Opening statement:  “With our fourth round pick we’ve selected from UCLA Brandon Chillar, the linebacker.  Highly productive in his career out there.  He’s a tall guy, 6-4 to 6-5, rangy guy.  Can play all three positions, which is very important.  He’s an intelligent guy, downhill linebacker, but also has speed.  Somewhere along the line, somebody told him to gain a lot of weight after the season, I think he went from about 225 to 250, which wasn’t a good idea.  But he’s got his weight back down.  This is someone who Joe (Vitt) was very impressed with, and Larry (Marmie) and myself, and he’s kind of a guy that we’ve had our eye on in the draft, to be honest with you.  He fits what we do very well.  Again, he’s a guy that can play all three positions, he’s not isolated into being an inside backer or a middle backer, and that flexibility makes him very appealing to us.  He’s a highly productive player in the last three years.”

On what a good playing weight for Chillar would be:  “I don’t know.  I think probably in the 230 range more than likely.  For a guy his size, he has terrific speed.  You hear the term ‘downhill player’, but he really is.  He’s one of the more natural linebackers that we saw in this draft.  He’s very good in traffic.  He’s very instinctive at the position.” On where he played most often in college:  “Some of the tape that I looked that really impressed me was some inside stuff.  He’s a rangy guy that can play all three.  It’s a good pick.”

Linebackers Coach Joe Vitt

On Chillar’s weight gain:  “He had ballooned during the offseason.  What happened was that he reported for the East-West Shrine Game, and he played the season around 220.  He got up to about 225 during the season.  He got some misinformation from some people that he should be bigger to play in the league.  So he reported to the combine at 252.  He’s down to 240 now and when he reports he’ll be down to about 235.  This is an outstanding football player.  He makes a lot of plays.  He plays all three linebacker positions.  Very durable, very dependable, tremendous character, burning desire to make plays, and there are stretches in games where he dominates the game.”

More on weight gain:  “I think the worst thing you can do as a football coach is recommend what a guy be and what a weight is, and then there’s no guarantee you’re going to take this guy.  This guy is a very productive football player at a normal playing weight.  He can run, he can change directions.  He’s violent, he plays hard, is very smart, has a burning desire to play at this level, and he wants to be coached.”

On whether he’s an inside or outside guy:  “He’s a linebacker.  He played a lot of inside linebacker this year at UCLA.  We’ll take him right now and put him on the outside.  But he’s a linebacker, he can play all three positions.  He’s a taller kid that’s got a natural knee-bend, he dropped his weight, he’s good at the point of attack, gets off blocks, good tackler.  So we’re going to get him in here and see where he fits, but he’s going to fit.  He’s going to be an outstanding special teams player.”

On his coverage skills:  “Zone coverage, he’s fine.  He gets good depth on his zone blocks and can break well on the ball.  Man coverage, he’s got long arms, he can engage a back at the line of scrimmage and re-route him.  He has good balance, good awareness in the zones.  Again, this is a guy that from the third round on I was praying that we would get.  This guy’s going to fit now, I’m telling you.”

On whether his weight gain made him sluggish in his workout or now:  “No, that’s a great question.  At 250 in the workouts, he still was magnificent in his short area change of direction.  He was a little thicker-hipped, but he’s already lost 10 pounds.  He’s gotta work hard to get to 250.  He’s not going to have to work hard to get to 235, that’s what he is.  He did very well at the combine, comparable with the top times of the linebackers.   He’s a 4.6 (40-yard dash time) guy at 250, he’ll be better now.”