Rick Smith And Gary Kubiak Talk About The Texans' 2012 Draft

Courtesy of the official site, here's a link to the transcript. A few of the more interesting nuggets are below.

Rick Smith:

(on why they chose to go with K Randy Bullock over other kickers) "I’ll speak first and then let Gary talk. We had him rated as the top guy of the group. First of all, he’s a very talented young man. That’s apparent and he has a very strong leg. He’s had some success kicking at A&M, again, big school, big competition. I like his mental makeup. I like what he represents. I like his mental framework. I think that’s a very important characteristic for a kicker. Just talking to the young man and interviewing him and watching him, he was able to come over to our local workout and every chance we interacted with him, we felt mo re and more comfortable with him as the top guy. I think all three of those guys are very talented, but I’m glad that we were able to get the pick of the litter and get the guy that we wanted. We feel like he’ll be the better of the bunch."

(on WR DeVier Posey and why they feel comfortable with him despite his past issues) “Number one, I think that he’s a quality young man. He did get caught up in the situation. He made a mistake. One of the things that was impressive to me is I thought he took a difficult set of circumstances and handled it about as well as he could. In that, what I mean by that was in his suspension, he continued to go to practice and continued to be a good teammate. He continued to be a leader on that football team in the capacity that he was capable of doing not playing. That plus all of the research that we had done on him—and he’s a talented football player. He’s got a skill set, he’s good size. He has good speed. He’s a very good route runner, good hands. He’s got range around his body and a catching radius that we like. We think he’s going to be a good player for us. We’ve talked often about the fact that we won’t penalize a guy for making a mistake. If it’s not repeated behavior and it’s not a decision where we think a guy has done something so egregious that we won’t even consider him. If a guy makes a mistake, we’ll give a guy a second chance. We certainly think that this young man is a quality guy, is a hard worker. I think you’ll see that and he’s a good football player.

(on if drafting Keshawn Martin means Jacoby Jones won’t be returning anymore and a possible change of scenery coming) “No, I think there were reports out there that we were attempting to trade Jacoby. Jacoby is still on our football team. We did not trade Jacoby. You’re always entertaining any kind of phone calls that you have over the course of a draft. We do our due diligence that way, but he’s still on our team. It does not signal the end of anything at this point. What we were trying to do is add quality football players.”

(on how well their strategy played out during the fourth round and specifically regarding DE Jared Crick) “Again, we talked about being open. We contemplated moving. We were just pleased. First of all, I hadn’t had a chance to say how pleased we were that Whitney (Mercilus) was there in the first round. We had talked about maybe possibly even moving up in the first round as he continued to fall. There were a couple of other players that we had ranked fairly high, so we were active the entire draft. It just felt like sitting there in the second round that if we backed up a little bit, we had a number of players that we felt good about and felt like if we were to back up and maybe pick up some extra picks, maybe we could do what we ended up doing. So we moved obviously back out of the second and picked up the third and I think another fourth. I liked that, the young man that you mention, I liked that pick because if you look at him last year, obviously he was limited because of the injury, but this guy was a productive football player early in his career. He wasn’t as productive prior to the injury last year, but again Gary (Kubiak) kind of touched on it. You look at this group of football players, and it’s a continuation of sorts from last year. What we targeted last year were guys that we wanted that played hard, that were passionate about the game of football, that it’s important to them, that were good guys. This group, and particularly that young man, these guys play hard, and it’s important to them. I think you’ll see that he’ll come in, and he’ll fit right in with that group of players.”

(on who to look out for this season) “I think the young man that we talked about from Nebraska (Jared Crick) might be one for me. I think he’ll come in and get into a rotation, and I think he’s a hard-nosed football player. He plays hard. Football is important to him, and I think you’ll see him fit right in with our group and contribute to our team. I’d look for him.”

Gary Kubiak:

(on DeVier Posey) “One of the things about Indianapolis, what I think is one of the greatest things about the Combine, is getting the chance to sit down and visit with these kids face-to-face. When he came in our room, obviously we’re going through his situation and he was very forthright about everything that had taken place. He told us exactly what he went through. The fact that he sat there and practice every day throughout the course of the season when he knew he couldn’t play, he got himself ready to play in his all-star game and played very well in that game. He has his degree. There are just so many positives about the kid. Obviously, he made a mistake. He wants to move on and he’s got an excellent opportunity with his career. I felt very good about him after doing all of our research and watching him play the game the year before. I just think this guy is going to fit in with our players and he has a tremendous amount of upside. Andre (Johnson) spoke to him today. We had Andre come by and have lunch with him today. I think he’s got a big-time upside and can help us real quick.”

(on if it is tough to overcome the idea of having a rookie as a kicker) “No, not really. You’ve got to listen to (special teams coordinator) Joe (Marciano); he’s been doing this a long time. He had a lot of confidence in a couple of the kickers that were in this draft. I think the thing that really sold us on Randy (Bullock) and Rick (Smith) briefly mentioned this, the in-town workouts, our local workouts that we have here with the players, he benefited from that very much. He walked in here in front of our whole staff, all of our coaches, all our scouts and he put on a show that day. He was tremendous. He’s kicked in a big environment, week in and week out. We like his maturity when we visit with him and Joe has a lot of confidence in him. Yeah, you’re going with a young guy, but we’ve got a lot of confidence moving forward and we think this young man has a lot of confidence. I think that helped us a great deal.”

(on Whitney Mercilus) “Yeah, he’s very sharp. We think he can play a lot of places for us. Obviously, he’s outside. He can put his hand down on third down. We all know what he did from a sack standpoint, but he also forced nine or 10 fumbles last year. He just finds a way to make big plays. Very sharp, young man, plays a great effort. We think he’s just touched the surface. People talk about him being a one-year player, but we think it’s just the first year of many great ones to come.”

(on who to look out for this season) “I would go to Ben Jones. I’m just really excited about this young man. He’s got 49 starts in the SEC. Heck of a football player, plays a great effort. He’s going to give us a lot of versatility going into game day when we’re suiting seven guys, that type of thing. I think he’s got a bright future, and I really like his football IQ, so I’m very excited about him. I think you’re going to see great things from him for a long time."