By Plain Dealer wire services

April 23, 2010, 1:12AM

View full sizeJames Crisp / APCornerback Joe Haden.

(On how he is feeling right now) -- "I am just trying to soak it all up. It's crazy. Just a dream come true. I feel like this is like a blessing."

(On the tears in his eyes and what was said when he learned he would be selected by the Browns) -- "Actually (coach Eric Mangini) was just trying to make me smile because he saw the tears coming out of my eyes. It was just joy, tears of joy, just to finally been able to arrive and know that I'm playing for a team and know where I'm going to be because I just knew it was going to happen. I could see it. Before I got drafted you never really knew where you're going to live, what team you're going to, what situation you're going to be in. I loved Cleveland when I was there and I was just happy that they liked me enough to draft me. On the phone they told me 'You're on TV, so try and smile for us.' "

(On his 40 time at the combine and if he was worried about it hurting him in the draft) -- "At first I was. At first I honestly was, but I knew that my back was messed up and I'm just a competitive player so I like to just go out and compete. If I see players doing football stuff, I just go out there and compete. I knew I had another chance to run again at my pro day, which I did and I ran a 4.41 for Cleveland. That's what the coaches had me at in my 40. I knew I had another chance. I was just thinking at the end of the day all the scouts that talked to me said, 'Joe, your film speaks for itself. I mean if you're were 4.5 covering, you don't look like 4.5 on film at all. You look a whole lot faster.' "

(On if he had a good idea that he was on the Browns radar screen and that had a good chance of coming here) -- "Yes, I definitely had a good idea about that when I talked to (Browns President Mike Holmgren). He definitely was telling me that they were really, really interested in taking me at No. 7. And once he told me that, it just made me have a sigh of relief. Then once I left my visit in Cleveland, I really didn't have contact with anyone from Cleveland so I didn't know if they just stopped liking me or what happened so I just came in here didn't know what was going on."

(On who told him to just smile because you're on TV) -- "Oh, Mangini."

(On how he hurt his back before the NFL Combine) -- "It was working out before the combine. When I got there, it was good, but when I did the bench press at the combine, that's when I re-aggravated it."

(On the pressure in covering a team's number one receiver) -- "There's always pressure when you're out there on an island. It's just you vs. him. At corner, you have to have a one track mind and a short memory. The one thing that I try to do is I definitely put pressure on myself. I'm my biggest critic. When I'm out there, I know that I have to have a lot of film study and a lot of just knowing what is going on and I have to be really comfortable. That's one thing that makes me a whole lot more comfortable when I'm out there, because I like to study film, I like to know what is going on before it happens."

(On what it means to him to have the full confidence of Tim Tebow) -- "Hearing that from Tim, it's definitely a big thing because he is one of the hardest workers that I've ever met in my life. All of the stuff that he talks about as far as work ethic and that he would do anything for the team, he really will. To hear that from Tim, I basically just tried to do the same things as he did. Me and him were on the same workout plan and whenever we practiced, we went 100 miles an hour. Just like Tebow, whenever he practices, he does everything at 100 miles an hour. That's the same thing I did. I noticed that he noticed that because I was trying to lead my DBs and he was trying to lead the whole offense. You recognize people that do the right things and definitely try hard. I was talking to the coaches about it whenever they asked me about him, I just put him as high as he was supposed to be. I don't make up anything because he deserves everything that he can get."

(On being picked by the Browns after early predictions that he would end up here died off) -- "It is kind of crazy. A lot of stuff I had heard had me going to the Browns. It wasn't really from scouts or anything at first, so I was like 'How does everybody know that I'm supposed to be going to Cleveland? How is everybody so sure of that?' It was kind of crazy because I didn't think everybody knew really what they were talking about."