How Oronde Gadsden Has Impressed Teammates & Coaches Early in His Rookie Career

Jun 16, 2025 at 05:24 PM

Omar Navarro

Jr. Writer

There are not many people at The Bolt around the time Oronde Gadsden rolls in each day.

Still used to East Coast time, the rookie tight end often naturally wakes up bright and early at 5 a.m.

And rather than try and go back to sleep, he figures he might as well use that early rise to help him get a jumpstart on another day in the NFL.

"I usually just wake up," Gadsden said on Monday. "I have a hard time going back to sleep once I get up so I may as well come over here and do some things before everyone else gets here."

Gadsden then takes his usual eight-minute bike ride to the facility, where the work begins much earlier than the time he's supposed to report.

He's taken it to the field, where he's been attacking and getting a head start on one of the biggest transition points from college to the pros.

"I'll have the plays, just go through them," Gadsden said. "If it's a play that has two tight end personnel, then I'll go through both and if it's just one, I'll just do that one and then move onto the next play and then just go on."

It was something Gadsden picked up from Chargers Executive Director of Player Performance Ben Herbert, whom he has worked with extra since arriving with the team.

"It's been good to get help memorizing each play and being able to – when I'm out there, it's not the first time I'm going through it," Gadsden said. "With learning a new offense, new style of getting the plays, it's not like college where you're doing signals and all that.

"You have to listen to the quarterback and sometimes the quarterback is saying the plays and you might get lost trying to figure out some things while he's speaking," he added. "So walking through it, saying it to yourself out there on the field will definitely help slow it down."

It's one of the many examples of how Gadsden has been all open ears since arriving to El Segundo — and it's why those around the team have spoken nothing but glowing things since he arrived on the scene.

"He moved out here a week before he had to be here," Chargers run game coordinator/tight ends coach Andy Bischoff said Monday. "He's here in the mornings walking through when it's the haze of the morning out there. He's a really impressive learner."

He later added: "He also has a smile on his face every day. Just the way he approaches it all, this guy is locked in and wants to learn and he's so coachable. That's been from the minute we got off the phone on draft night."

Chargers Head Coach Jim Harbaugh added last week: "He's shown up and been what we thought, and with the personality that we thought, which is a real competitor and a real football player. That's what we've been getting. Thrilled."

Gadsden's extra work and willingness to be coached has helped him big in such a short time, including in last week’s minicamp where he was one of the standouts.

If he has any free time, you better believe he'll find something to do with it.

"Just taking everything the coaches have been giving me," Gadsden said. "Being a sponge to what they're saying, taking it in.

"If I need to do extra walk throughs on my own, if I need to go workout extra, if I need to go to the training room and anything like that, just getting it in after practice of whenever I get free time," Gadsden added.

He's been doing all of that, while continuing to pick the brain of those around him.

Gadsden has been talking a lot with the veterans along with the coaches, as Bischoff said he's been a " tell him one-time guy" who receives instructions well and makes adjustments immediately.

As Syracuse's all-time leader in receptions and receiving yards by a tight end, his receiving talent is what flashed the most ahead of the draft and has translated to the team drills.