Jody Fortson – March 15, 2024
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Friday, March 15, 2024
TE Jody Fortson
(I’m doing something on injury recoveries and as you know, LB Jaelan Phillips has an Achilles injury that he’s recovering from. You had an Achilles. I’m not asking specifically about Jaelan’s recovery, but with you, what were the keys to recovering and how long did it take you to get back to 100 percent?) – “The main key is just to listen to who is your respective athletic trainer, trust in the information that they’re presenting to you, believing that they’re putting you in the best position to win. I think the best thing I did was – I guess I really was off my foot for the most part. I didn’t try to put my foot into a shoe, try to walk on it, put too much weight on it too early. I think the best thing for that is you’ve just got to let time and just kind of let that heal on its own and just make sure you’re doing your strengthening and your mobility to get the strength back. There’s not really too many other things you can do to get that to heal correctly. It’s just a time thing. But just diligence. I’m praying for him in his recovery. I hope it works for him. It didn’t take that long. I was back running in four-and-a-half months. It didn’t really take that long.”
(And how long before you felt that you were at 100 percent?) – “I would say I felt pretty good going into OTAs at 100 percent. Like I tore my Achilles on October 17 of 2021 and I was back on the field that February so I kind of felt 100 percent by OTAs.”
(I know you played receiver in college and have made the transition to tight end. How has that transition gone and from your perspective what’s the difference of playing college receiver vs. pro tight end?) – “The transition has been – I guess like everything else, you have to be willing to want change and to want growth. At first obviously I was like, ‘I don’t really want to be a tight end,’ but it’s been in my mind since (I was a) kid. So many people that have come before me with a great mental aspect of the game have been like, ‘no, you’ll feel great in the NFL as a tight end so you should try to go to that route earlier.’ If I could go back, I wish I would’ve did it earlier, but we are where we are. As far as the difference between being a receiver on the amateur level and being a tight end on the pro level, I guess it’s more so of a ‘want to’ and a discipline. It’s like what are you willing to put into your craft to be the best that you can be? Nothing is going to be easy. Everything is change. Everything is going to be some type of obstacle within it. It’s just about how do you plan on attacking it? What type of mindset are you going to have when it presents itself? And as for me, I just attack everything with my head up and my chest out and I’m ready to rock. Like let’s do it.”
(I read a story that indicated that when you were a rookie in Kansas City, you made some impressive plays during the preseason. What do you remember about that preseason and how did that impact your confidence and your ability to play at this level?) – “I know my rookie year, my preseason – I know if I had to just grab anything, I would probably think about the last preseason game that we had against the Packers. I had a hitch route, but I was being pressed. It might have been Cover 1 or something like that and press, so we verted it. So I had just a little fly ball and my quarterback at the time, he gave me a chance to make a play and I made a play on the sideline and it kind of boosted my confidence to see the people on the sideline. At the time, all the starters were out so Patrick (Mahomes) and ‘Trav’ (Travis Kelce) and Tyreek (Hill) were there at the time. They’re all on the sideline hyped about me making a play. And I guess my confidence grew from right there that I could play in this league at some point. I made a play. And then later on in the game, I actually ended up making a forced fumble on kickoff, so that gave me a little special teams nuance right there. It’s just about getting reps in this game and getting warm in it. It’ll all take care of itself.”
(I wanted to ask you, you’ve been a young developmental player on a championship team for three years. What’s that transition going from that developmental guy that everybody sees upside in to actually having to produce now?) – “It’s about getting a chance, an opportunity to go out there and show what you can do. Everything looks good on paper. Everybody looks good on paper, but when you get out there, it’s about letting the training wheels off and let’s see what he can do. And that’s where we are right now. It’s about, all right, well let’s see what he can do.”
(Do you feel – not many people can say they have three championship rings – what do you think that brings to your resume?) – “I just think it brings a winner’s attitude, a winner’s mindset. Everybody here knows I’ve been with the Chiefs my entire career. We’ve won there. I might not have the role that I like, but I know what it takes to win. I’ve been around winners. I have been around what it takes, the consistency, the discipline, the sacrifices, what it takes to separate from this and when you have to put more into that. I feel like that’s what I inherited within my time from being with Kansas City, is the discipline to win, the seriousness behind it, what it takes. You’re just not going to wake up one day and just be a winner. You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to constantly chip at it every single day.”
