by Joe Curley
Originally published in the Ventura County Star
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Not even Jaylen Watson himself can believe the impact he has had an NFL rookie.
Making his first NFL start, the former two-time All-American at Ventura College intercepted Justin Herbert and returned it for a touchdown on "Monday Night Football."
The 24-year-old cornerback has started both playoff games for the Kansas City Chiefs, intercepting both Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow.
And now he's set to become the first Ventura College alumni to play in a Super Bowl Sunday, when Kansas City faces Philadelphia in Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona.
"If you went back and told me this story, I wouldn't have believed it," Watson said this week. "It's a dream come true.
"Not many people get to live out their dreams, so I'm just soaking it all up and living in the moment."
"Living in Ventura, staying with 10 other teammates, it just told me about that struggle, it gave me that grit, and that determination to do better in life and for myself," Watson said. "It was a grind there with my brothers. We were all just grinding to have a purpose in life and chase our dreams."
Watson's path to the biggest sporting event in the world took him from his native Augusta, Georgia, to two years in Ventura, where he intercepted eight passes over two seasons and helped the Pirates win the Southern California championship and reach the CCCAA State Championship game in 2018.
Watson committed to USC in Ventura. But academic issues kept him from transferring to Troy, so he returned home to Augusta to redshirt, working at a Wendy's managed by his mother while he worked on his studies.
"When I went seventh round, I knew everything happened for a reason," Watson said. "I was just going to have to put my head down and go to work. To make the Super Bowl in my first year, I'm so humbled and grateful, because so many people go 10-plus years in the league and they're not able to be here."
"It was tough … just watching my mom work so hard and sacrifice for me and my sister, it gave me all the motivation in the world to not give up," Watson said. "My mom, she always believed in me, always kept pushing me. Just watching her sacrifice so much, it really pushed me. It gave me that extra push to be something."
Within a year, Watson returned West, becoming a two-time All-Pacific-12 honorable mention selection at Washington State. Kansas City selected him in the seventh round with the 243rd pick overall.
He admitted he had no idea how much he would play as a rookie.
"My job here was to come, make the team, and put my head down each and every day and do anything I can to help the team win," Watson said. "When Trent (McDuffie), went down, my role just grew. They expected more out of their rookies, and we got thrown into the fire, but we always felt we'd be ready, and the coaches trusted in us, and the vets trusted in us."
The 'It' factor
Ventura College head coach Steve Mooshagian remembers Watson as a quiet teenager from Georgia in 2017 who quickly became one of the Pirates' loudest players.
"You could tell he had the 'It' factor from Day 1," Mooshagian said. "He had swag, as everybody calls it."
Watson had two interceptions in his VC debut at Santa Barbara City. He had two more interception returns for scores nullified by penalties.
"It was the first time I'd ever seen that," Mooshagian said. "One was a block in the back 40 yards behind the play. They were questionable, I can say that now."
The film didn't lie. By midseason, opposing teams didn't try to test his side of the field.
"Jaylen did a great job of drawing attention to himself," Mooshagian said. "To the point that our opponents didn't even try to throw his way."
In 2018, Watson played so well in the win over Riverside College in the SoCal title game that Laney College basically ignored him in the Pirates' 40-35 loss in the state championship game.
"He was a big reason why that team had such a great season," Mooshagian said. "Jaylen just rose to the occasion. The bigger the game, the bigger the stage, the bigger he played. And he's done that throughout his career."
Mooshagian never reached the Super Bowl during his career as a position coach in the NFL. By his count, Watson will be the 10th player he has coached collegiately to play for the NFL title.
If the Chiefs win, Watson won't become the first VC alumni with a Super Bowl ring.
Ventura native Karl Henke, a star on the Pirates' 1965 Western State Conference championship team, was a defensive lineman for the New York Jets during their historic, Joe Namath-inspired run to Super Bowl III.
But Henke, who played eight games in 1968, was deactivated for the Super Bowl win over Baltimore. He told The Star in 2005 that coach Weeb Eubank used his place on the gameday roster to shore up the Jets' battered linebacking corps.
Embracing the challenge
Watson played in 18 of 19 games as a rookie Kansas City, making eight starts, including playoff wins over Jacksonville and Cincinnati.
He made his first NFL start in Week 2 against the Los Angeles Chargers and made an instant impact, returning a goal-line interception of Justin Herbert 99 yards for a pivotal touchdown in the 27-24 home win.
Watson has played more than 90% of the defensive snaps during the playoffs.
He helped clinch the Chiefs' 27-20 win over Jacksonville with an interception with 3:43 to play.
In Kansas City's 23-20 win over Cincinnati in the AFC Championship Game, Watson drew a difficult matchup covering J'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. But he held his own, intercepting Joe Burrow over the middle in the second quarter.
"We're real big in trying to win our leverage and trying to get pressure on the quarterback," Watson said. "And not let Joe (Burrow) sit back there and dissect the defense. We want to give him different looks. And that's what we did. Try to make him get the ball out as fast as possible. That's a great receiving corps. I love the challenge. I'm embracing this one as well."
Watson has been impressed with the Eagles' receiving duo of AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith.
"The thing I noticed the most is that just being there (in coverage) isn't good enough," Watson said. "They're great at catching contested balls, so it's going to be very important to get our head around, and try to fight through their hands."
Watson said Philadelphia quarterback Jalen Hurts' mobility will make his job "more challenging" Sunday."You'd rather have a quarterback that sits in the pocket," Watson said. "It's pretty hard to cover a receiver five, six seconds in this league. … We're just going to have to try to keep him in the pocket."
Martin Frank of the Delaware News Journal contributed to this story from Phoenix, Arizona.
Joe Curley covers high school, collegiate and professional football for The Star. He can be reached at joe.curley@vcstar.com. For more coverage, follow @vcspreps on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.