Chiefs rookie WR Brandon Eakins gives interview

AA: Coming from a small school, how big of a shock was it to see the pro facilities in Kansas City?

BE: Their locker room and everything is pretty crazy.  I think the biggest shock wasn’t the facilities, but the things they had available.  The food they had and all the resources.  They had Gatorade everywhere.  We never had that.

AA: Did the minicamp focus more on individual or team work?

BE: It was more of a teamwork thing.  We did individual drills, but I think they kind of wanted to see the chemistry of the offense running together.  They definitely wanted to see individual talent and individual plays being made, but they wanted to see the whole scheme of things.

AA: How does the Chiefs playbook compare to that of The Citadel?

“Coach Culley really coached everybody.  He wasn’t biased towards one person, even the players that were drafted.” ~ Brandon Eakins on Chiefs coaching style.

BE: *Laughs* It was on a whole ‘nother level.  The complexity of each play, the terminology they use.  Citadel plays are pretty simple, especially because we ran a lot.  So it was like “block, block, block” and easy to remember the pass plays.  In Kansas City there was audibles and anything could really happen at he line of scrimmage.  And the names of the plays were so long.

AA: How difficult was the transition from the triple option to the West Coast offense concepts?

BE: I had a lot of help really.  We had a good amount of receivers out there.  But really just the terminology and picking up on coverage.  I kind of feel a little bad for the quarterbacks that were going in there coming from a different system.  But once you sat down and memorized a lot of things that were going on, it wasn’t that bad.

AA: Which coaches worked with you the most?

BE: Coach (David) Culley, the wide receiver coach, probably worked me out the most.  Breaking me into the offense and trying to get everyone into that NFL mode.  Get everyone out of that “best player in college” (mode).  He showed how things are professionally ran.  Every play he gave everybody little things to work on.

AA: How did their approach differ from that of your college coaches…how was it similar?

BE: There were plays where I was like ‘wow, that’s a good catch; that’s a good juke’ but the coaches seemed like they were used to things like that.  And the coaches were really focused on everybody.  Coach Culley really coached everybody.  He wasn’t biased towards one person, even the players that were drafted.  He really focused on everybody individually and gave everybody an opportunity.

AA: With the bigger playbook and faster speed, did you feel overwhelmed at all?

BE: Not really overwhelmed, except for the playbook.  The first day I was fine with it.  It was complex, but not too complex that I couldn’t pick up on it.  The second day they threw another chunk of plays at (us), which kind of slowed me down a little bit.  The speed is where I realized where you may be able to take off plays in college, but you are not able to take off plays in the NFL.  You really have to be 100 percent every play.

Next: How are you feeling now?