How KC Concepcion Will React to Hearing His Name Called at the NFL Draft

KC Concepcion sits across from Rich days out from the NFL Draft, and Rich starts where every pre-draft conversation ends up eventually. Goals. Are you a list guy. Do you write them down, post them on a wall, look at them every morning. Concepcion says no, he keeps it internal. But internal does not mean modest. He runs the list out loud anyway. Rookie of the Year first. Offensive Player of the Year after that. The ultimate one, the Hall of Fame.

Rich points to the Athletic article that ran on Concepcion and floats the obvious counter. Some readers are going to say you are talking with your chest. What do you tell them. Concepcion does not flinch. He says he is one of the most humble guys you will meet, but the confidence is real, earned, and not negotiable. Both can be true.

The conversation breaks for a second when somebody walks up the stairs behind Concepcion on camera. Rich, doing what Rich does, asks who that is. Concepcion laughs. That is his homeboy Jonas's dad. The room exhales. Back to business.

Draft night plans. Concepcion says he will be in Charlotte, North Carolina, with family, friends, teammates. No green room, no big production, just the people who got him there. Rich says he is rooting for him, the same way he is rooting for Fernando Mendoza, who he had on earlier. Different paths, same draft, same reason to pull for them.

The Athletic piece, Rich tells the audience, is worth the read for one reason in particular. Concepcion grew up with a difficulty speaking. The article walks through how that shaped him, molded him, sits underneath everything he is doing now. Rich wants viewers to know what they are watching when Concepcion conducts an interview, including the work he did at the combine. That is courage on display, Rich says, and he wanted to say it on the record.

Concepcion thanks him, calls him boss man, and Rich asks the question he likes to ask prospects in the final days. When you hear your name called and you are officially an NFL player, how is that going to hit you. Take a moment, he says. Live in it in advance.

Concepcion does. He says it is going to hit pretty hard. Growing up he was always underlooked, undervalued. He was not the biggest name. So when the call comes, it is not going to feel like a beginning. It is going to feel like every rep, every quiet stretch, every moment of being passed over has finally paid off. And then, in the same breath, he resets. Time to put in some more hard work. The list is still on the wall in his head. Rookie of the Year is the first line.