Being drafted from the Southern Illinois Salukis to the Carolina Panthers, a lot has changed for second-round pick Jeremy Chinn. A nicer locker room, maybe an iPad – oh, and one of the biggest changes? He now has, at his disposal, the ability to interact with one of the best players in NFL history on a daily basis.
Quite an upgrade.
“The coaching – there are so many resources just around this staff,” the final selection of the second round said with a smile on a Zoom teleconference Wednesday morning. “I get to come in and see Luke Kuechly every single day and pick his brain and talk with him – those are the type of things that I didn’t have at Southern.”
Kuechly joined the Panthers pro scouting department in June after his sudden retirement in January, the logical next step after a career where he was named the 2013 NFL Defensive Player of the Year, a five-time first-team All-Pro and a two-time second-team All-Pro along with being selected to seven consecutive Pro Bowls. His new job entails helping the Panthers build their roster by finding other guys that fit what the team does, along with providing them with advance scouting each week on different opponents – but doling out advice to Panthers rookies when you’re one of the best players in franchise history comes with the territory.
And likely exactly what Matt Rhule was hoping for when Kuechly joined the staff.
Although Chinn was primarily a safety at Southern Illinois, the team has been playing the 6-3, 221 pound Chinn at a variety of different positions during the early stages of training camp. How would he describe himself in a Phil Snow defense?
Defensive Athlete.
“Coach Snow has me doing a lot of different things, learning a lot of different positions from the backend to the second level,” said Chinn. “So he has me being creative, so I’m just learning. Being in [this] situation and being in this defense, there is something I can learn every single day. I’m doing a lot of things I did in college, but I’m doing a lot more.”
“I played safety in college – I played nickel, I played dime – and I’m doing similar things here, [but] Coach Snow has me doing a lot more things inside the box, with the back end as well. Really everything I did in school, but expanded.”
Being all over the field on defense is something he can learn from Kuechly, who he’s been talking to about what it takes to be a pro both in the building and at practice.
“We just talk football, about our bodies. I asked him how he maintained his weight and how he felt during his rookie year and throughout his career and things like that.”
“Any little thing I can take from him – take it from his brain and put it in mine.”
