Still, after four games of his rookie season, which he thought would be spent apprenticing under a pair of smart veterans, he was the one out there in Week 5 with the green dot on, calling plays for a lot of older players, while still learning what it meant to be in the NFL.
They didn’t have earpieces and signals in college, so he was learning his new language by immersion.
“Just getting it mentally in my head, knowing like, OK, you’ve just got to get the call out, you know, just getting prepared to know what things are next, lining guys up. That first time, because you know you don’t want to mess up, you don’t want to miss a beat because Josey and Shaq wouldn’t, and you want to fill their shoes.
“The vets, knowing it was my first time being a green dot, they just trying to calm me down. Just get the call out and just be fluent.”
They have a camp to figure it out now, until or unless the team brings in more help. But for the moment, it seemed good.
Cornerback Jaycee Horn said, “It went smooth today,” though it’s the first unpadded practice of a long season.
“The communication and stuff in the huddle was, I feel like everybody got the calls around the defense and we played fast,” he said.
That’s a good first step, in what has already been an unusual turn of events.