Cut during his first preseason after getting drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, former Samford quarterback Chris Oladokun has never played in an NFL regular-season game. But he has two Super Bowl rings and was one of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Player-of-the-Game award winners for the 2023 AFC championship contest – the Defensive Player of the Game.
In the week before Kansas City defeated Baltimore 17-10 in the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 28, Oladokun spent practices pretending to be Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson to prepare the Chiefs defense to play against the 2023 NFL MVP.
“Coach (Andy) Reid was like, ‘Hey, this has never been done before, but our Defensive Player of the Game,’” Oladokun said, “and he said my name, and the defense was fired up for me. Just to have that validation, like, ‘We need you. You helped us win this game’ is something I’ll never forget because I’m not waking up at 5:30 every morning for nothing. I’m valuable to this team.
“Anyone out there whether it’s practice squad or not playing a lot, you just have to find your role or find a way to help the team in any way possible.”
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Oladokun made those remarks while appearing on “Stuck in My Thoughts,” a podcast hosted by former Helena High School standout and Samford All-American high jumper Justin Stuckey.
Oladokun has been on Kansas City’s practice squad for the past two seasons after being released by the Steelers on Aug. 23, 2022, and the Chiefs won back-to-back Super Bowls.
Oladokun had joined Pittsburgh four months earlier as a seventh-round draft choice, but he was buried on the depth chart behind veterans Mitch Trubisky and Mason Rudolph and 2022 first-round draft pick Kenny Pickett as the Steelers tried to decide which QB would replace Ben Roethlisberger after his retirement.
Oladokun said the Steelers did him a favor by releasing him when they did instead of keeping him another week until the final cut date for the 2022 regular season.
“I didn’t even get to play in the preseason when I was in Pittsburgh, so that was tough for me,” Oladokun said, “but at the same time I understood. We had drafted Kenny in the first round, we had two good veteran backups as well, so they were trying to figure out that situation.
“I think the best part about it all was coach (Mike) Tomlin was very transparent with me when I got cut and giving me an opportunity by even cutting me earlier than the last cut after the last preseason game just so I could find another opportunity. That was a blessing in disguise, and I’ll always respect and love coach Tomlin for that because he really did look out for me.
“Legit, I got cut, and before I even got to my hotel, I was on the phone with the Chiefs, so it all just sort of worked out.”
When Kansas City assembled its practice squad for the 2022 season, Oladokun was on it.
After Oladokun completed 16-of-26 passes for 181 yards with one touchdown and one interception and ran for 37 yards on two carries in the 2023 preseason, the Chiefs kept him with the team. After Kansas City defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime in Super Bowl LVIII, it signed Oladokun for the 2024 season.
Oladokun has been able to work with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, a six-time Pro Bowler, three-time Super Bowl champion and two-time NFL MVP.
“I’ve learned so much the past two years just being in that QB room with him and just really becoming a sponge,” Oladokun said. “The first year I got there, I’m a rookie. I’m trying to figure out my routine, I’m trying to figure out what I need to do to take care of my body, how to study, all those little things. And I sit right next to him in the QB room, and I just watched him. That whole, entire year I watched everything he did – how he took notes, when he got in the building, how he took care of his body, how he watched film, and so I took that, and then last year I feel like I developed my own routine. This is what he does and I’m going to take little things that work with me in terms of studying, film, weight-room stuff and sort of emulate it and put that in my own routine. It’s been a blessing.”
Even though Oladokun knows he isn’t going to beat out Mahomes for Kansas City’s starting QB job, he said he seeks to “stay ready at all times.”
“There’s no complacency in the NFL,” Oladokun said. “I feel like once you get complacent, that’s when you get booted out the door. For me, it’s just knowing your role, and that’s something that I feel like I’ve really understood being in Kansas City the last two years. What can I do, what value do I bring to help our team keep winning Super Bowls?”
That’s the aim for Kansas City in the 2024 NFL season, too: To become the first team to win the Super Bowl in three consecutive campaigns.
“We’re focused on getting three now,” Oladokun said. “I think that’s the goal. Something that’s never been done. I feel like everyone in that locker room, there’s a singular focus on let’s go make history now.”
Oladokun entered the NFL from South Dakota State, his third college stop after South Florida in his hometown of Tampa and Samford.
“Playing at USF was my dream,” Oladokun said, “and to be there for three years and things don’t really work out like I wanted them to or planned. And then I go to Samford -- first time I’m ever living outside Tampa, ever living outside Florida, I go to Alabama, so that was like a huge culture shock for me. And I loved my time there. Made some really good friends. But then things, obviously, started to not work out there, too, and I’m like, ‘Man, why does this keep happening to me? All this adversity for what?’”
For Samford in 2019, Oladokun completed 169-of-272 passes for 2,058 yards with 18 touchdowns and seven interceptions and ran for 491 yards and eight touchdowns on 127 carries.
In 2020, Oladokun completed 37-of-56 passes for 221 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions and ran for 26 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries as “great teammate” Liam Welch became Samford’s No. 1 quarterback.
“It was really tough for me, being this big-time kid coming in,” Oladokun said, “and thinking this is my team, and then all of a sudden I go from having a pretty good year to not really playing that next year, so there was definitely a lot of adversity through that.”
At South Dakota State in 2022, Oladokun passed for 3,614 yards and 25 touchdowns and helped the Jackrabbits reach the NCAA FCS semifinals.
The first players are scheduled to report for the Chiefs’ training camp on July 16 at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph, Missouri. Kansas City will open its three-game preseason schedule against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Aug. 10 and kick off its regular-season campaign against the Ravens on Sept. 5 in the opening game of the NFL’s 2024 season.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.