A couple of things that stood out from the Redskins predraft press conference today and the group interview that followed with coach Jim Zorn.

* Personnel boss Vinny Cerrato said Clemson defensive end Phillip Merling will work out for teams next Thursday in South Carolina. Merling underwent sports hernia surgery last month. Cerrato said teams cannot bring prospects to their facilities the week before the draft. "We'll get a chance to see him do some drills and evaluate him at that time," Cerrato said.

* Cerrato said a "long list of guys" have been removed from the Redskins draft board because of character issues. "That hasn't changed," he said. "The thing we've learned and Jim has also said, you win with quality people and we have an outstanding locker room. We don't want to bring a bad guy into a good locker room." Cerrato would not comment on whether Michigan WR Mario Manningham or Kansas CB Aqib Talib were on the draft board. Both players admitted at the NFL Combine of using marijuana in college.

* The Redskins gave draft-able grades to 150 players, up from 109 last year.

* Zorn on playing three NFC East road games in the first five weeks: "We want to start fast. I can't predict that with the team yet because I'm getting to know the players, the systems and how we'll pull together. I hope I don't overstep my words with my hopes by going, ‘Yeah, we're going to be great.' I don't know that. I'm hoping we excel to greatness and with the road games, we have to start fast and it's a great challenge. We do have away games in the preseason and that will help us."

* Zorn on Jason Campbell's red zone interceptions: "In the red zone, things happen much faster and there are split second decisions. What I've got to do and haven't taken the opportunity yet is go through those with him one by one. I would be assuming something. I can't say he made a poor decision because I don't know the play and the philosophy behind it. But I do know it's wild fire in the red zone and you have to be fast, be rhythmic and the decision making from a touchdown to a pick is really small."

* Zorn on the running game: "One thing that's evident is that the running attacks Joe [Bugel], Stump [Mitchell] and Sherman [Smith] are putting together are sound. We were sound in Seattle and we're using the terminology [Redskins] players would recognize last year in the run game. We can start faster in the run game than we probably will in the passing game because there will be more familiarity."

- Ryan O'Halloran