Before Chiefs, Creed Humphreys ascending path was propelled by years of wrestling

Publish date: 2024-06-09

Deep into the Chiefs’ training camp, on a day in St. Joseph, Mo., in which the heat was sweltering and the humidity was as thick as syrup, the strongest men on the team were engrossed by Creed Humphrey.

The Chiefs’ rookie center went into his stance and gripped the ball in his left hand. Across from Humphrey was Tershawn Wharton, a second-year defensive tackle known for his impressive quickness and power. One-on-one repetitions between an offensive lineman and a defensive lineman is a drill that often favors the defender since he has the increased space to unleash his pass-rush moves. When Humphrey snapped the ball, Wharton began with a speed rush. Humphrey’s smooth footwork, however, allowed him to stay in front of Wharton. Shifting from speed to power, Wharton tried to push Humphrey backward. Once that strategy failed, Wharton did a rip move, putting his left arm under Humphrey’s left arm. The repetition ended with a surprise. Humphrey, with his rare upper-body strength, shoved Wharton to the ground.

In unison, several teammates and fans voiced the same word: “Oooooooooh!”

Listed at 6-foot-4 and 320 pounds, Humphrey stonewalled more teammates in the one-on-one drill, including Jarran Reed and Derrick Nnadi, defensive tackles who weigh more than 300 pounds, throughout camp. Among all the others, that drill most reminds Humphrey of the sport he loved first: wrestling.

Similar to other NFL players, Humphrey, 22, believes that his wrestling career, which spanned almost half of his life, provided the necessary building blocks for him to reach the NFL.

“You’re getting super competitive, it’s just you against another person and you’ve got to be able to win,” Humphrey said. “I take that same mentality out here to the football field every day. Just an understanding of leverage, that’s a huge thing, especially inside on the offensive line, how to move a body without (the defender) wanting to get moved. That’s been a big help from wrestling.”

Creed vs Wharton pic.twitter.com/QrTJNylpQk

— Eddie High (@EddieHigh) August 5, 2021

The Chiefs selected Humphrey in the second round of the draft in April, and his excellent performances in camp and rapid learning of the playbook have thrilled everyone in the organization. Humphrey excelled in preseason games, too. He didn’t commit any major mistakes, and he displayed his unique combination of athleticism and polished blocking. Many of Humphrey’s hand-placement techniques when engaging a defender were first groomed as a grappler.

When the Chiefs open their season Sunday against the Cleveland Browns, Humphrey is expected to be one of three rookie starters along the team’s new offensive line. Humphrey will be responsible for communicating pre-snap blocking adjustments to his fellow linemen and protecting superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Whatever challenges Humphrey encounters this season — and he anticipates there will be several — he plans to rely on the lessons he learned as a wrestler, which helped him improve as a competitor.

“Really the biggest thing, I think, is the mental toughness that you get with wrestling,” he said. “You’re out there in a wrestling room that’s 120 degrees every day, cutting weight and not really being able to eat much, trying to make (your weight class).

“It can really drain a person mentally. But you’ve got to be able to persevere through that. Mental toughness was a big thing for me. I took that from wrestling and translated it onto the football field.”

Growing up in Shawnee, Okla., Humphrey was on the mats inside the training room at Shawnee High as soon as he could wear a singlet.

He began learning wrestling moves when he was four years old. One of the first photos of Humphrey, as a boy, was taken of him in Shawnee’s wrestling room. Wearing a black singlet, white knee pads and black shoes, Humphrey looked directly into the camera, without smiling, and showed his grappling hands while in a stance, as if he was ready to begin a match at that exact moment.

Been a stud since day 1😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/hW2TNOuS4S

— Creed Humphrey (@creed_humphrey) November 4, 2015

The man who first taught Humphrey the sport was his father Chad, a three-time All-American wrestler at the University of Central Oklahoma. One of Humphrey’s first opponents was Gage, his older brother who became an all-state wrestler in high school. And yes, even Humphrey’s grandparents helped organize the Shawnee Takedown Club, the town’s youth wrestling program.

“He really just instilled the mentality into me of a wrestler,” Humphrey said of his father. “Not a lot of people start at four years old. I’ve always had a really competitive mindset because of that.”

Early on in his time on the mats, Humphrey was not the best grappler. The issue, Humphrey said, was that he simply needed to be tougher. After losing a match as a third-grader, Humphrey told his father that he wasn’t confident he could get better. Humphrey considered quitting, perhaps to try another sport. Chad, through passionate conversations, convinced Humphrey to keep wrestling through at least the eighth grade.

