Prior to Monday's training camp workout, Bears rookie offensive lineman Kiran Amegadjie hadn't participated in a football practice since last October, when he suffered a quadriceps injury at Yale that required surgery.
It's the longest Amegadjie has ever physically been away from the football field. He can't remember ever missing a game prior to the injury. So when the third-round selection was activated off the non-football injury list Sunday and made his training camp debut the next day — participating in a limited capacity — Amegadjie felt pure joy.
"It was tough," Amegadjie told reporters Tuesday. "Obviously I've been playing football for a long time, so it's tough whenever the game is taken away from you. Really excited to be back, really excited to get to work."
Amegadjie continued his ramp-up period Tuesday, working at left tackle in full pads during individual drills. As he continues to stack more practice reps and increase his workload, his main goal is to simply "get better and better every single day."
As a competitor, Amegadjie constantly had the itch to return to the practice field and truly begin his NFL career while working through his rehabilitation this spring and summer. If it were up to him, he would've been back on the field right after his surgery.
He recalls telling the Bears after the NFL Draft: "I'm ready; I'm fine." Looking back, he knows his healing process wasn't fully complete. As he got to work with the Bears training staff and developed a rehab plan, he grasped the value of coming back at his own pace.
"Honestly, everybody here made it so easy," Amegadjie said. "'Dre (senior director of sports medicine and player health Andre Tucker), [director of rehabilitation services] Tristen [Asken], [assistant athletic trainer] Adam LaVan, everybody in the training room and training staff. They made it seamless for me to transition from where I was training before and rehabbing to coming in here, and they had a set plan for me ready to go and we attacked it from Day 1. So they were huge in getting me back. I really saw a huge jump when I got here, and so I can't thank them enough for what they did."
While Amegadjie wasn't in pads for the first month of training camp, he remained locked in mentally. The rookie could often be spotted out on the field with the offensive line just inches away from their individual drills and on the sideline with the offense during team periods.
Although he was unable to physically participate in blocking drills or red-zone situations, Amegadjie refused to miss a mental rep. He credits offensive line coach Chris Morgan and his veteran teammates for helping him understand the offense and willingness to answer any question he has.
"I think all the vets have been amazing," Amegadjie said. "They've all been helping me as well with C-Mo making sure I'm on top of the playbook and integrating me into the room. Not making me feel like a rookie pledge or anything like that. They've been really like big brothers to me. I really appreciate that."
In a literal sense, Amegadjie has remained close to the offensive line throughout training camp, but he's also built strong relationships with the group off the field as well. His friendship with fellow rookie offensive lineman Theo Benedet was broadcast on the first episode of Hard Knocks.
While Benedet, a native of Canada, performed "God Bless the USA" for his rookie performance in a team meeting, Amegadjie supported his friend by playing the cymbals.
"The night before I just went to his hotel room and we ran through it once or twice just to make sure I had the timing, because they were actually pretty small," Amegadjie said. "So if you hit them too hard it kind of dims out or whatever, blocks out the sound. So I had to get the perfect contact.
"The first one I got that good contact, and it was a good sound. The second one, because everybody was laughing, I tried to go a lot harder to make it louder and it didn't matter because everybody was laughing, so you wouldn't have heard it anyways. But yeah, we ran through it."
Amegadjie's first NFL training camp hasn't gone exactly how he first imagined, including his appearance on national television, but the Hinsdale native is still in awe of where he is. As a homegrown Bears fan, Amegadjie said despite not having practiced yet, being with the Bears "is everything I've wanted it to be."
While Amegadjie remains eager to fully ramp up, he enters the last bit of training camp and looks toward the regular season with a newfound gratitude for football itself.
"I would say I knew I already loved football, but I learned how much I appreciate football and appreciate getting out there with the team and appreciate playing the game, the chess match of it," Amegadjie said. "Really just being physical, hitting, everything that is football. I just find that I appreciate more than I even knew I did."
