team full of draft choices and had high-level football teams. We have done it before with a blend of free agents and draft choices and then we have also taken us to the Super Bowl with a number of UFA signings. We can add to the team in a lot of different areas. We have excellent scouts who give us the analysis. It’s on us to make the right decisions. Even if you want a player, it doesn’t mean you get them. It doesn’t mean you get them in the draft. It doesn’t mean you get them in free agency. The whole puzzle does have to fit together. We work to fit the puzzle together in the best way we can do that.

(Why believe you should still be in the job, will you look to do anything differently?)

If your question is, “Do I have confidence in myself?” I do. But most importantly, I have confidence in the people here. I really do. I have confidence in the processes that we have here. And I have confidence in our ownership. I have got confidence in the players we have. We have good players. It is not up to me to determine whether I am here or not. I have been doing this my whole life. It is my life. NFL football has been a part of my life since I opened my eyes. That is what I do. I believe I know this game. I believe I know players. And I know for a fact that nobody works at it more than me. It doesn’t occupy anybody’s mind more than it occupies my mind. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it at high levels. We’ve had success here. I’ve seen it at other places. I know what it looks like. But it is not about me. It is about our group that is what gives us the most confidence. It’s about what I have seen in our group, not only in the personnel area, but in the coaching area as well, and what we have in the locker room right now.

(Gone as far as to say had a championship team going into the season…)

Absolutely. We still have a championship team, in my mind. We have elite, world-class players. We had a lot of challenges this year. We didn’t navigate them effectively enough. We navigated some of them as effectively as you could, and then we had challenges elsewhere. When you lose your quarterback – we have a quarterback we have taken great pains in building an offense around and for. And that offense took steps this year without him. With him, we feel like that is starting to just hit its stride with the way the offensive line came on. With the way the running game came on. I would tell you I saw things this year I wouldn’t have thought I would ever see. Somebody walk into the building two days before a game, pick up an incredibly complex offense. Go out with people he just shook hands with and make it work. That is amazing. You know people from afar because they are in the same industry as you. I know Joe Flacco from afar. But when you meet him and get to appreciate what he is all about and what he accomplished here in such a short time and then go out and have an injury, not be able to practice, and still go out and produce. That speaks to him. It also speaks to our coaches and how they are able to immediately pivot and regenerate something that gave us a chance. Other parts of the team then decided it wasn’t going to give us a chance. That’s on me. That’s on me. But there are things that worked and things that showed me, hey, we’ve got the right people in this building. Because that doesn’t happen. That was a rare, rare thing that you can create something out of nothing and then have the success that that had. I’m proud of that. I really am.

Speaking of Joe Burrow, Duke, he was obviously disillusioned, disheartened by the way that season turned out, what he came back to. I'm curious what kind of assurances you've given him that this won't happen again and that the roster will be competitive, especially on the defensive side.

“We had failure early. The thing that I saw in our defense, though, as it went on is that it started to find its footing. We played a lot of young guys. The game slowed down, they sped up. We finally figured out how to stop the run. We were stopping the run. We were generating turnovers. When the defense played well, then it was the offense’s turn to not play well. We have to find that complimentary football. I'm always open and honest with Joe, but it takes a full football team, and I don't believe that that one side of the ball was not complicit in our season. All 3 phases were complicit in our season, and we've gotta clean that up. It’s the critical moments of games, when one side is doing well, the other side has to take advantage.

The main example of that was Miami. We went down there, we generated turnovers, we scored touchdowns. We didn't have that a lot this year. We need to find that.

What are you going to specifically do in the off-season to create a championship team immediately? Will you beef up your scouting department, which you are very proud of, but will you beef it up to being more in line with other NFL teams? And will you insist on an offensive play call? So the question is asked about an offensive play caller and then it changes to “they like that.”

“The specifics of the offseason, we're still going through that right now. We're still debriefing the season. We're still analyzing each and every player on our roster and where the needs are. We have a good feeling for where that is. I wouldn't outline exactly who we’re going to bring in. We have a very good idea of where the needs are on our football team, and we're going to attack them from a personnel standpoint. Our coaches, during the season, did a great job in what we were asking players to do. They made changes in how we were going about it, and it worked on the defensive side of the ball. And honestly, it worked on the offensive side of the ball. So, we had some nimbleness during the season.

