SEATTLE – When Marcus Trufant wakes up on Sunday mornings, he knows what the day has in store for him.
He knows they’ll be throwing at him.
He knows they’ll be testing him time after time.
He knows it because it goes with the job: rookie cornerback in the NFL.
It’s a tough enough job for a veteran. Imagine what it must be for a first-year player.
“You’ve always got to remember, you’re only as good as your next opponent,” the veteran Willie Williams said. “You might have a good game one day, but the next game they’re still going to try to prove you’re a rookie.”
A rookie out on an island with crafty, speedy veteran receivers trying to make you look the fool.
Screw up, let them get behind you for big receptions, and everyone in the stadium sees it.
Nowhere to run to. Nowhere to hide.
You’ve got to be like a closer in baseball. Resilient. With a short memory.
Forget the last play and concentrate on the next one.
Easier said than done. But vital if you want to keep working.
Williams has kept a job in the NFL for 10 seasons. He’s done something right. He’s a good man to listen to if you’re a rookie.
Trufant has. He’s listened to Williams. Listened to Shawn Springs. Listened to Ken Lucas.
All veterans.
“I don’t really pester them (with questions),” Trufant said. “They’re more like father figures.
“They come to me and say: ‘Tru, this is what you need to do. Look for this.’ They’ve kind of taken me under their wings.”
He’s an eager student, wanting to learn as much as he can about the position, the game and life in the NFL.
“I’m like a sponge,” he said. “I’m trying to soak up everything I can.”
Soak it up, store it away and put it to use when needed. “I’m a perfectionist. I want to get better and better.”
He is. He is getting better.
Sunday he had a ball. A game ball.
And after his last-minute interception put the Chicago Bears to rest once and for all, he sat with that ball on his lap in his locker.
He touched it, ran a hand over it lovingly.
It must have felt like that first football a kid is given at Christmas or for a birthday.
The only thing he didn’t do was pick it up and smell it. Maybe that would come later when he revisited the moment he plucked the ball from the air to lock up the Seahawks’ 24-17 triumph over the Bears.
What would he do with the keepsake from his first NFL interception?
“I don’t know yet,” he said, “but I’m probably going to carry it around the rest of the day.”
A major moment in a young man’s life. But doggone if he didn’t almost blow it.
Not the interception. No, he was as sure-handed as a New York pickpocket on that play, stepping in front of a Chris Chandler pass meant for Dez White at the Bears 39, returning it 6 yards and setting off noise like you haven’t heard since the days of the Kingdome. But then, these Hawk fans had never before experienced a team with a 5-1 record.
Every day is a learning day for an NFL rookie. And Marcus Trufant, the Hawks’ first-round draft choice last spring out of Washington State, got a lesson from Williams after his big play.
You keep the ball from your first interception. You don’t throw it down and start celebrating.
“Willie Williams,” Trufant said quietly, “went and got the ball for me.”
Not only was it his first interception, but it was the first by a Seahawks cornerback this season.
There’ll be many more for Trufant, if Williams is correct.
“He has all the tools to be a great cornerback in the NFL,” Williams said. “He has great character. That’s the thing that stands out. He’s working hard.”
Williams’ observations were seconded by the head coach, Mike Holmgren.
“As much as I like him as a football player, I think I even like him more as a man,” he said of Trufant. “He is really a solid young man. His approach to football is where I see him, but I am sure that his approach to most things in life is pretty straight ahead, right on.
“He and (rookie free safety) Ken Hamlin are a couple of young, bright stars on our football team who are just starting out. But if they continue to approach their profession the way they’ve done so far, then I would think the sky’s the limit for both of those guys.”
The testing is incessant. Every Sunday, it’s OK, rookie, let’s see what you’ve got.
He has plenty, as the Bears found out. Besides his interception, he broke up three passes and had eight tackles, all but two unassisted. Chandler threw in his direction 14 times and completed five, only one for more than 8 yards, that one going for 13.
The warning Trufant got from Williams is paying off: Play like they’re going to throw the ball at you every play.
“It’s the life of a rookie cornerback,” Trufant said. “You know what’s going to happen, there’s not much you can do but go out there and try to make plays.”
He had tried to imagine what that first interception would be like, but couldn’t quite envision it. Now he doesn’t have to use his creative powers anymore.
The football resting on his lap was the real thing.
“It’s all starting to get real,” he said of his new life. “All the time we spend in meetings and practice. It’s really starting to sink in.
“I’m an NFL player. This is big-time football, and I’ve got to work at my art.”
Just at that moment, Reggie Tongue walked by and slapped hands with Trufant.
“Put the money in the bag,” the veteran strong safety shouted. “He put the money in the bag.”
A few lockers down, Williams said of Trufant: “I’m proud of him.”
And Willie Williams’ respect is not easily won.
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