Rams Transcripts – GM Les Snead and HC Sean McVay, DE Jared Verse – Thursday, April 25, 2024
General Manager Les Snead and Head Coach Sean McVay
(Opening remarks)
Snead: “It took us eight years and we were going to wait at least eight minutes before we turned in the card. Then we had trouble connecting with (DE) Jared (Verse) because we had the wrong number written down, but that’s alright. We squirmed a little bit, but it worked out. Jacked to have Jared as a Ram.”
(On how the first round worked out for them and how they navigated all the offensive picks)
Snead: “I think that because of the, what was it six QBs? All the offense definitely pushed defense our way. We always felt like Jared had a chance to get there, but there was definitely a chance for him to go right before us, depending on how that whole thing shook out. I think the heavy offense and probably six QBs going helped Jared get to us.”
(On what impressed him the most about Verse)
Snead: “The cool thing about him is where he started (at) Albany, transferred to Florida State. Might have gone about where he went tonight last year, but he decided to stay back. I can tell you about him. He’s just one of those guys that you want to just watch another game on because you can tell he cares about football. He has fun playing football and oh, by the way, he’s pretty disruptive, violent. You think defense, the way he plays is next to the word in the dictionary.”
(On how he envisions his role in terms of replacing former DT Aaron Donald)
Snead: “Oh, man, those are some big cleats to fill there. I’ve always said that. You know what’s neat? That he’s aware of who we lost, who retired. That’s pretty cool. That means he’s a student thinking about football, but we’re not going to ask him to replace Aaron but we’ll definitely ask him to help our football team.”
(On if they view him as more of an outside linebacker or defensive end)
Snead: “I’ve been talking too much. I think Sean needs to answer.”
McVay: “No, go ahead. Say what you want to say to them (laughter). No, he’s going to play on the edge. He’s got the ability to reduce down, but Les said it he’s got a lot of versatility. You watch the way that he plays. He’s got great hands. He’s violent. He’s got a versatile arsenal of moves that he can activate, but he plays the game the way that we want it to be played. We’re looking for grown men on defense and I think you’ve seen a lot of the guys that we’ve added through free agency and then with the first pick tonight, he was one of the guys that we had targeted and feel really good coming away with him. He’s going to make a big impact. He’ll be in the outside linebacker room.”
(On what a player starting his career at a lower-level school and earning his way up tells them about the player)
Snead: “Good question. Not sure I know all the answers. What is needed is with the portal and all that goes on, players that say, ‘Hey, you know what I want to try to play at a level higher, the next level of the video game.’ And then to go there and continue playing well, that means something, shows something, the competitiveness of it. (He) could have stayed at the same similar level and probably dominated, but decided to move up a level and still dominate. So there’s something to that.”
(On if there was temptation to try to get an offensive player with the flow of the draft early on)
Snead: “Who’s our guy from Reddit? Oh man, we tried to get in there and get that tackle. What’s the guy’s name? Dangling Furry, you got to love him.”
(On what it was like going through a first round)
McVay: “It was good. I mean, last year there was opportunities for us to potentially try to go up. It’s been a similar path. And even our second year, even though we were picking 31 and then we just kept inching back before we took (Former Rams Safety) Taylor Rapp. They do such a great job of preparing us. We’re a little bit later to the party in terms of evaluating the guys, but here’s what I could say is really good about the way this shook out. There was a lot of planning. There was a lot of contingency plans. This was one of the things that we had really hoped was going to work out. There are some other scenarios that we had really talked through just based on 31 other teams having a say. To address an outside edge rusher that can affect and influence the game, we’re never going to ask anybody to replace (Former Rams DT) Aaron (Donald), but you do want to continue to build the front, continue to be able to do those types of things, and (DE) Jared (Verse) represented opportunity to do that. We did feel like there was not quite as deep of an outside linebacker group so to be able to get a player of his caliber was really encouraging and everybody was fired up about that.”
(On what impressed them about Verse and if they think he will be a positive addition to the locker room)
McVay: “(General Manager) Les (Snead) and his group do such a great job with the vetting. Those area scouts, they’ve been working on these guys for a long time. I think when you go back to his journey, a guy that’s just continued to get better throughout his career. He started at Albany. You look at what he’s done at Florida State. Even watching the trajectory of the season, I thought he played his best ball as the season progressed and that to me says a lot about him, especially when they had the injury to their quarterback and really you could see their defense put that team on their back to help them have a really special season. The way he plays the game from the first snap to the last snap of the game, he wears people down. He’s physical. He’s violent. His football character shows up on the tape and then when you hear about the way he’s wired, the way he interacts with his teammates, those are all things that we’re looking for and those are the types of people that we want to be Rams. He certainly checks a lot of those boxes and now the work starts.”
