Kansas City Chiefs rookie safety Eric Berry is officially part of the team. He's signed his first contract, participated in his first practice and faced his first media blitz.
And he did well.
"I'm excited to be here today," Berry said. "I'm just ready to get to work. We had a good practice today. I'm just so excited to be here with my teammates."
Get this: Yesterday's practice was the first Berry's missed in his entire life, he says.
On Friday, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt told us that his first round pick "desperately" wanted to get into camp on time. Berry says trying to do so was very important to him.
"Very important," he said of getting to camp on time. "It would have been a great statement for teammates to show them how dedicated I am. I want to get down to work and play my part on this team."
Of course, he didn't actually make it on time. He was close having tweeted that he was on his way to St. Joe yesterday just a couple hours before the first practice but it didn't happen.
So what did he say upon his arrival? He apologized.
"I just apologized to my teammates that I'm sorry for being late and missing the meeting," he said. "I'm here now and ready to do whatever and help this organization to do whatever I need to be."
Berry was plugged into the first team on defense and I would imagine we won't see that change anytime soon.
"The OTAs and the rookie minicamp helped me a lot," he said. "The vets have been helping me along the way too so that's a plus. I'm just thankful we have some good vets to help me along."
Those vets? Yeah, they're the ones that made him carry their pads. Berry said it was Dwayne Bowe's pads and Maurice Leggett's helmet he was carrying.
Squint closely and you can see him...
"Like I said," he continued, "I just want to be able to do anything coach asks of me whether it's special teams, corner or whatever. I just want to help this team win and play my part on the Chiefs defense or special teams. When they call me to do something, I just want to be ready to do it."
He must've done something right while waiting to get to St. Joe. He called the conditioning test easy.
As for the rest of the players, well, it's pretty easy to walk past the media when Eric Berry is holding court, as evidenced by this picture of Glenn Dorsey walking by us without anyone (like me) bugging him.
