Fresh, Never Frozen: How a year working at Wendys with his mom forged Rams cornerback Jaylen Watson

The first thing you notice about Jaylen Watson is his smile.It’s the smile of a man who knows exactly how strange the road behind him looks in the rearview mirror.On Thursday at the Rams‘ facility in Woodland Hills, Watson was introduced as one of the team’s newest cornerbacks.It was there, with a room full of reporters, that he reflected on his unconventional journey from attending community college in Ventura, to working with his mother at a Wendy’s restaurant in Augusta, Georgia.“I hated it.

It was terrible,” Watson said, laughing about the year he spent working at Wendy’s — where his boss just happened to be his mother.Watson’s journey wasn’t glamorous, it wasn’t linear and it definitely wasn’t handed to him.Before the NFL.Before the Super Bowl rings.

Before he became coveted in free agency.He was just a kid from Augusta trying to figure out what came next after high school.Watson graduated from Lucy C.

Laney High School with talent but without the golden ticket of a Division I scholarship.As a kid, he wanted to be an actor or a rapper.

No matter what he was going to pursue in life, his mother would support him. “She’s like my Super Woman,” Watson said about his mother.After high school, Watson attended Ventura College, about an hour north of Los Angeles.It was there that he quietly rebuilt his football life.

As a sophomore he recorded 43 tackles, 13 pass breakups, four interceptions and a fumble recovery.Suddenly colleges were interested in him.

He signed with USC and planned to transfer to the Trojans for his junior season.Except Watson didn’t qualify academically and just like that his football dreams were detoured again.He went home to Augusta, moved back in with his mother and tried to find work.Nothing stuck until his mom — the manager of a local Wendy’s — gave him the only offer on the table.

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