(On what their interaction was like with Verse throughout the pre-draft process and if he had an individual workout with their defensive line coach)
Snead: “No, we didn’t do any privates with him. He was one of those guys we tried to somewhat keep under the radar except a lot of mocks felt like we might go that way, go defense. We try to go stealth with it. But like Sean mentioned, he’s one of those players that from the vetting process, he was really one of…It’s all subjective, but one of our higher rated guys in terms of intangibles off the field and also it transcends to when you rate some things that are not necessarily physical talent, but let’s call it competitiveness on the urgency on the field, he rated very, very high. So he was one of those guys… We have something where the coaches and scouts can say, ‘Look, make this guy a Ram.’ And he was one of the probably top three players in terms of stamping, ‘We want this guy to be a Ram,’ and that’s kind of an all things considered, right? That’s not just you’re really good on the grass on Saturdays. That’s going to be, hey, you’re going to be really good, really 365 days a year.”
(On how they see him complement and/or supplement OLB Byron Young)
McVay: “I think he and (OLB) Michael Hoecht did a really good job. They played a lot of snaps. I think that’s to be determined. I think we are going to start him out on the edge. He’ll play outside linebacker in our base defense. He’ll play end. He does have some flexibility to be able to slide and reduce down and play over a guard, but I think we’ll see. We’ll get him in here. We’ll see how he adjusts. Obviously, the tape at Florida State is really encouraging, but we’ve got a lot of work to do and we’re glad to be able to get to work with him. And I think I’ll have a better answer for you once we have a little bit of time with him.”
(On what it was like making the phone call to him)
McVay: “We had trouble getting him on the phone at first, but that wasn’t his fault. We had the wrong number. We had the wrong damn number. One digit off!”
Snead: “One digit off. He got a little nervous, but he’s known as a, if you want to call it, hey, he takes life seriously. He’s intentional about life and you could tell he was stoic. Wasn’t overly celebrating, but watching him, I think whatever network you’re watching when he got drafted, you can see he was jacked. But you can tell when you talk to him, he’s a steady dude.”
Defensive End Jared Verse
(On how it feels to be a Los Angeles Ram)
“It’s a dream come true. You work your whole life for this moment. I talked to the Rams throughout the process. Last week I got to meet with them again and do one last interview with them and it felt like the right thing. As you go on, as you go through the whole process and hear them call my name with that Los Angeles Rams attached to it. Woo! (laughter) Dream come true.”
(On what he learned from last year coming into this season that will help him in the NFL)
“Technique will beat anyone who’s just a natural born athlete. A lot of natural born athletes, especially in FBS college football at ACC levels, SEC levels, there are a lot of natural born athletes. When you add technique into it, when you add listening to your coach and listening to what he says to you, you become a whole better player. You hit that next level. You become an out of this world player, so that’s one thing I was trying to focus on coming in this past season.”
(On what it means to be the Rams first first-round selection since 2016)
“I mean it’s time to work (laughter). It’s time to show them they didn’t make a mistake. It’s time to show them what we do. I’m excited for it. I’m excited to get to work. I got to talk to some of the guys earlier. I’m ready for them.”
(On the current Rams players who he has connected with already)
“(NT) Kobie (Turner) was the first one to reach out to me. I got to talk to all the coaches and everything like that, but Kobie was the first one, like real quick texted me. He let me know if you need anything, you reach out to me, don’t even hesitate and I’m going to take him up on that offer. He’s going to regret saying that to me (laughter).”
(On how much time he spent watching Aaron Donald play and if he feels any pressure to replace him)
“To answer your first question, I watched a lot of film of Aaron Donald. My coach at Albany coach (Head Coach) Greg Gattuso he coached Aaron at Pittsburgh, so we got to get on a Zoom meeting with him during COVID and I got to pick his brain a little bit. I asked him a couple questions that actually helped me elevate my game and the biggest thing I took away from the questions I asked him was he said, ‘You only really need a couple good moves. If you have a couple good moves, you execute them to the highest level of your ability, you’ll destroy everyone and aggression beats everything.’ Those are a couple of lessons I learned from him but filling up his role that’s a hard role to fill. Those are big shoes to fill. That’s an out of this world player. That’s a once in a lifetime Hall of Famer, future Hall of Famer. That’s one of the best players to ever live, but to be able to be in a position where they expect me to come in there and be able to fill that role, that’s something I’m ready for. Pressure makes diamonds and I love pressure.”
(On his impression of Sean McVay and Defensive Coordinator Chris Shula)
“So just talking to him real quickly. I had great vibes from them. Have not gotten to sit down, really get into everything with him, but just the initial impression I feel like it’s going to be something great. It’s something we’re coming in there, we’re ready to work. We’re ready to get those results. Get back on that field to make everything happen for both coaches.”
