The Leading Authority of the NFL Draft

Again, it was another pretty exciting day for us. There were a lot of phone conversations going on with our second overall pick in this round. Chris Cook knew that hopefully he was going to be there and that was one of the reasons we did the trade as well last night, taking a shot that Chris would still be there. As we went down through the draft, as this round continued, we got pretty aggressive and used our third round pick to come up and get Toby Gerhart. Both those players, we are very excited to get and I thought we’ve helped our roster a lot today.

Q: So you thought that highly of Toby to use that third round pick to move up?

A: Yes. Again, it gives you some flexibility. At the bottom, where we’re picking in the third round and where we’re picking in the fourth round tomorrow, there wasn’t that much difference in picks. So, it gave us some flexibility that if there was a guy there that you really targeted, that we can go ahead and be aggressive to go get. We felt that was a very important position to go get, since we lost Chester Taylor.

Q: Is Chris Cook a guy you spent a lot of time with before the draft?

A: Yes. We saw him during the year. We saw him and visited with him down at the Senior Bowl. We spent some time with him down at the Combine and then Coach (Leslie) Frazier went out and actually spent some time with him this spring and made a home visit.

Q: Is Cook a pure cornerback or can he switch positions?

A: He has some versatility and I know some teams can look at him as a potential safety. I think we see it as something different than what we have. I mean, he’s a 6’2” corner that can run and has vertical jump and very good ball skills. That he can probably get up and play press. One of the things, again, is getting on the same page as the coaches on what specific skill set you’re looking for at the position and then we can go (get) those type of players, what they’re describing to us. With us working with the coaches and as the coaches come in and start talking about these players after they spent time with them and when Brad Childress comes in and talks about these players, then we can put everything all together to kind of target guys that actually fit what we and potentially where we can pick those guys in the draft.

Q: You don't see him as a safety at all, but as a corner?

A: Right. As an outside corner is what we are looking at him as.

Q: What does Toby do that could help you replace what Chester Taylor did?

A: Chester and him are a little different style runners. Toby is a bigger runner. He has excellent in-line quickness for a big back. What we describe as an inside zone runner and most of our offense is predicated on inside zones, as Coach Childress has explained. He does have very good hands out of the backfield. He’s a big back that can stand there in pass protection. I always felt and believed that you have to have two backs in this league. One back, regardless of how great that back is, to take a 16-game pounding, plus hopefully into the playoffs, just wears and tears on the body. Everywhere I’ve been, we’ve always had two pretty good backs. We had it down in Miami and we’ve always had it here. It was very fortunate that they had picked Chester up before I got here. Now this gives us another big back to go along with some of the other guys we have.

Q: Can he play fullback?

A: Again, I’ll let the coaches address that and how they’re going to use him. I don’t want to get into how they use him. But we see him as a tailback. We didn’t draft him there to be a fullback.

Q: How long had a focus been on him and when did you realize you'd have to trade up to get him?

A: I knew as we game-planned and go through our needs and I knew Houston was looking for a runner and also a corner. They almost had some identical needs that we had. And when they took the corner, Kareem Jackson, yesterday, then you figured that if they had the opportunity to take a runner that they were going to take a running back. I’m just speculating that. That’s just us trying to speculate on potentially what can happen. So we actually called teams before Houston’s pick and then kept working down and were able to make the trade with Houston.

Q: How many calls do you think you got for your first pick today?

A: I would say we fielded about five, six or seven calls. Just different things and again, more of a feeling-out process.

Q: Did you have Chris projected as a mid-second round pick, did you have him higher than that? Was there ever a temptation to try and trade back to get him?

A: I think that when you look at what was behind us and potential teams that needed corners, that were you willing to take that risk and potentially move back and pick up some more picks and not get a player that you wanted to take? So, we felt very strongly that when we were there, when we made the move last night to sit there, and if our guy was going to be there, then we were going to go ahead and sit there unless it was something that was too good to pass up in the trade value.

Q:  How quickly did those four players said you had on your board last night go today?

A: I’ll just tell you, they are long gone.

Q: You had your eye on Chris Cook for awhile, but what questions did you have about him?

A: I think this is another young kid that can come in and improve the strength. All these kids, they come in, Tom Kanavy, our strength coach, and his staff do an excellent job conditioning and strengthening these guys. He just has some rare traits from a physical ability, along with the long arms, when he gets up and presses at the line of scrimmage. Just showing the things that he showed at the Senior Bowl, and we felt that he was one of the better cornerbacks down at the Senior Bowl and there were a lot of good cornerbacks down at the Senior Bowl. In fact, all of those guys were all in the mix for us. There was very little separation in our minds between all those corners. That’s where the depth of the draft, we felt, was going to be. And that’s where it ended up happening.

Q: Did you feel that if things didn't work out with LaDainian Tomlinson during free agency that things would work in the draft?

A: I knew what was coming out in the draft and I knew the potential runners that could be available to us. So, again, if something does not work out in free agency, I have a pretty extensive chart that tells you where free agency strengths and weaknesses are, the trades and strengths and weaknesses in the draft. So, you make a run at one. You don’t have to panic because potentially you can get something down the road in the draft.

Q: Is this a pretty imposing backfield for you now?

A: I think it fits what Coach Childress and Coach Darrell Bevell, and the style of offense they want to establish?

Q: Did the offensive coaches look for more to spell Adrian Peterson on 1st and 2nd down?

A: I’d rather have Brad (Childress) get into that with you guys. He fits the scheme and fits what we were looking for as far as the inside zone run scheme. He didn’t catch a lot of balls in college but he did a great job catching balls when you watch his workouts and you watched him at the Combine?

Q:  As Jimmy Clausen slid, was there ever a temptation on your part to try and get him?

A: I’m going to try and stick and deal with what we’ve taken and the two players we’ve got.

Q: Any discussion about taking a quarterback at pick No. 34?

A: I’ll stick to the two players that we took and stay there.

Q: With Chris Cook, did you have to do a lot of academic and injury investigating?

A: We felt very comfortable after we went through why he was academically ineligible. We went through his whole career. That’s why Leslie Frazier went down and spent some time with the coaches down there, spent some time with the kid, just to make sure we had a real good feel for him. When Leslie came back from the trip, he felt very positive about the kid.

Q:  Any scenarios to trade later in draft to get a pick in the third?

A: Right now I don’t know if that’s likely just because a lot of our picks, we have that one high pick, which I think has great value tomorrow, but everything else is so low that there’s not a lot of ammo to come back in. I doubt it, but stay tuned. Who knows? A lot of things happen.