After three days worth of selections, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers feel they have emerged from the 2011 NFL Draft with a plethora of talent on the defensive side of the ball. General manager Mark Dominik and head coach Raheem Morris spoke with the local media following the draft to recap the 2011 Draft class, focusing on the picks in rounds 4-7.

(Dominik’s opening statement)
“We just got through what I think is another successful draft for this organization. We added a lot of quality character to this football team, a lot of leaders, a lot of captains, and a lot of production from schools that we felt really could produce good players. We’re really excited about this draft class and for all the right reasons. I feel that we have a way to attack the quarterback. I think we’ve got some more weapons for Freeman and I think we’ve improved the quality of this team again, specifically on fourth down and special teams.”

(Dominik on moving up 12 spots in the fourth round to select TE Luke Stocker)
“We felt like he was certainly one of the best players left on the board. We felt like he was the best tight end left on the board at that time. Certainly there were some good tight ends that went in that round. I think three or four tight ends went at the end of the fourth round. He was a guy that we targeted last night. He was a guy that’s always been on our radar and in a good spot on my board in terms of where we thought the value was. For us it made sense to get a guy like that. He’s got great size, he’s a great worker, he can play special teams, and he catches the ball very well. He’s also a good in-line blocker and so for that point he really compliments what Kellen Winslow does. He’ll be a big asset to our football team and he’s a great guy off the field. I think that’s the one thing we really stressed in this draft again, which is building a team that this town falls in love with. As this town gets to meet this group of draft class members, I think they’re going to do that.”

(Dominik on six out of the eight players the team drafted being captains)
“Six out of eight of our guys are captains. The other two guys, I think, could be captains with their character if you got to know them. I feel really good about that. No, it’s not a requirement [to draft captains], but it is important to us. We look at that as a level of respect within a university, certainly within his team and certainly within the coaching staff. Anybody that’s got that kind of mentality and anybody that’s got that kind of tag to him deserves an extra bit of scrutiny in the right way.”

(Dominik on seventh round selection TE Daniel Hardy)
“He’s a productive player out of Idaho that really can run well. He ran in the 4.7’s. He’s got good hands, but he’s got a combination of good blocking skills and a thick lower body. For me, tight end is a spot where you need to play special teams. We also felt that he was a very productive special teams player and will be one at the next level. So there are a lot of traits that he has. He’s one of those guys that has over 80 catches and over 1,000 yards receiving at Idaho and we felt like he’s a guy that can come in here and fight for the number three spot [at tight end] and continue to work himself up to become a quality backup at the start and see where the ceiling is for him. The floor is his special teams ability and that he’s versatile in both the run and the passing game.”

(Dominik on the tight end position)
“We have depth at the position. [Nathan] Overbay obviously came to our team towards the middle of last year. [Ryan] Purvis has been one of those guys that has been on our practice squad for a couple of years and made it up to the 53 [man roster] last year and got to play a little bit. Again, I want to challenge this roster to be as good as it can be. If that’s adding two tight ends to really push Purvis and push Overbay than they understand. We’re going to continually make this a hard team to make and I think we did that today, making this a hard football team to make now.”

(Dominik if the team is able to talk to undrafted players and sell them on coming to the Bucs)
“No, there’s no communication going on upstairs between undrafted free agents and our coaching staff or our scouts whatsoever. We’re going to follow the rules that are in place and we’ll take advantage of the second draft when that day comes. We’ll certainly handle our business the way we’re going to handle it internally in terms of following whatever rules the league directs.”

(Dominik on if contact with draft picks cuts off when the draft ends)
“Yes, once the draft ends here shortly that will be the last time we’re speaking with these young men for now.”

(Dominik on fifth-round pick Ahmad Black)
“Ahmad should be a popular player within our Buccaneer family, certainly in the Tampa community. His parents are from Lakeland. He’s a captain and he’s a productive player. He’s a great kid on and off the field. He had a very big game in the bowl game also, so he’s always produced. He’s always been able to battle above some of the limitations that people have always thought he had. For him to be there in the fifth round, that’s the kind of guy we want to bring on this football team. What’s refreshing is when they get on the phone with coach [Morris], they are so excited. You won’t know if they were taken in the first or seventh round. They’re so happy to be part of this football team. I appreciate that these young men are excited about being members of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and I think they all believe in what’s going on here as well. Ahmad Black was one of the loudest ones on the phone today.”

(Dominik on if Ahmad Black is a candidate to replace Ronde Barber due to similar instincts)
“I’m going to leave that question more for coach Morris. He’s got those kind of traits as far as being an instinctive football player. He has obviously over 10 turnovers in college, so he’s got all those traits, short area quickness all those things that made Ronde such a special player. I hope he works as hard as Ronde does. I believe he will. I think he has that type of mind and personality to put all he can on to the football field. Again another beautiful thing about Ahmad is he can play some corner. We know he can play some safety, but he also is going to help a lot on special teams for this football team which is important to me.”

(Dominik on selecting USC running back Allen Bradford)
“We like big backs. I told you guys last year I went big back hunting. We went out and we got Kregg Lumpkin and LeGarrette Blount. We went big back hunting again today and we brought home another one that we are really fired up about. This guy has got great strength and great power, and for us in this National Football League it has become a big man’s game, and we are going to bring big backs at other opponents and we’re going to do that here.”

(Dominik on if the organization has had internal discussions about Aqib Talib)
“I think right now as that matter is back under sealed oath with the league office rules and everything, we obviously will handle that matter when it is deemed necessary.”