In terms of our scouting staff. Our scouting staff is, in my opinion, the size that it is because I think the collaboration is better at that size. We have never lacked for information on a player. There's never been a player selected that we didn't know anything about.

There's never been a player selected that we didn't have multiple reports and a large background on. It's not about the volume of information we have. If we make a mistake, it’s because at the decision point, we made the wrong decision. But it wasn't because we didn't have information on the player. We have information, and we have plenty of opinion on the player. We've made a lot of good picks. I get that people don't believe we've made any good picks. We've made a lot of good picks on our current roster, on past rosters, and there will be more on future rosters. I really believe that. In terms of our process, every year it changes some. Every year it evolves. We have different data sources, different touch points with the players. We change our meeting styles, we change our medicals. We evolve and change in how we operate; every team does. And we also will evolve and change in how we meet and when we start attacking free agency and when we start really making the plan for the offseason. The NFL season isn't even over yet. But we're on track with coming up with our plan for how we will attack and who might fit the needs that we'll have. That's something that we're going through when you end your season early; it does provide that benefit that you get on this stuff earlier.

Does it feel like you're wasting this championship window?

Well, it's the Bengals, and when we don't win a championship, that's the only thing that I'm after is a championship. It's not any individual in this building's championship. It's the Cincinnati Bengals championship. And that's really the only definition of success that I have. I don't have a definition of success of making the playoffs or doing X, Y, or Z. It's the team that has the positive feeling at the end of the season. That's the only thing that I'm chasing. That's what we want. We want it for all of our players. We want it for all of our staff. You know, we have set our team up for Joe in a way that we feel is pretty darn good, and there are resources on the team that we've expended on that. So when you spend 60% or 65% or whatever it is on offense of your cap, it's going to affect the other parts of your team. We know that we have to find solutions that fit into that that then produce on the other side of the ball. And we will, and we will. We're positive about that.

What has been the shortcoming over the last few years:

Well, offense has, you know, when Joe's been in there and when the other Joe's been in there, it has. That's where the resources are. When he's not in there, it affects the football team. We went through a stretch of really good teams without him playing, we started the year two, and oh, the defense was, was we thought coming along a little bit, making enough happen for us to be a successful team. And we lost Joe, and it was a tough stretch there for us until we got rebooted. And then we did get rebooted, but those were good football teams. We play with elite talent every week, and we feel like we create problems for teams. Every team creates problems in different ways for teams. We feel like we create problems for teams; you have to win. Otherwise, you wouldn't be sitting there asking that question: we have to win. And we're keenly aware of that. And Joe is a part of that formula.

Why hasn’t it worked when Joe Burrow has gone down that the team is good enough to overcome?

Yeah, you know, that's obviously the goal. That's obviously the goal. It's a team sport. It's not just a one-person sport. And when one person goes down, you have to have a team that can absorb it, and that's motivating for us to get to that point where we can do that.

What traits are you looking for on defense:

Yeah, successful defenses, in my opinion, they have to be able to pressure the passer. You'd like to be able to pressure with four, I think we need pass rush. I think that relieves some of the strain on the coverage. So I'm a guy that believes in the front on both sides of the ball, that that is my focus. People might not believe that, but that is my focus. They might believe I love throwing the ball down the field and having great wideouts. Those opportunities presented themselves, we grabbed them, and we're glad we did. But I want to build the front. I always want to build the front. And so there are a number of pieces that we think we need and can add, and we'll see if we can.

Do you think the organization is willing to structure contracts differently to get things done defensively?

I think the organization is willing to do anything it takes to win. I’ve been here long enough to know that. If that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t say it. The organization wants to win. Mr. Brown wants to win. Katie, Troy, Elizabeth, Caroline, Paul — they want to win. That’s what they want. They’re willing to do whatever it takes.

Who controls the 53-man roster?

I don’t know that we’ve ever defined that to any degree. We always come to a collaborative approach. Ultimately, this is Mr. Brown’s team. And he is the owner. If he or somebody in the ownership group wants to step in, (they can). But it never happens. It doesn’t need to happen. We find the solutions together. Zac and I will hash it out. We’ll visit with Katie and Troy and Mike and we’ll come up with what we feel is best. It’s never been a power thing. I’ve never understood the — when you have a collaborative approach like this, there really isn’t a need for anybody to thump anybody else. It’s my job to come up with the collaborative approach, come up with a consensus and make a decision, if that’s what you’re asking. But that is not something that comes into any of our decisions — ‘Well, it’s my decision, so tough luck.’ That doesn’t show up.

