Best question to James O'Shaughnessy: "So, are you Irish?" pic.twitter.com/QWmg1oyr25
— Arrowhead Pride (@ArrowheadPride) May 17, 2015
Among the players I met for the first time this weekend at Kansas City Chiefs rookie minicamp is fifth round pick TE James O'Shaughnessy, who is coming to KC from Illinois State.
I didn't know much at all about him given I'm not catching many Illinois State games but I had a chance to catch up with him for a minutes on Sunday. He was a good interview in the few minutes I had.
Here's what we talked about:
What's your game like? What are you bringing here?
Shag: I'm bringing a tight end who is very versatile and someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to contribute to this team whether it special teams or offense or whatever they need me at I'll do my best at. My main focus is contributing as soon as possible as much as possible. So whatever it takes. As a tight end I can do whatever they ask me to. If they need me to block, I'll block. If they need me to catch balls, I will. Whatever facet of the game they want I'll do my best.
So you did some blocking at Illinois State?
Shag: Truthfully, I did a lot of blocking in college. My senior year we ran the ball 60 percent of the time. I played 90 percent of the snaps so I had to deal with that. It's something you have to learn as a tight end. It's a big part of the game that tight ends have to do.
Can you line up at h-back and get in the backfield?
Shag: They can do whatever they feel like. I'll do it to the best of my ability. If they ask me to run H, Y, Z, U ... whatever they need me to and I'll do it.
So tell me about the play in the FCS title game where you knocked yourself out on special teams.
Shag: Earlier in the season in our one loss game, I chose not to go in on a kickoff. I told myself if we had an opportunity like that I wasn't going to let it happen again because they ended up scoring on that kickoff and we lost the game. So with 1:20 in the game, national title game, I wasn't going to allow that to happen again. Obviously we were up at that point and I wanted to make sure I made a play, which I did. I'll take the tackle but I kind of wish I had a little bit of a better form tackle so I didn't knock myself out."
So you're expecting to play plenty of special teams?
Shag: Without a doubt. I'll do whatever they ask me to like I said but I plan on making an impact on special teams.
Have you met some of the others like Travis Kelce and Demetrius Harris?
Shag: I have not met Harris yet because I haven't seen him around but Travis has been around and he's helped me out quite a bit this past week giving me pointers here and there and calming my nerves.
Are you going to be able to match Kelce in his touchdown dances?
Shag: No, I don't think I could ever mimic the dances he does because he does a pretty darn good job. I'm not that type of guy but Travis does a heck of a job with it.