As Boston College students look on, Silva gets down to the bare essentials as he walks to the starting line of the 40-yard dash at BC’s Pro Day yesterday.

AP/ Winslow Townson

NEWTON, Mass. — Jamie Silva is relieved that the worst of it is over.

As he has said several times during the course of his extended job-interview process, Silva is a football player, not a sprinter or track star. So when he ran the second of his two 40-yard dashes as part of Boston College’s Pro Day yesterday, Silva could breathe a sigh of relief.

With quarterback Matt Ryan, the potential top pick in the draft and arguably the top signal-caller available, in the mix, the number of team officials and media in attendance at the Eagles’ workout was high — 22 teams sent representatives, with the Kansas City Chiefs, who own the fifth pick in next month’s draft, sending five officials.

But Ryan wasn’t the only player working out — in all, there were 37 prospects under the bubble constructed over the Alumni Stadium field, including former East Providence All-Stater Silva and Eagles offensive tackle Gosder Cherilus, who could be a first-round pick. There were also 17 players from New England schools Harvard, UMass, Northeastern, Bentley and Holy Cross, as well as former BC star and first-round draft pick William Green, who has been out of football for two years.

After turning in disappointing 40-yard dash times at the NFL Combine last month in Indianapolis, Silva was hoping for improvement yesterday. But the slow field led to his times being much the same as they were at the Combine — one AFC scout had Silva clocked at 4.80 and 4.86 seconds.

Silva redeemed himself, though, in the other drills. He flashed his hands, catching nearly every ball thrown his way, and showing his improved backpedaling skills. He even fielded a few punts toward the end of the workout.

He will continue to work out in Pennsylvania leading up to the draft five weeks from now, and will likely have private workouts with teams trying to get a better feel for what Silva is capable of.

Yet he is aware that even after he hears his name called on draft weekend — likely on Sunday — the work is not done.

“I just want to get out there and play football,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll get on a team come April, and rookie camps start after that. I’ll need to impress the coaches and make the team.”

Ryan did not throw at the Combine, opting to wait until yesterday, when he could throw to his teammates on his campus. He threw 52 passes, completing all but four, three of which were dropped.

“I thought I showed that I could make every throw you need to make in the NFL,” Ryan said, who made all manner of throw from three-, five- and seven-step drops. “We went through the entire route tree and showed that I could throw on the run. Again, it’s all stuff they can see on tape and I just wanted to show what I could do in person.”

Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards said he felt Ryan pressed a couple of times, “but the thing this guy has is his ability to win. That’s the thing you like about quarterbacks — some guys win, some guys don’t. You can look at all the stats, arm strength, you can look at all the different things, but at the end, can he win games? This guy has done that.”

The 16th overall pick in 2002 after a standout career with BC, Green never returned to the promise of his rookie season with the Browns, when he played every game, gained 887 yards and scored 6 touchdowns. In 2003, he served a four-game suspension for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy and was involved in a domestic dispute with his then-fiancée. He struggled in 2004 and ’05 before being placed on injured reserve and ultimate released by Cleveland.

Green and his wife have remained in Cleveland, and are raising five children, ages 8 years to four weeks. Yesterday, Green said he’s healthy and feels that he’s a better player now than he was two years ago.

It remains to be seen if he’ll be given another chance in the NFL.

smanza@projo.com