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COACH TOM COUGHLIN ON REGGIE BARLOW

³This morning we tried to solve some problems. We needed to do some things on the receiver/kickreturn side. We have a young man in Reggie Barlow who gives us that possibility. I¹m not going to tell you he¹s the most polished guy yet, but I think there¹s obviously an opportunity here with the size-speed guy. He¹s a guy who averaged 20 yards in punt returns his senior year, who averaged over 16 yards in receptions, who had 12 touchdowns as a junior, who had long punt return for a touchdown this particular season, who has good straight-line speed, is a guy who I believe has athleticism and can be polished into an outstanding receiver and return man. In this situation having traded down, having picked up the fifth-round pick (from Seattle) which we had maneuvered over into the top of this round. Prior to this, we feel like now we¹ve got an opportunity to pick up another pick in the draft and do something about a couple of our needs which basically are receiver and cornerback.

³I don¹t know how many people know about a lot about Reggie Barlow and I mentioned as we started this day off that there will be players taken in the draft today, in particular. You¹ll see some clubs accumulate a bunch of picks. You¹re going find a lot of guys taken for whom you really don¹t have a lot knowledge. It doesn¹t mean he¹s not a good football players, it just seems they do not have the notoriety. Some of this is the give-and-take where you had people at one end of the value falling to the opposite end and other people from the opposite end moving into the middle round. So I think you¹re going to see a lot of that today.²

(on Barlow being a better receiver or kick returner) ³I hope he¹s a combination. If he could ever duplicate that punt return average, I think we have ourselves a pretty good football player. I think he gives us the chance to take the speed and utilize him as best we can. He has some size about him, so he¹s going to be a guy, we hope, who has some durability.²

(on identifying needs) ³Corners, more wide receivers, that type of thing would be good. The foremost direction we would go, and I¹m not going to tell that every time we pick there isn¹t a tremendous tug for value. I talked to (New England¹s Bill) Parcells this morning. They were trying to come up to get ahead of us to take Tony Brackens. That type of situation is always going to dominate your pick. YouŒre not ever going to pass for a need on a player of that quality. But we¹ve got to solve some needs.²

(on good picks in the late rounds) ³Don¹t forget that Marcus Price and Curtis Marsh came out of this end of the draft a year ago, so there are certainly quality players that a lot of people don¹t have knowledge about that come out of this end of the draft who do make a sizable contribution to your team. And when you have the needs that we all have, you have to go about the business of trying to solve those needs.²

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