Eric DeCosta says coaching search impacted draft prep time

Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta said Baltimore's coaching search earlier this offseason affected his time spent on draft preparation, but noted he has since caught up, crediting the organization's player personnel staff for helping bring new coaches up to speed on the team's evaluation process.

DeCosta explained that while the adjustment required some extra time on his end, much of the coaching staff onboarding was handled internally by the personnel department, as the two sides aligned on how Baltimore builds its draft board.

"That's a good question. I wouldn't say that, necessarily, we're going to rely on the scouts more. I do think that me, personally, I had some ground to make up given the coaching search and other things. I did lose some, probably, man hours myself in terms of looking at players. So, I've caught up, but it took me some weekends and some different things. I think one of the things we probably had to do maybe a little bit more is just kind of instruct the coaches as to the way we do things, right? The grading scale, what that means, or the deadlines, what the combine's going to entail, what the interview process is going to look like. That's probably a one-year thing, generally speaking. I think [director of player personnel] Mark Azevedo, [vice president of player personnel] George Kokinis [and director of college scouting] Andrew Raphael did a really good job visiting with the coaches, kind of one on one, talking about the way that we might do things, the schedule, the calendar, those types of things. But as far as just generally speaking, I think our coaches know how to evaluate, whether that's the college level, the pro level, combination of both. I really value their expertise and their enthusiasm. That's one thing that I feel this year with our guys – with our coaches and our scouts – there's a lot of enthusiasm for the process this year, and that's exciting."

For Baltimore, DeCosta framed it as a temporary adjustment period as the coaching staff settles into the existing scouting structure heading into the draft.

This article originally appeared on Ravens Wire: Ravens GM Eric DeCosta details NFL draft prep after coaching search