(You’re going from one offensive coach to another. I was curious if you can kind of take us into the mind of Andy Reid as an offensive game planner? I’m sure you weren’t in the meetings with the coaching staff when they put in the game plan together, but things he emphasized, the creativity that they showed, what were some of the things that really impressed you from your time with Coach Reid?) – “First of all, everything about Coach Reid is impressive. That’s just a football genius, especially on the offensive side of the ball. That’s a guy that can literally – I remember him telling the story about him taking plays from people just around the building, the janitor – he uses plays from everything, from everybody. So anybody that has that perspective that you know what, just because you’re sitting back there and you’re picking up trash doesn’t mean that you don’t know what’s going on up here. Let me see what you got to say. Anybody that has that intellect to tap into that, they know what’s going on in this game. So as far as Coach Reid, he’s a great coach, first of all, but Coach Reid had a different way of dissecting the game. Like the motions and all that, giving different tells and just how he attacked each different week. Like you said, I wasn’t in there and coming up with the game plan, but just seeing how it just kind of flowed from one week to the next. Last week, it looked like this and this week, it might look like that. It was a great time being up there and seeing how he was able to maneuver that for some years.”
(A quick follow-up if I may, what has WR Tyreek Hill told you about Head Coach Mike McDaniel?) – “Let me double back on something like this. Coach Reid always said ‘let your personality show.’ That’s one thing Coach Reid always said and the first conversation that I had with Tyreek was similar to that. He was like, ‘you’re coming into a situation where you need to be you. Let your personality, let you ooze out. Just let that happen and everything will be fine.’ So that’s my biggest takeaway from the similarities between the two.”
(I wanted to get your thoughts on getting the chance to play with WR Tyreek Hill again and maybe this being different perhaps with you being more of a factor in the offense than you were with the Chiefs?) – “Any time you get to be on the field with Tyreek, it’s a blessing. Somebody that just blows the top off of defenses and creates separation to allow other people to get open and show what they can do, it’s always going to be a great environment to be in. I’m excited to get back being around him, and also pick his brain for the game. Tyreek is a goofball all the time, but that’s also another intelligent player. So it’s great to be around guys like that where you can just constantly grow.”
(I wanted to ask you about Head Coach Mike McDaniel and you touched on his personality, but I wanted to know how much of his personality influenced you coming here because I know usually with a player, it’s opportunity and then maybe money but did Mike McDaniel’s personality have much with you coming here?) – “Of course. Everybody wants to go play for someone they feel like they can relate to in a sense. Like everybody wants to be able to laugh but then take serious when it’s time to take serious, but not be too serious to the point where it’s like ‘we’re like this all day.’ Everybody wants to be in a comfortable environment where not only you can learn, but you can excel and I feel like this does just that.”
(I wanted to ask a little bit about you spending the past few years as a teammate of one of the all-time greats at tight end in Travis Kelce. What was it like sharing the meeting room with him? How much did you use him to just learn the position and get advice? And was there a time where you kind of saw maybe you had to move on in order to show what you can do?) – “Let me just tell you, Travis Kelce is my favorite teammate of all-time. On any level – Pop Warner, high school, college – Travis Kelce is my favorite teammate. It’s not only because he took his time trying to teach me the role of being a tight end, but just because of how great of a person he is. He didn’t have to. Anybody could be like ‘Nah, this kid is good. He might got what it takes.’ But he didn’t give me that attention, not to me but to anybody in the tight end room or the receiver room. He just showed unconditional love and knowledge for the game. Being in the room with Kelce, it definitely set me forward, lightyears of where I would have been had I not had him. Arguably having the greatest of all-time in that room, being able to learn and see how he’s attacking different routes and why he views coverage like this and how he’s able to find the holes in different stuff. You’re not able to get that unless you’re with somebody that knows that. So being in the room with Kelce these last few years have been an extraordinary blessing to my game. As far as even taking patience from the game, like I used to be rushing my routes and stuff, but going to Kelce’s house, he’d be like, ‘You can slow it down. Every route doesn’t have to be 100 miles an hour. You can kind of play with a tempo. You can kind of maneuver it a little bit.’ There’s a lot of different nuances of the game that I learned from Kelce in my time in Kansas City, that I’m forever grateful for.”
(Was there one piece of advice that especially stood out or maybe something Travis Kelce said as you were leaving Kansas City, that kind of stuck with you?) – “There’s so much information. So much stuff that Kelce said that sticks with you. I would just say the biggest thing is just be you. Be who you are. Then everything that’s for you will come to you. Just be you.”
