KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The rest of the Kansas City Chiefs' rookies will join the veterans for conditioning this week and the opening of offseason practice next week, but first-round cornerback Marcus Peters and third-round defensive back Steven Nelson will depart Kansas City, not to be seen until the middle of June.
A rookie is prohibited under NFL rules from practicing with his NFL team, rookie and minicamps excepted, until his college class graduates, regardless of whether the player is still enrolled in class.
Classes at Washington, where Peters went to school, and Oregon State, where Nelson attended, don’t finish for their current academic session until the Chiefs have completed the last of their 10 regular offseason practices June 12. The first of those practice sessions is May 26.
So they won’t rejoin the Chiefs until the start of a three-day, full-squad minicamp on June 16.
Peters indicated he would return home to Oakland, California, where he will work out and remain in communication via Skype with Chiefs coaches.
"I’ll take all the info I have from here, from this minicamp, I’ll take it home with me and continue to study that to make sure I don’t have a dropoff when I come back," Peters said.
Nelson indicated he would head to Arizona and train there.
The Chiefs drafted another Oregon State player, fifth-round linebacker D.J. Alexander. But he has graduated, so Alexander isn’t bound by the NFL rule.
The Chiefs went through an identical situation with De'Anthony Thomas last year when classes at Oregon were still in session.
"You wish they were here just for the reps," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. "But can it be done when they're not here? It can be done. You’ve got to do some different things. You've got to communicate with them, obviously, as a coach and go through whatever you can go through with them and talk to them, make sure they stay up on that. That’s what we'll do."