KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Late Thursday night, the previously (relatively) anonymous Jaylen Watson emerged from a Chiefs locker room still buzzing about him and stepped to the microphone in the media room at Arrowhead Stadium.
“How’s everybody doing?” he said.
Maybe no one was doing as well as him just then.
The cellphone in the rookie seventh-round draft pick’s pocket kept vibrating as he spoke about what he called a surreal moment in his life, a 99-yard interception return that essentially created a 14-point swing in a 27-24 victory over the Chargers at Arrowhead Stadium.
Coach Andy Reid would simply say, “That was beautiful,” and defensive end Frank Clark thought about how players “dream of stuff like that.” Defensive tackle Chris Jones thought about it for a second and said the play “changed the dynamic of the game.”
Heck, a few minutes after Watson said out loud in the locker room that “all I want for my birthday” is a shoutout from Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, Mahomes came through for him at the podium.
And then some, actually, considering it turns out they share the birth date of Sept. 17 and Mahomes had a party planned.
“It’s his birthday party now,” Mahomes said, smiling, “because of the way he played.”
Especially considering some extreme and improbable circumstances.
That’s both in the context of the night itself as well as the arc of a life that included a year out of college football because of academic complications (transferable credits from junior college).
Instead of heading to USC, that left him home in Augusta, Ga., working at a local Wendy’s … for his mom.
We’ll come back to that. But that stint helps explain how a play the Chiefs virtually had to have to win this game came to be.
“I’m just a very resilient person (who’s) always been working for what I have,” he said. “I was never given anything. And I think that gave me an edge on the football field as well.
“So I just try to carry that edge, show some hunger, show some anger on the football field, and let it out on the opponents.”
Extrapolate that attitude to how he viewed the game on Thursday against the Chargers.