Cuts off a question about defense —

Dug a big hole. Hard to get out of a big hole. And we dug a big hole.

What do you feel like you’re missing most?

Depends on the part of the season that you talk about, even this year. Within this own season, it was different. We really struggled to stop the run. And that opened up everything else in an offense. We’ve played good offenses. It’s not an excuse. We also had to play large stretches without our highest-paid… Actually, it was the highest-paid guy on both sides of the ball that wasn’t out there for us. You need your closers and you need your aces when it comes down to the fourth quarter and you need a stop. But yeah, stopping the run, I was proud of the group after the bye for figuring out, grinding through, and making the improvements necessary to give us chances. It would be a different story if I didn’t see young players progressing and I didn’t see a progression of understanding, knowledge, and execution of our defense. It would be a different story. Believe me, it would be a big different story in my mind. But the reason that it’s not is that I see growth. I see growth in a 24-year-old Myles Murphy and young corners who have taken the jump, and Jordan Battle who has taken the jump. The one thing we really need is we need those guys or somebody else to take on a leadership role and demand the accountability and demand the execution. We need more leadership. We have tons of leadership on the offensive side of the ball. We need somebody, multiple people, to step up and lead that group from within our team. And it could come from the outside and it could come from the inside. We can get improvement from both of those areas. We can get improvement and play from the inside, which I see happening, and we can get improvement from the outside, be it the draft or free agency or however we want to attack it.

In the collaborative approach you talked about, if all the different voices are saying all different players, and is it, then your voice that comes in and says, we're taking Mims, for example?

It never gets to that, because the conversations are never that haphazard. The conversations are directed, focused, more along the lines of 'these three players, and how do they fit, and what's your vision for them, and does that match my vision, and does that match Zac's vision?' And so they're focused conversations. They're not, it's not everybody walking in with any idea that they ever thought of the night before. It's focused conversations. And we've come to a collaborative judgment on what is the best way to go.

Has it ever come down to that, like two guys that are being considered, and it comes down to, basically, you say?

Sure, it's my job to say this one, not that one, but it doesn't -- we work it out. I mean, we work it out and get everybody on board when we make a wrong pick, it's because I let it get out of whack.

Just to clarify from earlier, there is no plan as of right now to expand the scouting department this offseason. Is that correct?

This offseason? No, we're right into it right now. There's a lot of work that's been done. Our guys are great. We have fantastic scouts. They work in every area. They are well-known around college football, around pro football, and they give us what we need.

There's so much concern about Joe Burrow and his happiness and unhappiness, his unrest from outside the building. How much do you allow his voice to carry weight in offseason decisions?

Well, I enjoy talking to Joe. You know, I'm open to visiting with any player, and I have visited with multiple players over the course of the season, and I always visit with Joe. And does his opinion matter? Yes, it matters to me. It does matter to me. He's part of the collaboration. Quarterbacks are that way, particularly ones at his level, and particularly ones with his intellect and what he has to offer. He's got a pulse of our team, and I want to hear that. And so I enjoy talking to him. I enjoy hearing his opinions in terms of, you know, when we were in LA at the Super Bowl, everyone was happy. Guess who else wasn't happy this year? Me. I wasn't happy. Nobody's happy when it's not going well. You know, I think Zac mentioned that. It's Paul Brown's famous quote, 'Winning makes believers of us all. Winning makes believers of us all.' We want to get back to the happiness we had out in LA at the Super Bowl and we feel like we can, but we're not there yet.

Does that include potential guaranteed money in year two or year three for potential free agents?

Contract specifics on what we're going to do? Just depends on the player. It depends on the player, and what's required. We'll do what's required if we have to secure a player that we think can help us win.

You mentioned there's been growth defensively, seeing players grow. But I think there's concern about the timeline of how long it takes for players to progress and grow, and then meet the window of Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins. We saw the difference that free agents can make in 2021 when you supplemented the defense with ready-made difference makers. When you talk about the philosophy of the offseason, you have this window, you have these pieces. Will you attack free agency differently, knowing how it paid off in 2021 and knowing that this defense needs ready-made difference makers?

