New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum and head coach Rex Ryan addressed the media following their selection of Muhammad Wilkerson.\u00a0 Here is the transcript courtesy of the Jets.<\/p>\n
On rationale for selecting Muhammad Wilkerson\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n MIKE TANNENBAUM:<\/strong> He was a guy that we had identified for a while. The thinking was that he is going to come in and give us definite versatility on the defensive line. (He is) 6\u20194\u201d, 315 (pounds). He had earned a single-digit at Temple, which means he had a very successful offseason. He\u2019s a local guy. It\u2019s interesting, I had a really good talk with Al Golden, who coached him at Temple. Al was at Virginia with D\u2019Brickashaw (Ferguson). I thought they had a lot of similar attributes in terms of work ethic and demeanor. I think he\u2019s one of those players that, in Rex\u2019s defense, is going to do whatever it takes to be successful. In building our team, something Rex and I talked about the last two years was we feel like depth at the defensive line position was something that was a concern. To get someone of his ability, we\u2019re really excited about that.<\/p>\n On how excited Coach Ryan was getting as he saw defensive players dropping in the round\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH RYAN:<\/strong> We definitely were excited about that. Really, with Muhammad being there, it\u2019s interesting, just watching the whole thing. I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh yeah! Turn it in, turn it in!\u2019 I\u2019m really excited to have him here. Obviously, there\u2019s a lot of good football players going to teams in front of you and behind you, but we think this young man is going to do some great things for us.<\/p>\n On where Wilkerson is projected in the defense\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH RYAN:<\/strong> I don\u2019t see him as a nose tackle, but I see where this young man can play defensive end in our system and tackle, as well. I see him as a possible three-down contributor for us, but we\u2019ll see. He\u2019s going to have to come in here and earn his reps and everything else. We think he\u2019s going to be an outstanding player for us.<\/p>\n On whether the level of competition in the Mid-American Conference was a cause for concern\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH RYAN: <\/strong>No, he went up against Penn State and all those other teams. You watch that game and you\u2019ll have no concerns.<\/p>\n On whether there was any temptation to trade up in the first round\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n MIKE TANNENBAUM:<\/strong> We just had some very cursory phone calls. We listened when we were on the clock, too. Really, when Muhammad was on the board, we were really excited about that opportunity. We made a few calls, but nothing really heated up.<\/p>\n On when they really started targeting Wilkerson\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n MIKE TANNENBAUM:<\/strong> Typically, anytime we make a pick, we wait until we\u2019re like five or six (picks) away and then we\u2019ll stack them. We\u2019ll discuss it and then we\u2019ll (play) devil\u2019s advocate off of that. We\u2019ll look at it, always wait for the phone to ring, and then go from there. We kind of have the same procedure anytime we make a pick.<\/p>\n On whether Da\u2019Quan Bowers was in the conversation at any time\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n COACH RYAN:<\/strong> I think, number one, he is an outstanding player. I think Muhammad really (fits) what we want to do defensively. (He is) a guy that can play head-up on a tackle and kick back in passing situations over guards and centers and things like that. Really, he is an outstanding fit for what we do defensively.<\/p>\n On what Wilkerson can do for the team\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n JOEY CLINKSCALES:<\/strong> Muhammad is great. He\u2019s athletic, and a guy like coach (Ryan) said, he can play a couple of positions. He had nine-and-a-half sacks this year and I think 17.5 for his career. He\u2019s strong inside and has great hands. We had brought him in on our local day for the workout and he performed well. We were excited to get Muhammad.<\/p>\n On if the team was looking at Phil Taylor\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n MIKE TANNENBAUM:<\/strong> I think he\u2019s going to be a really good player (and was a) good pick for Cleveland. They moved around a little bit. He should play for a long time. I think he\u2019ll do a good job.<\/p>\n On if the team wanted to pick a defensive player\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n REX RYAN:<\/strong> We traded for (Antonio) Cromartie last year and used our first-round pick on Kyle Wilson. It was funny, the defensive coaches all came up before the draft and said, \u201cYou\u2019ve had seven picks since you\u2019ve been the head coach here and (you\u2019ve only picked) one defensive player.\u201d Now we have two and we are excited about that.<\/p>\n On what gave Wilkerson the edge over other talented players\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n REX RYAN:<\/strong> We have been really fortunate the past couple of years. Our depth has been dwindling a little bit on our defensive line. This is going to be a young man that I think can really help us, come in and play tackle or inside. He was an excellent player in college and I think he has more to give. I\u2019m just excited to see this guy. We\u2019re going to push him and coach him to play the way we play. To play like a Jet. I think the Temple Owls were well coached and they play hard. I don\u2019t think it will be that big of a transition for him as far as the effort it takes. We are going to push him.<\/p>\n On if Wilkerson\u2019s pass rushing was a factor\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n REX RYAN:<\/strong> You love to have a pass rusher whether it comes from the outside or inside. This young man can certainly do it. Mike (Tannenbaum and Joey Clinkscales) already talked about his pass rush numbers. I think he had nine-and-a-half sacks this year so obviously he has a lot of production. You look at that as an interior pass rusher and that is hard to do. Clearly, we\u2019re excited about it. He has a huge wing span. I think his arms are 35 \u00bc inches long. That\u2019s up there. That\u2019s D\u2019Brickashaw (Ferguson) type arms. We\u2019re excited about that. From an inside pass rusher, that\u2019s really what you look for. We compared him to a young Trevor Pryce when he came out of Clemson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum and head coach Rex Ryan addressed the media following their selection of Muhammad Wilkerson.\u00a0 Here is the transcript courtesy of the Jets. On rationale for selecting Muhammad Wilkerson\u2026 MIKE TANNENBAUM: He was a guy that we had identified for a while. The thinking was that he is going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,488],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-nfl-draft","7":"category-jets-press-conference"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-23F","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7915"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8628,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7915\/revisions\/8628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}