Toughness for Humphrey began to increase as he learned more moves. Larry James, Shawnee High School’s former wrestling coach and a member of the school’s state championship team in 1986, watched Humphrey’s progression occur faster than most young wrestlers. As Chad’s former teammate in high school, James provided additional advice and coaching to Humphrey, who began to gain confidence with each victory.

“I’d say fourth grade probably was when I figured out I was going to be stronger than most people I went against,” Humphrey said. “I was more athletic than most people I went against, too. That’s when I started winning a ton of tournaments.”

Most Saturdays in the fall involved Humphrey doing two activities: winning matches and watching the Oklahoma Sooners.

With Oklahoma’s campus about an hour from Shawnee, Humphrey attended many of the Sooners’ games with his family. Different from his father, Humphrey’s dream was to have his family cheer for him at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium as a member of the Sooners. In the eighth grade, Humphrey switched from wrestling to football — and his feats on the gridiron were sudden and astonishing. He started as an oversized fullback who ran over defenders, either on short-yardage plays or two-point conversions. As a sophomore, Humphrey had grown into a 6-foot-4, 295-pound tight end.

“His hands were great and he scored two touchdowns that year,” Billy Brown, Shawnee High’s former football coach, said of Humphrey. “He was such a big body that you couldn’t cover him. We would take him to seven-on-seven stuff just because he wanted to play.”

College coaches also noticed Humphrey because he began showing his blocking skills as a center and tackle, whether it was in games or during summer recruiting camps.

Observing Humphrey’s blocking highlights in 2015 is similar to watching an angry bouncer at a nightclub. He drove multiple defensive linemen 15 yards backward, each play ending with him recording a pancake. Defensive backs were often blocked off the field and onto the sidelines. And whenever the Shawnee Wolves passed the ball, the defender who started the play engaged with Humphrey rarely came close to pressuring the quarterback.

“He knew how to get after people,” Brown said. “He worked his ass off, and he maxed out his God-given abilities.”

At that time, Humphrey gained his hard-working reputation — and admiration from James and Brown — because he was practicing with the wrestling team and conducting his own weightlifting workouts in the morning before the football team’s practices.

“Staying inside (with your hands) in wrestling is a big (phrase),” James said. “In football, you’ve got to stay inside (your opponent’s chest) or you’re going to get a holding penalty. If not, you’re liable to get thrown. That gets transferred over from the football field to wrestling.”

Following his junior football season, Humphrey realized that winter could be his final opportunity to join Shawnee’s wrestling team. Humphrey, who had a perfect 4.0 GPA, knew then that he could attend college on a football scholarship in January 2017 if he graduated from high school a semester earlier than usual. Throughout his 35 years of coaching, Brown always encouraged his linemen to participate in wrestling to better understand proper techniques to gain leverage. James also needed a heavyweight on his wrestling team.

Humphrey lost weight to get under 285 pounds, Oklahoma’s heavyweight limit, and began winning matches in early January, the midway point of the season. He defeated opponents with his outstanding strength, and he surprised many of them by being left-handed. He was quick enough to take down opponents and often too quick to be taken down. Most of Humphrey’s matches didn’t go the full three periods because he pinned many of his opponents.

“It’s hard to describe how quick his feet were, how they moved,” James said of Humphrey. “His footwork was unbelievable. He was so smart and coachable.

“I kept telling everybody, ‘I’ve got the best heavyweight in the state.'”

At the time, everyone except James thought the best heavyweight wrestler was Griffin Qualls. A senior from Coweta High, Qualls was seeking to win his third consecutive state championship. Similar to Humphrey, Qualls grew up in Oklahoma and began wrestling at an early age (five).

“How I remember people is by their last name,” Qualls said. “I hadn’t heard the Humphrey name out of Shawnee.”

Qualls was introduced to Humphrey by Parker Weavel, his cousin who was a 195-pound wrestler from Tahlequah High. Humphrey’s breakout performance occurred at Carl Albert High in Midwest City, Okla., an annual tournament that often features most of the state’s best wrestlers. The previous year, Qualls won the heavyweight title over Keegan Pride from Altus High. With Coweta not competing in the tournament this time around, Qualls assumed Pride would be the champion. Weavel informed Qualls of the results.

Qualls then asked Weavel to describe the winner.

“They sent me a picture of him,” Qualls said of Humphrey. “They were sitting down at the bottom of the bleachers and he was getting warmed up. He was just standing there with his knuckles turned to the ground, his fist balled up, looking just swole as ever. And I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is this guy?!’”

Qualls wasn’t the only person who had that thought. In the tournament, Humphrey dominated a wrestler from Del City High, flipping his opponent on his back and pinning him in the first period. Humphrey’s move was so swift and so effective that it stunned Nick Warehime, Del City’s athletic director.