It can definitely work that way. These are conversations we have. How it works out, there are not 25 guys you could sign. There are 31 teams all looking at the same guys. You have to identify the right ones, then get them done. And you're talking about, you know, BJ Hill and Larry Ogunjobi and Trey Hendrickson, all guys brought in by our scouting department, all guys identified by our scouting department, recommended by our scouting department, and all worked out well. Can that happen? Yes, it could happen. We have to find the right guys. They have to be available to us. They have to be open to coming to Cincinnati, and we have to work out the contract. Those are all ifs. We're not there yet. We're not sure who's available, what the options are, but yes, we're open to improving our football team in any way that we can.

You mentioned how good that '21 class was. Why haven't you hit the same way in free agency? I know that there are financial constraints, but in some of the areas where you can spend, why haven't you been able to find as many hits?

Again, year over year, you can't build your team in free agency. It's just not a sustainable process. You have to have your young guys come on. You have to. And whether it's a one-year progression, two-year progression, or three-year progression, those guys have to come on. If they don't come on, that's my fault. We've taken the wrong guys. We're no longer drafting guys for second contracts and so forth. We need guys that come in and can give us some help right away and then grow into bigger roles quickly. We need that. That's what every team needs. And every team has A players, B players, and C players, and you need your C players to be able to fill those roles effectively enough so your A and B players can have success. And we've got to do a better job in all three of those levels on defense, and that is something that we're focused on. You have to get better on all those levels. But not everybody is going to be an A player. A, there aren’t that many of them out there. And B, you can't afford them.

Last March, you were working on the Tee and Ja’Marr contracts. Did that specifically prevent you from adding more than one starter on defense and in free agency? Does the fact that you don't have stuff like that this year give you more of an opportunity to add more starters?

“Well, we added guys, but we chose to bring back guys that we knew that wanted to be here, that our incoming staff felt good about their role with us. So it's not that we didn't add. They were just familiar names to everybody.”

I think what a lot of fans want to see, Duke, is a change in approach when things go wrong. When the results aren't there, they want to say, what's the front office doing to change things to maybe get different results? How do you answer that question?

“Yeah, you go out and you trade for Joe Flacco. You're talking in-season?”

I mean, on defense, just from the outside.

“There weren’t a lot of options for us in-season on defense that we felt could help us in a way that was meaningful. There's a lot that goes into that. Believe me, we're always looking. We are keenly aware of our issues as they're happening in real-time. They are on our mind. And you need to have guys within your structure that can step up. And that's an off-season thing more than an in-season thing. But you need to have the guys in your backup roles that can step up and hold the fort. And you need to have guys, even on your practice squad, that can step up and hold the fort.”

How hard is it going into the draft with clear holes? And is the goal to not be in that position on April 1st?

“You don't want to be in that position. That's not the ideal. Many teams find themselves in that position in today's NFL. I can't imagine what the colleges are going through. Your entire team is a free agent, and you have 22 holes and not two or four. It's not what we want. We want those predetermined. We want to know who's on our team that's going to occupy those needs for us. This year on offense, we feel really good. We feel like that's a unit that's going to be back in full, and we feel like it's a unit that was really hitting its stride and expanding on the stride that it hit. So we feel really good about that side of the ball, and we'll see what we can get done on defense. It's important for us to address what needs to be addressed. We don't bury our head in the sand. We see what's going on, and we'll try to address it in every way we can.”

Do you sense this is a make-or-break year for this regime? Big picture.

“There's no comfort zone here. There isn't a comfort zone any year in the NFL. You can go to the Super Bowl and come back, and there's no comfort zone. There shouldn't be a comfort zone in anything that you do. We have our antennas up, and we are giving everything we have to the process. I don't worry about regimes and all that, but I can tell you that there is a focus and urgency. It exists all the time, though, in this league. There's never not a focus and an urgency. If you get into this business, you're on high alert all the time, every day, period.”

When you look at the 12 one-score losses over the last two years, you're on the sidelines.

