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James Daniel RE Jesse James
James Daniel:We just drafted Jesse James, tight end from Penn State. He played a lot of football at Penn State. We had a good evaluation of him. We liked his talent. We like a lot of things about him. We feel like he is a young man who can come in and add something to the Pittsburgh Steelers this upcoming season.
Strengths?
He is a guy with great length. He's 6-7, 267 pounds. He has a natural strength and will be able to handle the line of scrimmage. He wasn't used a lot as a receiver. We can see some intermediate short catching on him, maybe a couple deep balls but he has good strength, good play strength to block the line of scrimmage. We feel good about his game.
Red zone threat?
I would think he would be a red zone threat. The guy is 6-7. He should be a red zone threat.
Re: Him becoming a Receiver
The evaluation I did on him, you see him catching balls and he made a couple of tough catches. It's a lot like what you do with other guys, you see them and when a guy hasn't been put in the situation it's hard to say that he is definitely going to be this or definitely going to be that. But you don't see anything that says he's not going to be a receiver. We are going to bring him in here and work and see if he is good in all phases of the game. He has enough talent to be good in all phases of the game.
Is he similar to Matt Spaeth?
I would say that they are similar because he has the kind of length that Matt Spaeth has. Matt is 6-8 and Jesse is 6-7 so the length is similar, and some of their game is similar and some of it is different.
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View photos of Pittsburgh Steelers 2015 5th Round Draft Pick, tight end Jesse James.
Since he is a local kid, what was his reaction when you were the guys that called him?**I think that he was excited. He was the guy that came out early. He probably thought that he would be getting that call sooner, so where he is right now, I think that he is happy to be getting a call. I think that he was glad that it was from the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he's happy to get any call at this point in the draft, I think.
Did you bring him in for a couple of visits or just one?You can bring them in for one and we brought him in for one visit, yes. We went down there for his pro day when he worked out at Penn State, so we've had some opportunities to get to know him a little bit.
