CARL PETERSON: “It’s been a busy second day with us selecting seven players. We also included two other players we acquired that we would consider part of this draft in Patrick Surtain, as a second round draft choice, and Carlos Hall, as a fifth round draft choice – our second of three fifth round draft choices that we had.

“Overall, I think it was a very productive weekend. From my view and in the past looking back to 2003, we had seven of our eight draft choices make it and the one that didn’t was picked up on our practice squad and then actually made our 53-man roster this year.

“In ‘04 we had six of our seven draft choices make it and the one that didn’t is now playing in Europe for us and is doing well: Jeris McIntyre, a wide receiver.

“In the nine draft choices in the last two days, my hope would be that five of those nine would make it and make us better. Then you add in Patrick Surtain and Carlos Hall. You can say it was very productive.

DICK VERMEIL: “Craphonso Thorpe was a guy who broke his leg at the end of his junior year. Prior to that he had been the 100-meter sprint champion. This guy can run. He ran on their conference winning 400-meter relay team as well. He can fly. He didn’t have the kind of year his senior year as he had his junior year, but by the end of the year he was healthy and ran a very, very fast 40, so we think he’s back to full speed. He’s a vertical field guy with very good hands. He’s a very solid fourth round pick. Had he not broken his leg at the end of his junior year he would have been a much higher pick, if you examine the polls at that time.

“James Grigsby is a very athletic, high energy linebacker who in his division played outstanding football. He’s sort of a charismatic kid, athletic guy who will bounce all over the field. We look to him to come in and possibly play a backup role and be an outstanding special teams player.

“Alphonso Hodge is a corner with great coverage skills, very highly rated as far as coverage skills. A lot of other attributes have to be improved if he is to be a starter. But just going into one-on-one coverage he thrives in that environment.”

“Will Svitek, the defensive lineman from Stanford, we brought in here and worked him out and converted him to an offensive tackle. It’s a project. It’s a project. It’ll be a challenge to have him ready to play within an offensive line by the time training camp ends. But we’re always looking to develop young offensive linemen and at his size at 6'6" and 300 pounds he is a man. He looks the part.

“Khari Long is a pass rushing talent type kid who still has all his football in front of him. His college football coach, Guy Morris, played for me for seven years in Philadelphia. He has a chance with his athleticism to develop into a pass rusher.

“James Kilian is a quarterback that Terry Shea worked out and we studied him on game tape and we liked him. We think of him as a practice squad guy to come here and learn the offense and develop. Then, heaven forbid, if there was an injury we would have someone prepared to be the third quarterback at that time on our roster. We haven’t done that in the past.

“Jeremy Parquet is a great big offensive tackle that played in the Super Bowl. He has some problems fundamentally and a ways to go, but he has great big long arms and great big hands and can run for a big man. He’s a great project and Mike Solari has had very good luck in his career developing these big guys. For a seventh round pick we thought it was a good try.”