Warehime walked over to James to ask a simple question: “Who is that kid?”

“Oh, that’s Creed Humphrey,” James responded.

“Does he play football?!”

“Yeah.”

“What did he make on his ACT?”

At that moment, Humphrey, who had just come off the mat, told Warehime he earned a 32.

“I mean, Warehime just about went crazy,” James said.

Warehime grabbed his smartphone and called Derek, his son who was the offensive line assistant at Houston.

“Hey, you’ve got to come see this kid!” Warehime told his son. “He wrestles, he plays football and he made 32 on his ACT. Offer him a scholarship!”

Indeed, Houston was one of the first Division I programs, along with Tulsa and Memphis, to offer Humphrey a football scholarship. After the tournament, though, most people involved in wrestling in Oklahoma wanted to see a compelling match between Qualls and Humphrey. Qualls thought his first chance was going to be in early February 2016, when Coweta hosted Shawnee. Humphrey, however, was attending a football recruiting camp.

A few weeks later, at the dual team state tournament, Qualls and Humphrey saw one another for the first time. Shawnee didn’t qualify for the tournament, but Humphrey observed Qualls’ techniques and strategy.

“We knew Griffin was a good wrestler,” James said. “We wanted one shot at him at the (individual) state finals. We didn’t want to let him make adjustments on us.”

Humphrey pinned TJ Singleton from Carl Albert to qualify for the state tournament, he defeated Pride a second time to win the West regional title and he scored an early takedown to beat Montana Phillips from MacArthur High — who later became a two-time state champion — in the semifinals.

The much-anticipated heavyweight state final between Qualls and Humphrey was held Feb. 27, 2016, in Oklahoma City. Humphrey entered the match with a 19-0 record. Qualls was 40-2.

“That was a doozy,” Qualls said. “I remember the game plan that we had. Literally the words in my head were, ‘Fuck that.’ Once my head hit Creed’s shoulder, I was like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to have to figure this out. That was 30 seconds into the match.”

Qualls’ first strategy was to pull Humphrey closer to him, as a setup to grab one of his legs for a takedown. Humphrey’s feet, though, were too fast. Much of the match, Humphrey said, was a technical battle between him and Qualls, as both struggled to gain an advantage.

Humphrey took a 1-0 lead early in the second period when he escaped Qualls from the bottom position. In the third period, Qualls tied the match 1-1 when he did the same.

“If those guys wrestled 10 times, it’s probably 5-5,” James said. “I think Griffin would say the same thing.”

During the match, James and his assistant, Jason Merrill, told Humphrey to try a different technique. Humphrey, in top position, drove into Qualls from the side to keep him flat on the mat.

“He made the adjustment just like that,” James said of Humphrey. “It was unbelievable. That’s when I told everybody, ‘That guy is the smartest guy I’ve ever coached.’ We hadn’t really had time to work on it. It looked like he had been doing it for 100 years.”

In the overtime tiebreaker, Qualls won the coin toss and chose to start the first of two 30-second periods on bottom. He escaped for a 2-1 lead. In the second 30-second period, Humphrey needed to escape to at least push the match to a deciding 30-second ride out. But Humphrey couldn’t escape.

“Up to that point, he was the strongest dude I had ever wrestled,” Qualls said of Humphrey. “I remember me not being able to keep his elbow down to his body. He could just do a shoulder workout with all of my strength. It was me maybe wanting it a little bit more because Creed saw the bigger picture about playing on Sundays.”

The grueling battle was further illustrated in the medal presentation. Qualls, who didn’t smile while donning the gold medal atop the podium, was just relieved to win his third consecutive state title. On the second-place step of the podium, Humphrey was still taller than Qualls, who is 5-foot-11.

@CowetaWrestlers pic.twitter.com/CsKxWeDmHu

— Coweta HS Wrestling (@CowetaWrestlers) February 28, 2016

Although he was disappointed with the outcome, Humphrey knew the match, and his final wrestling season, was going to be beneficial to his football career.

“It was a fun match, a really tiring match,” Humphrey said. “After the match, I went and got a ton of food. That’s the best part I remember the most, not having to cut weight anymore.”

A few weeks later, Qualls became friends with Humphrey, the competitors following one another on social media platforms. Qualls then began watching highlights of Humphrey in pads, which left him, a former left guard on Coweta’s team, astonished by the domination from one play to the next.

“Uh yeah, that boy Creed, man,” Qualls said. “As tame as he was on the wrestling mat, no, that dude was obliterating people, one-handed pushing people over.”