(On playing at the University of Albany and having to earn the opportunity to play at a higher collegiate level and how that impacted his growth as a player)
“It makes you hungry. There are a lot of players who get stuff just kind of handed to them. There are a lot of players that…if you can be a great player, and especially now with college football, you can be a great player and get a couple million just going to a school. For me, I had to be hungry. I didn’t get anything at Albany. I used to have to work at Amazon, DoorDash. I used to do all those things to make ends meet. So it makes you hungry being in the position now where I get to speak to all y’all today and fly out there real soon and get some work in. It makes everything worth it. It just makes you so hungry for this opportunity and to be sitting here today.”
(On if he has spent any time in Los Angeles or California in general)
“Me and my friends a couple years back took a little road trip out there. I’m currently in Phoenix so we took a little quick drive over there. I’ve been out there a few times for a commercial, NIL opportunities and stuff like that, but I’ve never got to indulge in it. But I’m a Ram now, so that’s my city.”
(On how much running track helped his footwork as a football player)
“It helps your footwork a lot because you can’t make false steps. If you make false steps in track, they don’t care how fast you are, but in high school you might be able to get away. When you face top level competition your form has to be perfect, especially on the later runs like the 100 to 200 to 400, your strides become very important. That’s why when a quarterback or a running back gets of out the pocket, I have faith in my speed and my form to be able to catch up to him and do something like that. Even if they may be faster, their form is not better than mine.”
(On playing with a young defensive core and if that’s energizing to him and what he hopes to both learn and attribute to it)
“The thing I feel I can give the most, before I talk about what I’m going to learn from them, is the dog. I come in with a lot of physical strength. I come in with a chip on my shoulder and that chip is going to continue today. I love being a Ram. Now I am one, but that chip is going to be on my shoulder no matter where I go. I’m hungry for this. I need this. This is my lifestyle. This is how I do everything. This is just how I execute. The thing I’m going to be able to give them is just that work. The thing I’m most excited to learn is the process of everything. How does the game move at the NFL level? Because you can watch film and be like, ‘Oh, that looks regular.’ But when you’re actually in there, when you’re in the fire, I can’t wait to pick their brain and understand a little bit about that.”
(On why he still feels like he has a chip on his shoulder as a two-time All-American)
“I was a two-time All-American at Florida state, but to me that kind of didn’t mean too much. My teammates helped me get to that. Fabian Lovett, Braden Fiske, Patrick Payton. Those are guys that I played with that helped me elevate my game because those are dogs. You couldn’t be on the defensive line of Florida State and not be a dog. But those guys helped me elevate my game. But the chip on my shoulder really comes from everyone always looking down. Out of high school, I told people I wanted to play college ball. ‘You’re not doing that.’ I did that. I told everybody I was going to leave Albany and be the best. They said, ‘No, you’re not.’ I went to Florida State, I left, and I tried to be the best. I just told them I wanted to be not only first round pick, I wanted to be one of the best. I wanted to be one of the tops, you know? Whether I made that or not, I’m just happy to be in this position. I’m happy to keep proving people wrong along the way and now I want to tell people I just want to be the best period. I want people to doubt me on that one so I can start proving them wrong one more time.”
(On what stood out to him about his meetings with the Rams during the pre-draft process and what they asked him)
“It was just how I see the game, some things about film. Why’d you take this step? Why’d you do this? Why does your defense run like this? Now I got to watch their defense a little bit, watch my defense a little bit now, see how it worked and how I could fit into it. How I looked being a player a part of that. But that was just a couple things know that we spoke about. Mainly it was just like how I fit into the defensive scheme and what we did and what I’m used to.”
(On what he took away from how he fit into the defensive scheme)
“I feel like it’s meant for dogs. You can’t be scared or timid in this defense. You have to be ready to hit somebody. You got to be ready to get after it and that’s my play style for sure.”
(On who’s with him and how he’s celebrating)
“My mom and dad are definitely with me. They’re always going to be with me. They’re downstairs right now, everybody’s downstairs. A lot of my family. I think I have about 20 family members that were able to make it out. And a couple of my really close friends, one of my roommates from Albany. My first teammate I ever had in football, he’s here today too. One of my friends in high school. He was able to make it out too. A couple of my friends that are here with me and all my brothers and sisters are out here too, but they’re all down there excited, screaming, yelling. I had to tell everyone just ‘Calm down, calm down.’ I had to run up here, so that’s on me for being a little bit late and having y’all waiting so I’m sorry about that. But they’re all down there excited so we’re just going to celebrate, have a good night, and then tomorrow we get right to LA.”