Eric Kendricks ready to join family business in the NFL

Eric Kendricks may need to change his phone number soon.

“I’ve been getting a lot of phone calls from just different numbers and things like that,” he says. “It’s just all walks of life.”

The attention shouldn’t come as much surprise. Kendricks is a good candidate to be selected on the first day of the 2015 NFL Draft, which means a lot of people are suddenly trying to figure out who the hell he is -- yes, even a big-school, big-conference, Butkus Award-winning linebacker is (for now) a relative unknown to the multitude of NFL fans staggering into the offseason out of the Super Bowl.

Kendricks has known for a while that he is an NFL-caliber player, since after his sophomore season at UCLA when he led the Pac-12 in tackles during his first full season as a starter. He should have had a pretty good idea from the fact that his father, Marvin Kendricks, made the league as a running back for the Philadelphia Eagles. If not that, then the success of Mychal Kendricks, Eric’s slightly older brother, solidified the notion.

It feels as if Kendricks was ordained to be an NFL linebacker. Kendricks, with a brother and several friends already in the league, hasn’t been at all uncomfortable switching modes from college life to the sudden grind of an NFL Draft prospect. But just because Kendricks won’t buy into the fuss doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Kendricks has the pedigree of an NFL star, and the will to fulfill it.

He has credited his brother with much of his progress. Mychal Kendricks, of course, has been a hit as an inside linebacker for the Eagles the last three seasons. The age gap between the brothers is actually less than a year and a half, however, making Mychal a near example for Eric. When Mychal began receiving college offers in high school, Eric realized he could do the same. When that realization happened, his approach to the game changed: Eric Kendricks learned how to hit.

“My mentality was totally different,” Kendricks told the Daily Bruin. “Growing up I played a lot of running back, and man, there were some times out there when I was scared and stuff like that.”

Kendricks’ toughness, now a staple on every pre-draft scouting report, needed to be instilled. Being forced to play alongside a more physically mature older brother in school helped a lot. Now, Kendricks doesn’t need the same sort of guidance. His older brother has largely stayed quiet while Kendricks prepares for the NFL Combine this week, and that’s just fine.

“He’s going to let me do my own thing, which he has been letting me do for a couple years now,” Kendricks says. “He’s always there to give me some advice here and there, but he hasn’t been by my side the entire process. He knows that I’m my own person and he doesn’t want to be in my ear the whole time.”

Kendricks has been compared to his brother throughout has career (and vice versa), which is inevitable between two siblings who not only play the same sport, but the same position. Those who have watched them both have a difficult time discerning what, if anything, separates them as football players. Kendricks himself can’t do it. He insists they’re different, but then struggles to explain how.

“I honestly don’t know,” Kendricks laughs “I would say we’re more similar than different, how about that? His name is Mychal, my name is Eric.”

Both are somewhat undersized linebackers -- Mychal is 6’0, 240 pounds, while Eric is listed at 6’0, 230 pounds -- but make up for it with technical tackling ability, coverage skills and speed. Their skill sets are prototypical of middle linebackers, Mychal having already proven that his meets NFL standards. There is one subtle difference in their games that only a father could tell, however.

“Mychal hits harder,” Marvin Kendricks told the Los Angeles Times, “but Eric tackles like it is a science.”

The honed quality of Eric’s game makes him stand out in a talented class of inside linebackers, particularly coming out of the Pac-12 (Kendricks somehow won the Butkus Award, but was named just a second team All-Pac 12 performer). Teammate Myles Jack described Kendricks as a clairvoyant, calling out the play calls of opposing offenses on the field.

That knack didn’t come to Kendricks by accident. He’s perhaps proudest of how much he has studied the game. He says he is excited to use a whiteboard in front of NFL teams to showcase how well he has mastered the cerebral part of football.

“I definitely take the film,” Kendricks says. “I know what’s going on most times with the offense. I definitely have the mental edge on the field as well as the physical edge. I can translate the film room and film study to the game.”

A one-handed, diving interception against USC this past season was perhaps the best example of Kendricks as a total package. He likely would have blown up the running back for minimal gain if the pass hadn’t been high, but instead he used his closing speed to track down the ball and somehow make a game-swinging play.

Kendricks’ preparations for the NFL Combine seem to have focused as much on preparing his mind as his body. Well-trained in the art of diplomatically answering questions from media, he’ll have to adjust to more personal lines of inquiry when he sits down for interviews with NFL franchises in Indianapolis -- questions that could delve deep into a family history that was rocky at times.

But of course Kendricks knows this. He has long seen the obstacle coming and since diffused the pressure, like always. Thanks in part to his brother, Kendricks has been able come to terms with the rigors of the scouting process. Nearly three years ago, he had already begun plotting his course to the next level based on his brother’s experience.

“It makes it so it’s like in my grasp,” Kendricks told the Daily New of Los Angeles in 2012 after his brother was drafted, “but it’s not, I still have to work toward it. I see how much hard work he puts into it, and I have to do the same thing.”

Kendricks’ mentality hasn’t changed in the intervening years. He has tailored his regimen so he can do what he feels he was meant to accomplish. Kendricks has worked hard to make himself the well-rounded player widely considered one of the best in his class, and is much too smart to jeopardize that now.
He may have a weakness, but --

“I can’t tell you that,” he laughs. “That’s giving away my secret.”