(Morris opening statement regarding the draft)
“Obviously I’m excited from a head coach standpoint, from a fan’s standpoint, and from a overall general feel of the draft. To do what we did on the first day in picking up a right end like Clayborn, and to do what we did on the second day getting another complimentary type guy that could’ve been a first-rounder with the first pick in the draft, and on and on and on. Mark continued to push the envelope. The nervous head coach sat there and he wants to go up there and get guys and Mark and his staff was right on the details of where they should go, where they could, and try and wait until the last minute to take some of those guys. When you get a Luke Stocker in the fourth round, you can easily give him the grade of a second-round pick. Arguably a first-round pick, late first, that’s a phenomenal day. It is a phenomenal job by our scouting department. With that I’ll open it up to questions.”

(Morris on Ahmad Black)
“Ahmad Black is one of those guys that once you meet him you fall in love with him. You watch his tape, you see the ball skills, and you see all those things he’s able to do. He is a safety that has ability to go inside and play corner, some of the things we’ve been getting into here lately with Cody [Grimm] and Ronde Barber and some of their flop stuff. Some of the stuff you see with Tanard Jackson when he was playing, some of those different options that you are able to do with him. He provides a lot of fun and a lot of excitement, really similar to a guy like Cody. Really similar to a guy like Tanard. A hybrid athlete that can do a bunch of multiple things because of their instincts and there awareness, I’d probably compare him more to those guys than Ronde, just because of how similar some of their traits are and things they can do for us on the defense and across the board and especially on special teams like Mark mentioned.”

(Morris on Anthony Gaitor)
“Well Gaitor man if you guys could’ve been on the phone call to call him right there, I thought we had another first round selection, and with him and his family. I thought it was the first pick in the draft. Like Von Miller, the second pick in the draft coming out with the emotion, the excitement, bringing that guy into our building he was electric. I asked him what round his agent was telling him he was going in. He said I don’t care I just want to come here coach. He showed me that when we called him on the phone today. It makes you more excited when you get off the phone and you go back to Mark and you tell him the reaction when you call these guys. That’s the kind of player I think you are going to get.”

(Morris on running two tight end sets with Kellen Winslow and Luke Stocker)
“The thing with Kellen and Jerramy [Stevens] it was kind of hard to do because then you are predictable. Hey look at us we are throwing the ball because you don’t want to necessarily run behind either one of the guys. You do it every once in a while. Kellen is capable of getting out there and doing it every once in a while. That is not necessarily an envelope we are going to live by and push, so having a guy like Stocker who has more of an in line ability. Have more of a stout guy to be on the point. Kellen can do more of the be on the move stuff, and also go over there and run power with those guys and do some things it is very exciting. Then you also add a late guy like Daniel Hardy that can come in and add some athleticism like Kellen, and also play special teams. Get out there and compete with [Ryan] Purvis and compete with [Nathan] Overbay. As these guys all do. A really exciting room for these tight ends. It is a very hard personal group to defend. A la the Saints. If they are in 11 personal groupings they can look like 21 personal groupings. Their 22 personal groupings because of their ability to do those things. That’s why offenses generally like them and generally like tight ends so we are going to go out there and get the best ones that we can get.”

(Morris on why the Bucs didn’t draft any offensive linemen)
“Last year, I think Mark did a great job of going out there and finding some secret gems for us. Last year, we saw the ability that we had from [James] Lee to go out there and be able to play productive [football]. We’ve seen the ability from [Jeremy] Trueblood to play productive [football] and go out there and win football games for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We added a bunch of inside guys – the [Derek] Hardmans, the [Brandon] Carters – the guys that we got to see play a little bit down the stretch. We got a chance to go see [Ted] Larsen go out there and be a full-time starter. We got a chance to go out there and see Davin Joseph and these guys throughout the years. We are getting [Jeff] Faine back. We felt like we have some draft picks coming back on our football team that we lost due to injury. We felt pretty good then. With the way it fell, we got special players at special needs that we really desired and really liked to fall.”

(Morris on what it’s going to be like without a rookie mini-camp to get the draft picks up to speed with the playbook)
“It’s like I told ESPN, we are all going to start with the same rules. And if we all start with the same rules whatever that ruling is when the NFL decides to rule on that it’s going to be an equal playing field. Then we’ll get these guys ready as quickly as we can. As you guys know we had the Rosetta teaching style last year and it will be no different this year when these guys come into our programs.”

(Morris on whether the defensive-oriented draft was an example of Morris exerting his influence on the drafting process)
“No way. It’s the fact that you kept telling everybody in the league I was 32nd against the rush. You kept saying it over and over every week. No, I’m just kidding. It’s just where we are as an organization. We talk about getting bigger and we talk about being like the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers with the homegrown football team that continually competes for championships. They do. They draft well. They draft big people. They grow up together and they win championships. Hopefully we can get them to do that.”

On what made the Bucs decide to become a big-back football team
“When you have to tackle Jonathan Stewart every week and you have Mark Ingram now coming into our division and you have to tackle Pierre Thomas. You have to tackle all these giant guys coming into your league. You have to tackle the guy (Michael Turner) in Atlanta. They come to your league and it’s a tough deal. To watch [LeGarrette] Blount go for 1,000 yards being a bigger guy, a more physical, structurally thick guy. It’s a big man’s league. We started doing it last year. We’ve become big-back collectors – big backs that are athletic. It’s fun to go get those guys.”

(Morris on whether Allen Bradford could work into a rotation and take some of the pressure of Blount)
“I was kidding Mark but I said I was just as excited about Bradford as I was Bowers. It’s kind of that same kind of feel. We got a guy that we got late that could come in and be productive for us. He’s from that ‘I’m from the bottom’ mentality. He wasn’t a full-time starter at USC. He was very productive when he did play. He played on special teams and was very productive there. From what we hear from all our research, he took everything the right way and was able to fight back and still become a draft pick. He’s from a tough background and he’s kind of who we’re made of and what we’re about. Those kind of these are good. To answer your question, yes. He’ll get some good carries and some snaps.”