Nick Saban, the illustrious coach at Alabama, offered Humphrey a scholarship less than two months after that final wrestling match. As Saban recruited Humphrey, who was the third-ranked center in the country, he asked Brown, Shawnee’s football coach, a question that often reveals an athlete’s character: What would you change?

“I honestly couldn’t think of anything,” Brown said of Humphrey. “He was a leader, smart and talented. He definitely put the time in. It’s like, ‘Damn, nothing.'”

In Humphrey’s senior season, the Shawnee Wolves struggled, finishing with a 5-6 record. But Humphrey was still the best player on the field. He earned All-State honors after improving his already impressive blocking techniques. In addition to Alabama, several other colleges — Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State and Kansas State — offered him a scholarship, as most coaches noticed that he rarely made a mistake or missed an assignment.

Humphrey explained to coaches that wrestling helped his hip flexibility and increased his knowledge on how to counterattack defensive linemen.

“Getting the leverage was really second nature for me when I really started to learn the technical aspects of offensive line play,” he said. “I was able to translate a lot of stuff more fluidly than I probably could have before, just understanding how to position my body in the right way. It was a huge help for me.”

Fulfilling his dream, Humphrey began attending classes at Oklahoma in January 2017. Bill Bedenbaugh, Oklahoma’s co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach, felt Humphrey could’ve started for the Sooners as a true freshman because he was advanced both physically and mentally for his age. Instead, he redshirted in 2017. But in 2018, Humphrey became the starting center, supplanting redshirt senior Jonathan Alvarez. He helped his fellow linemen win the Joe Moore Award, an annual honor in college football given to the best offensive line.

“I knew dang near after a couple of practices this dude had a chance to be special,” Bedenbaugh said of Humphrey. “I’ve never had a wrestler that was a bad player. Even when he got in bad positions, he could get out of them.”

Humphrey’s highlights in college were distinguishable. He continued to win his one-on-one matchups in a 2018 game against Alabama despite losing his helmet during a play. Linebackers were often smothered by Humphrey’s blocks. Against Texas in 2019, Oklahoma scored its game-winning touchdown on a running play in which Humphrey created the running lane near the goal line.

Kyler Murray’s final play in a #Sooners uniform. Pics: @DanCamPhoto pic.twitter.com/FZu19h2vms

— John E. Hoover (@johnehoover) December 30, 2018

In 37 starts, Humphrey didn’t allow a sack and surrendered just two quarterback hits, according to Pro Football Focus. He was honored as the Big 12 Offensive Lineman of the Year as both a sophomore and junior.

The Chiefs were thrilled to be able to select Humphrey with the No. 63 pick in the draft because they knew his college experience included him blocking for star quarterbacks in Kyler Murray (the former No. 1 pick and Arizona Cardinals’ starter) and Jalen Hurts (the Philadelphia Eagles’ starter). Humphrey cried when he learned he was going to be playing with Mahomes, an MVP winner and a Super Bowl champion.

“He’s not a dude that shows a ton of emotion, but he was as excited as I’ve ever heard him,” Bedenbaugh said of Humphrey. “How could you not be? You’re close to home, you’re playing for a team that won a Super Bowl, played in the Super Bowl two consecutive years and you’re with a Hall of Fame head coach (in Andy Reid). He went to the best spot he could possibly go to.”

Once again, as he did at Shawnee High and the University of Oklahoma, Humphrey began his NFL career exceeding expectations.

Humphrey has wowed the Chiefs over the past four months with his intelligence, athleticism, confidence, consistency and leadership skills. Reviewing the Chiefs’ exhibition games, Reid marveled at how well Humphrey executed screen plays, where he was required to flash his mobility and timing when blocking a defender on the perimeter. In 44 pass-blocking snaps in the preseason, Humphrey didn’t surrender a single pressure, according to Pro Football Focus.

Creed Humphrey this preseason:

♦️ 44 pass-blocking snaps
♦️ 0 pressures allowed pic.twitter.com/RyDRdCSNps

— PFF (@PFF) September 5, 2021

“Creed is incredible, man,” said left tackle Orlando Brown, who was Humphrey’s teammate in college. “My last year at OU, he was coming in as a freshman. He learned the system fast, he’s very competitive and he loves football. I think those three things are definitely going to help him excel. He has All-Pro, Pro Bowl potential.”

While eager to make his NFL debut, Humphrey is grateful the first sport he loved influenced his success in his favorite sport. And Humphrey has already promised to continue his family’s tradition: He will introduce his future children to wrestling.

(Photo: Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)

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Before Chiefs, Creed Humphreys ascending path was propelled by years of wrestling