News broke early on Monday morning that Orlando Brown Jr. would be reporting to Kansas City Chiefs training camp as the team opened their first padded practices. However, Brown Jr. wasn’t at practice with the rest of his teammates on Monday.
The reason was a bit more procedural than anything else. As Brown Jr. arrives at camp he needs to go through all of the pre-camp motions that his teammate went through, including a physical and the team’s conditioning test. Upon completion of those items, Brown Jr. will be cleared to participate with the rest of the team.
As soon as he’s cleared to participate, the team will figure out just how much he’s able to do right away.
“So, you have the right to throw him back in and go,” Chiefs HC Andy Reid said. “When he gets here we’ll talk to him and see where he’s at and then be smart with it.”
Reid said that he hadn’t seen Brown Jr. yet, but he was hopeful that he’d be practicing as early as Tuesday.
“There’s a good chance,” Reid said. “When the fish is in the boat, then I’ll let you know.”
After missing OTAs, mandatory minicamp and now five training camp practices, Brown Jr. will have some new play install to catch up on. Even with reports claiming that Brown Jr. is currently in the best shape of his life, he’ll also need to get his conditioning up to snuff to be able to keep up at practice.
“Yeah, he’ll just have to catch up on the new stuff,” Reid explained. “And then the conditioning part.”
The benefit of getting Brown Jr. back right now is that it’ll give him some important time to get ready ahead of the 2022 NFL season. Reid believes there is no substitute for getting the pads on and actually playing football as its intended.
“Yeah, well you said it,” Reid said. “That’s what it is. It’s hard to mimic the game speed and putting the uniform on, helmet and pads on when you’re doing stuff on your own. You’ve got to go through that to get yourself right and he understands that.”