“It irritates me. It really irritates me. You have to find ways to close games, and that has been our number one problem, is when it comes time to close the game, we haven't closed it. How do you get over that hump? When we take the field against any team in this league, we can win, and that team we're playing knows it. We don't go out there and get pummeled. We are in it and a lot of times (we) should win it and then don’t. I think that last game against Cleveland is just a microcosm of what we've had. The defense goes out there and really pitches one of the finest games you could have, and instead the offense gives 14 points up, and we lose the game. There has to be some complementary football in there, but it's very frustrating that we've lost so many close games. Incredibly frustrating. Had we just won our share of those, not more than our share, we'd be talking about at least having opportunities in the playoffs, which is where we feel we should be. I know we haven't shown that, and I'm not asking anybody else to feel that way, but within this building, we know we should be there.”

Falls on coaching staff

It falls at all of our feet. My feet. Our players’ feet. We put a lot of work into getting the technique taught. Then the technique isn’t implemented on the last play of the Chicago game, and you end up where you end up. There’s a focus, a strain, and a finish that we have to instill. Winning is not easy. We have to get to that point where that focus, strain, and finish is in our DNA. Our players have to understand that. On this snap, I’m playing the right technique. I’m not doing my own thing. We just had a mistake, one in 11 or two of 11, that has catastrophic results for our win-loss record. It’s not an excuse; it’s the reality of what’s happened. Can we get better? Yes. Do I have a solution? It’s every part of our team. It happens on special teams from time to time. It happens on offense against Cleveland. It happened on defense against Chicago. Is it frustrating? That’s why I opened with it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for our fans. It’s frustrating for us. I hate that it’s frustrating for our fans. We have to get over that. Every person in our locker room, on our coaching level, and in our front office has to understand that when it comes time to win a game, you have to believe, strain, and finish. It’s been our biggest problem. It’s very irritating.

Talent far away?

It depends on which side you talk about. We have emerging talent on defense. I don’t think we’re there. I think we have guys that can grow into being there. On offense, I’d put our talent up against any team in the league. It’s better than most. We’ve got to stay healthy, produce, and not score nine times for our opponent. I’d put it up against any team in the league. We feel like we’re a championship-caliber team. We’re 6-11. I’m 6-11. How could you feel that way? You’re an idiot. That’s the way I feel.

Contentious negotiations

I’d like to get deals done early. We’ve done it from time to time. I don’t know that it’s not been able to be done. You’re referencing Tee and Ja’Marr, I guess. Trey wasn’t a young guy, and we’ve done multiple deals with Trey. That one was contentious. There are a lot of contentious deals. We’re not on an island by ourselves in that kind of stuff. That’s the way of the world. We have to place a value on a player. They’ll place their own value on themselves. We have to come to something that makes sense for both. When I negotiate with a player or agent, I’m not negotiating against that player or agent. I’m negotiating on behalf of the rest of our football team. On behalf of the city of Cincinnati, who wants the best football team they can have. I’m not saying you deserve less and it’s isolated in a cocoon. I’m trying to preserve as much as I can to do other things that will benefit all of us.

Q: In negotiations, who runs the lead? Is that Katie? Does it change?

A: It depends. It depends on the player. We have different folks. Some of our personnel people — who are excellent, as I’ve mentioned — they will run point on some of that. Everything is a collaborative effort, though. We meet on it and get updates on where the negotiation is and where we should go with it and what we can put into that and still do the other things that we want to do.

Q: Dan Pitcher is interviewing today in Cleveland. What makes him an attractive candidate? Any changes to the staff?

A: Pitch is talented. He’s been around here a long time, and he’s earned his way up to where he is for a reason. Everybody that meets Pitch understands immediately that he’s organized and intelligent. He communicates incredibly effectively. He has a vision for what he wants, and he’s really valuable. He’s made himself really valuable over time here. If we lose guys, we’ll have to backfill and make changes, but as we sit here, if we don’t, we’ll stay with the guys we have.

Q: Flacco trade: How did that happen?

A: We were at a point where we were looking at all options for our football team. You go through every team, you put a list together of possible options. There are unrealistic options and then you look at the realistic ones. You make the phone calls, you have the conversations, you see what’s possible and when you get what’s possible, you take action. That one became possible for us. We had buy-in from everybody within our building to go forward with it and it was a good decision. It was something that worked out for us, if for no other reason, just to be around Joe Flacco, is cool. I mean, it was really cool watching him operate and work. I have an amazing appreciation and understanding for why a guy can play as long as a guy can play. If you’re Joe Flacco, it’s easy.

