LM: You spoke before the draft about wanting to trade down to acquire additional picks. You made four deals that yielded five extra selections on Day 3, but none on Day 2. How close did you come to moving down in the second or third round?
RP: “It’s like anything really in sports or even in life. You have a plan walking in the door, but you have to be able to adjust and adapt. And when the players presented themselves to us in Kyler [Gordon] and Jaquan [Brisker], it made it really hard to get off those spots, and we ended up with those two players. Everyone was shocked that they were still there, so we were pumped. When you have players in a certain range on your board, it takes something special to get off those players. They were high on the board and we were excited that they were there, so we had to take them.”
LM: Did you come close to trading up at any point in the draft?
RP: “This year we were trying to be as disciplined as possible. There were some players that we liked and we considered, but we knew that from this draft we needed as many good players as possible, and to do that was to enhance the amount of picks that we had. So, we decided to be pretty disciplined with that and trade back rather than giving up picks to [move up]. There were some opportunities and some thoughts and discussions about doing that, but we really wanted to stick with the plan.”
LM: Why did you have Bears area scouts speak to the media about the prospects that were drafted from their respective regions?
RP: “It was really important to me. I’ve been in their shoes before and they need to be recognized for the work that they’ve done. They spend countless hours and drive thousands and thousands of miles going to these schools to get information about the player: how they affect the locker room, how they affect the community, and then they watch the tape and evaluate talent. I just wanted to get them out front for them to be recognized for their hard work and actually give really good…