A first: Justin Watson goes from Penn to the Super Bowl | Mike Jensen

They’ll tell you at Penn, after checking the archives, if Justin Watson gets on the field Sunday for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers -- he’ll be the first Penn Quakers player to play in a Super Bowl, to play in the NFL championship game since before the Super Bowl era, going back to Chuck Bednarik days.

“Wow,” Watson said over the phone Wednesday night about that little footnote, which could come as soon as the opening kickoff.

The Bucs receiver said he was “hopeful” he’d be activated for the game. He can’t know 100%, he said. After being inactive for a couple of playoff games, Watson was on the field for the NFC championship game, after teammate Antonio Brown was sidelined with a knee injury. (Brown was upgraded from doubtful to questionable for Sunday’s game after being a full practice participant Friday.)

“I’m available at a lot of positions,” Watson said. Which special teams? All of them.

“It’s pretty hard to describe how big this game is, and how cool this moment is,” Watson said, but he’s figured it out in increments, calling his grandmother, hearing how she’s updating everyone she knows about her grandson, and hearing how his brother’s former school is having a Buccaneers Super Bowl party -- “in Pittsburgh, for the Bucs. That doesn’t happen,” Watson said.

A big part of Watson’s life is back in Pittsburgh. His brother Tommy was born with cerebral palsy. He’s been in a wheelchair his entire life. If you wonder why this football star has always seemed to have his feet on the ground, you shouldn’t.

Watson is in his third season with the Bucs, but his first with the new starting quarterback.

Was there a Holy Cow, that’s Tom Brady moment? Watson mentioned how when Brady first got to Tampa, they all went to dinner, the receivers and tight ends, and Brady just seemed like a normal guy, joking around about football.

“He brought his wife,” Watson said, “who just happened to be a supermodel.”

Where it really struck Watson that this was a whole different deal was when Brady and the receivers first got together for offseason throwing sessions.

“There would be a helicopter following him to the field, then hovering over the field, filming,” Watson said.

So what does a Tom Brady pass feel like? The placement is obviously great, Watson said, but there’s more to it, how Brady is “exactly detailed” on how he wants a route to be run. From there, he said, “you kind of know where the ball is going to be before you turn around.” Meaning, around the goal line, it’s coming in low, or where it will hit based on where the defender is.

For Brady himself, Watson said, “He wants it to be perfect. A completion isn’t always good enough. He’s happy with the completion. But he knows where he wants the ball.”

In other words, Brady isn’t still doing his thing by chance. The receivers room, Watson said, is similarly professional, led by Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, All-Pros for a reason, Watson said. “It’s really just built from Mike and Chris. Those guys care about football. You’ll never see Mike take a vet day, a day off. They set the pace.”

If it all sounds like a dream, let’s face it, professional football isn’t like that.

“It’s a production business when you get to the NFL,” Watson said. “It’s a harsh truth, but it’s a reality. Even when a team is winning, they work out [free agents] every week. Win or lose, you see 10 guys working out on the field every Tuesday. You look and see, ‘Man, there are five receivers out there?’ A lot of times they’re just looking for the future. But human nature, you notice.”

What helped him, believe it or not, was his Penn experience, Watson said. “Trust the Process was the Sixers’ thing. We kind of embodied that at Penn. The result would come from the process.”

The jump from the Ivies to the NFL, Watson said, “You realized your first week, a lot of the guys I played with or against in college could play -- the talent [jump] isn’t as great as you thought. But as the weeks go on, you realize these guys are really good every snap, every play, every day. We have less full pad practices than we did at Penn, probably less plays than we had at Penn. But every single person was all-conference, ready to go.”

Don’t let Watson sell you short on his own athleticism, always elite. He had a special career at Franklin Field. Watson opened eyes on his pro day at Penn, but the Bucs were already on him. Their receivers coach at the time had worked at the East-West Shrine Bowl, had seen enough of Watson to go back to the bosses saying he was draftable, and made the trip himself for the pro day, getting there a day early.

“The day before, he wanted to watch film,” Watson said of former Bucs receivers coach Skyler Fulton. “We spent about an hour-and-a-half drawing up plays. He said, ‘Put on your favorite game.’ I put on the Penn-Cornell game that year. We went through the whole thing.”

Temple had its pro day in the morning. Watson was disappointed to see only like two NFL teams there for him. Then there was a call, things at Temple weren’t done. Could they hold off at Penn for an hour? Sure. Most of the teams piled in. To say he crushed it would be an understatement. I was there that day, saw one scout kneeling by the finish line in front of me look at his stopwatch when Watson ran his 40-yard dash. “What time did you have?’' the guy asked the scout next to him.

Officially, Penn released the time as 4.42, although one scout in front of Quakers head coach Ray Priore had it at 4.35. That was kind of the range of stopwatches.

Inside the weight room, Watson jumped a 40-inch vertical. A 6-foot-2, 215-pounder, he hadn’t been invited to the NFL Scouting Combine, yet only one player there had hit 40 inches -- D.J. Chark of LSU.

The Bucs coach clearly never lost his enthusiasm. Tampa Bay took Watson in the fifth round. Watson’s first day at camp, his coach said to the receivers room, “Hey, who do you think has the highest vertical in the room?”

Evans? Maybe Chris?

“He gave me some love,’' Watson said.

Maybe sending a message, too. The Ivy League guy belonged. He’s been an extra guy, with four career starts, and 23 career catches. When Bruce Arians took over as head coach last season, Watson said, the long-ago Temple head coach was consistent from the first day.

“He coaches hard and loves on you hard,’' Watson said. “When you’re not playing good, he tells you. He says, ‘If your football [stinks], I’m going to tell you. You’re still a great guy, but I’m going to tell you.’ That’s what you want as a player. You don’t want to think you’re doing well, then you’re not on the team anymore. He leaves the coaching on the field. Off the field, he wants to know how you’re doing, how your family is.”

Of course, Watson has heard from all sorts of people from his Penn days, getting maybe more than 100 texts in the last week just from his Penn teammates and coaches and alumni players and friends. It means a lot. He gets the excitement. Former Quaker Jim Finn officially was part of a Giants Super Bowl team but was on injured reserve. So the Quakers folks will be looking for No. 17, looking for a little school history.

If he’s active, Watson will be the guy on the punt team yelling out protections, then releasing down the field. Kick return? He’s back there just in front of the deep returners. Punt return, he’s rushing the punter.

When you think about it, Watson said, you still shake your head.

“You put in so many hours into this game of football, and for many, it ends in high school, or it ends in college,’' Watson said. “To play in the biggest game that football has to offer, it’s kind of hard to get your head around.”