Q: You reference coaching points: How do you feel Zac Taylor is with coaching points across?

A: I watch it every day. I watch our coaching staff teach those. We can go 95% of the game playing the right technique and assignment, it’s just at the critical moments we have these breakdowns and we have to get that out of our DNA. Everybody in the building is keenly aware of that.

Q: What’s the relationship like between you and Zac now that he’s been here for seven years?

A: We have a great relationship. We’re on the same page. I’ve got nothing but high regard for Zac. Very few people in the world could have done what he did to revamp our offense with a quarterback that walked in two days [before a game]. Zac is highly intelligent. He wants input, he wants collaboration. He has great ideas. From the first time I met him out in L.A., I’ve been highly, highly impressed with him and I remain that way today. I think we’re fortunate to have him and I look forward to him bouncing back. This hurts his soul just like it hurts my soul. This is not what we are about. He’s in lockstep with me on that.

Q: When you like a prospect or free agent: How does the collaboration element work with you and Zac specifically?

A: Kind of like the conversation I guess we’re having right now. We just talk it through. What are the elements you see in this guy and how will he be used here and here’s the things that I don’t think he can do. Can you get by without that? Here’s the examples of that. We watch tape as a group. There’s a lot of ways to work the collaboration that brings people on board that might not be on board.

Does the family understand how disheartened the fan base is?

There’s nobody in this building that doesn't understand that. We feel it. I mean, we're the same way. We're disheartened, but we're disheartened for them being disheartened as well. We want to make this city proud. That's what we want to do. We have the greatest fans. They are passionate. They understand football. They really do. I get calls, emails, sometimes texts. I didn't know how that got out, but a lot of thoughts and ideas on how I can improve, and sometimes those are appreciated.

But it gives me an appreciation for the fans, the level of knowledge and level of thought and buy-in for what we do. That's important. Not every city has that and I'm not going to name them to call them out. But not every city has that community-based-fan-driven experience like we have. It's a very special thing, and our fans are very special to us.

Last year, there were a lot of re-signings, and then you talked a few minutes ago about the emerging talent on defense. Going into this free agency, would you be looking to bring back some of those defensive players that are free agents, or is it kind of moving in a new direction, trying to find outside players?

We're going to weigh all options. I'm not prepared, even if I was willing to share exactly what we were going to do. I don't know at this point what we're going to do. We're still working through all those options, but it'll be important for us to make the right decisions. It'll be very important for us to make the right decisions to improve our football team, particularly improve our defense.

Our defensive staff is really impressive because they know how: ‘So we don't have this, how do we adjust, so we don't have this, how do we adjust so we don't have this, how do we adjust? And you saw that as we went through the season. Their ability to adjust when you don't have everything you need, and every team does this, but you have to have guys that are able to do that and then start to right the ship.

Believe me, if I didn't see us righting the ship, if I didn't see players evolving within what we do and playing faster and feeling an energy about them and a desire, even though you're last in the league, there's still an energy and a camaraderie about what you're doing in the locker room, on the practice field, the night before games, there was a positivity and a growth that happened in the midst of what could have been a nightmare scenario where everybody's pointing the finger at everybody else, and you go the other direction.

When you're that way, you're going one of two directions. We went the right direction, and that's a direct reflection on Al's coaching and his positivity, and that's what gives me hope that we'll get this thing figured out. We need an increase in talent on that side of the ball, and there's no question about it, we'll take a look and see how much we can get done.

Given the success of the Flacco trade, will you be more aggressive with in-season trades?

Going forward?

I don't know that we've ever been opposed to them. They’ve just got to be right. They're rare when you start counting them up. The ones that really matter are even rarer. A lot of times they're this nickel for that nickel, and nothing comes of it, really, for either team. We're not so interested in doing that type of stuff as much as when there is a need and an opportunity, or an opportunity, even though there's not a need, those are things that we'll look at. We look at it in the draft, we look at it at the trade deadline. We'll look at it at the offseason. We're going to look at every option to add to our football team, and sure, when things work out, maybe it gives you a little more belief that the next one will.

Thoughts on extending Dax Hill and DJ Turner?

