Berry was pretty open discussing how he views the pass catchers on the roster... Been surprising to hear Berry and Stefanski talk up Goodwin the way they have.. I have a feeling Grant may be on the outside looking in based off the Goodwin + Moore additions..
AB on Akins---
"We actually thought he was an impact receiver for Houston this past year,” Berry said Sunday at the NFL Annual Meeting here. “We thought he fit really nicely into the F-role in our offense and could really be a playmaking weapon for us. Now, as a standard, if we’re going to sign a player and we have a veteran on our team that’s been with them and we’re doing kind of our background from a locker room standpoint, we’ll ask the player. It’s like a nice synergy, but that actually had nothing to do with Deshaun.”
AB on Moore---
“We feel very good about Elijah,” Berry said Sunday afternoon at the NFL Annual Meeting at the Arizona Biltmore Resort. “Loves ball, hard worker. He’s a good teammate. This is a guy that despite some of the ups and downs in New York, and obviously we have a really good relationship with that organization, but we feel good about who Elijah is bringing him into our building and think he’s going to do well there.”
Stefanski on Moore---
“I know a lot of players that are his size kind of get, ‘OK, he must be a slot,’ ” Stefanski said. “He’s won plenty on the outside as well. He’s the type of player you would just want to get the ball in his hands. And I think if you go back to his college tape, there’s a ton of down-the-field throws. There’s opportunities to hand it to him, throw it to him over the middle, throw it to him outside him. I just think there’s no shortage of ways that you want to get him the football.”
AB on Moore & Goodwin---
“Particular to Elijah and Marquise, they really do have maybe different strengths, although maybe people look at it on face value saying, ‘Hey, here are these undersized guys that ran really well coming out,’” Berry said.
“Their games are a little bit different. Elijah’s a little bit more of your inside-outside separator. Really good hands, really good route runner. Marquise, despite his age, he’s still one of the fastest players on the perimeter in football. So, not to typecast either of them, but we really do see them as having perhaps maybe a little bit of different function in the offense when we get to the fall.”
Stefanski on Goodwin--
“With those three guys you mentioned, I think Marquise brings a veteran element to our room, brings certainly speed,” Stefanski said. “He’s made a lot of plays in his career. He’s made a lot of big plays in his career. A bunch of long-yardage touchdowns and another guy that, you know, you’re just trying to get these guys the ball doing what they do best. And Marquise is a guy that we’re excited about, just, he gets off the bus and the DBs are aware of his speed.
AB on pass catchers---
“We look at the receiver room as having good healthy competition,” he said. “All of those guys have different skill sets. Like Mike is probably more of your size, classical X separator, probably if I could maybe pair them with a vet, a little bit more like Amari (Cooper) in terms of skillset. Anthony’s a little bit more like Marquise with his ability to really stretch the field vertically.
“And then David, I’ve used this comparison before. His skillset is more in line with Jarvis when he was here where he’s a guy that has good size, strength, catches the ball really well, may not be the fastest, but he’s smooth. He’s a good route runner. So the way we’ll go about looking at the receiver room as we get the roster to 53 is making sure that we have the appropriate skillsets that allows Kevin and the offensive staff to call the game with enough flexibility in the passing game.”
AB on speed in the offense---
“Despite maybe how it’s looked at times, I love speed,” Berry said. “We love speed and I should say this, there’s probably no general manager or head coach that says they want to be slow on the perimeter necessarily. But when you have an opportunity to add a good player who can really stress the defense with his ability to run, that’s an opportunity that we’re always going to look to take advantage of.”
“Adding an element of deep, big play ability because of what we’ve seen Deshaun do in his past with that skillset in the receiver room — you can do it through the tight end room. David (Njoku) can stretch the field vertically, Jordan (Akins), who we added, he can stretch the field vertically, but having someone in the receiver room who can do that maybe a little bit more traditionally than Donovan (Peoples-Jones) or the way that Donovan and Amari do it is important. So that was really the focus.”
