Q. How confident are you that QB Tua Tagovailoa is your long-term franchise quarterback and can you rule out taking a quarterback in the first round this year?
Chris Grier: Tua, we’re very happy with. He’s our starting quarterback. He did a nice job this year coming in as a rookie with no offseason and the challenges of dealing with all that. Very happy with him and looking forward to watching him progress here over the next — with an offseason here — going into next year. And for us, we’re not really talking about draft strategy or anything right now. The season just ended and we’re just going through our process like we do all the time and we’ll deal with that here in the future.
Q. After drafting QB Tua Tagovailoa, the convo turned to his recovery, getting him to a year after the injury and getting some experience this season. How do you think that process worked out with him and how important do you think it is that he came out of this season healthy as well?
Chris Grier: I think Tua and our training staff — both groups that work very hard in terms of getting themselves ready and prepared — as you talked about the challenges of last offseason. So I thought Tua did a great job with getting himself working through the whole process and then (Head Athletic Trainer) Kyle (Johnston), the training staff, (Head Strength & Conditioning) Dave Puloka, and even Brian (Flores) dealing with the laying out a plan for bringing him along and when he was ready, he was ready to go and he did a nice job of working himself throughout the season.
Q. Do you feel a need to add a dynamic playmaking receiver?
Chris Grier: We always talk about — Brian (Flores) and I, (Vice President of Football Administration) Brandon (Shore) and the scouts and coaches — competition makes everyone better, and we always talk about upgrading the roster in all areas. There’s places that we want to upgrade at all parts of the roster and obviously having playmakers on offense and defense is what the great teams have and we’ll keep doing that here in trying to address issues on both sides of the ball.
Q. Piggybacking on that question, if your desire is to add competition and upgrade at all positions, is quarterback part of that calculus?
Chris Grier: Yeah, it’s every position. Like I said, it makes everyone great. History has shown it doesn’t matter who it is; you’re always looking to bring in guys that fit your system and that will push people and make them better, and so competition at every position. We talked about that last year when we were going through it. It’s competition at every position, so yeah. But I also want to be clear that Tua is our starter and we’re very happy with his development so far.
Q. I wanted to ask about DE Emmanuel Ogbah specifically and how satisfied you were with his production. Also a two-parter, if you will: How does his emergence and a guy like LB Andrew Van Ginkel on the edges, how does that development approach how you might deal with a guy like LB Vince Biegel, who’s in a contract year who ended up missing the whole season? How do you fit those pieces together heading into the offseason?
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