"Yeah, I think both of them would be guys that we would (extend). What they showed this year is that they're pretty high-level cover corners. They have, they have the skill set that we thought they had. They've developed the way that we thought they would develop. And I was impressed with Dax coming off of his knee injury. And you can just see the confidence grow as the longer that that got that in his past and really proud of the way DJ grew, both as a leader and as a player. Those guys were fortunate to have them, and those are guys to build around.”

What about them as building blocks of your defense?

“In terms of homegrown talent, absolutely. Those are guys that should be feeling like they're leaders and cornerstones. We need more stones.”

Joe Burrow was pretty adamant about change. In your mind, what has to change?

“Our record. We need to win games that we should win, instead of finding ways to lose games that we should win. But we change every offseason. There'll be new faces, there'll be new players, there'll be new schematics. Our coaches will spend the whole offseason dialing into what went right, what went wrong, what can we build on? How can we change in what we do? Our personnel staff will spend the entire off-season on what went right, what went wrong. What can we change in who we have? So, we're working on the who. They'll work on the what. The players need to work on the how. That’s the technique and the assignments. That's why it's the who, the what, and the how; all of that needs to improve. All three phases need to improve. And so there'll be changes through that process. There'll be changes in the who, what we're doing, and how we're getting it accomplished."

On how he sees the draft class shaping up

"We're just diving into it. The juniors haven't even all fully declared yet. The way college football is now, the universe is hard to pin down. You have your seniors, your juniors, you have sixth-year guys. We have a lot of 24- and 25-year-old guys. And then you have the guys that declare late. I think there's still a game tonight and a game next weekend. And so those players have their own declaration dates where they'll say they're coming in. So until all the juniors really declare what they're going to do, are they going to go back, are they going to transfer, are they going to be in the draft, it's hard to really understand the full universe."

On how many potential new starters he wants to have on defense from the outside:

"Yeah, I don't know that I can give an exact number without giving away any plans. You know, we hope to develop some starters from within. You know that. I'm not eliminating anybody that's on our current team in developing because that happens and I'm very hopeful that it happens. But we have a number of positions that are going to be up. We're going to increase the competition on this team in every way we can and we're going to bring in guys and guys from within this team. It might even be practice squad players that are re-signed now, but we're going to increase the competition on this team because we have to."

On why he felt it was important to talk today and for an hour:

"It was important for me to talk to the fans. I recognize it was important for you guys to get the opportunity. Normally I do this in Mobile and some of you show up and some of you don't. I guess I've come around. I can change. And if this is something that you guys feel is important, I'm happy to do that. During the season, Zac is our voice and Zac is somebody that speaks for us. We communicate all the time with him and he understands everything that's going on and he is the voice of our team. And during the season it's about the players and it's about the coaching staff, and that's what it's about. And so he is the guy that you'll hear from during the season, period. Some organizations run that way, some do it differently. But we believe in his message, and his message is our message during the season."

On how important it is to add an elite pass rush if Trey Hendrickson doesn't come back:

"Yeah, I'm for pass rush. I'm for pass rush. I don't know what the future holds for Trey. Those are discussions that we're going to have to have ongoing. He's one of a number of free agents that we have that we'll have to decide how we're going to go forward with. But pass rush is king, and you always need to be layering in pass rushers. It can develop from within your team, and I think we've seen some of that start to develop from within our team. And then I think we need to find some from external sources, as well."

On what went wrong at linebacker and having a better understanding of what Al Golden needs heading into his second season:

"I think I'm always getting clarity from what we're trying to do with our coaches. But, you know, we meet before we go and linebacker was a need for us. And to be quite honest, what we saw in our young guys, they were starting to eat into the playing time of the veterans we had. And Al had a lot of confidence in those young guys. The growing pains that we saw this year are going to pay off because we saw them this year. It's not always fun while they're happening, but those two linebackers that when they first started playing to when they finished the season versus Cleveland out here are night and day, and you can see exactly what the vision is for those two guys. We're always talking to Al on what he wants to be. The great thing about Al is he can be a lot of different things based on what he has. You know, that's what the best coaches do. That's what he did at Notre Dame. 'Here's what I have, so here's what I'm going to do to maximize what I have, and then here's what I'd like to be.' And it's our job to try to build towards that vision."