RENTON — Josh Wilson’s alarm went off every day at 7 a.m.
The sound wasn’t a buzz or radio-station drivel but a four-word mantra that he had programmed into his cell phone.
“Quit being a rookie,” Wilson’s phone alarm reminded him every morning.
That was over the summer, and the Seattle Seahawks’ cornerback has certainly lived up to the daily affirmation.
Now in his second NFL season, Wilson has seen his career start to blossom thanks in large part to the confidence that he’s instilled. With every play he makes, and every receiver he blankets, Wilson has gained confidence in his ability and validated the coaches’ decision to insert him into the starting lineup five weeks ago.
“The comfort level is getting better and better out there,” Wilson said on Wednesday. “The more you do something, the more you can be exact at what you do.”
While Wilson’s confidence is at an all-time high, the man he replaced continues to struggle with his.
Twenty-five-year-old Kelly Jennings was Wilson this time last season: a second-year player who had moved into the starting lineup and improved each week. Those days seem so far away now.
Since Jennings got demoted to the role of Wilson’s backup, he’s trying not to let his confidence waver.
“You’ve just got to let it go,” he said of the negative energy that comes with losing a starting job. “It’s tough to let it go because you want to be good, and if you’re not, you feel like you’re letting people down. But if you hold on to that, you’ll never get back to where you need to be.”
Seahawks fans have seen how confidence can affect a players’ career — both good and bad. While former first-round pick Marcus Trufant gained so much confidence early last year that he went on to have a Pro Bowl season, former starting safety Michael Boulware lost so much confidence during his third season in Seattle that he eventually got shipped out of town.
Confidence, at the defensive back position more than any other, can be the fine line that separates the Pro Bowler from the unemployed.
“As a defensive back, you have to be able to brush things off very quickly,” Seahawks safety Brian Russell said. “There comes a time when every defensive back gives up a play. You’ve got to get ready for the next play because if you let it linger in your mind, it’s going to get ugly for you.”
While teammates say that confidence has been a big part of Wilson’s emergence, they claim that Jennings has shown no signs of losing his. Even after the third-year player missed a tackle to help set up the Philadelphia Eagles’ second touchdown last Sunday, Jennings kept his head high.
“Kell, his confidence level is there,” safety Deon Grant said. “He’s just real quiet, so when people see his demeanor, they think his confidence level might not be high. It’s high; he’s just a quiet dude.”
Defensive coordinator John Marshall said he hasn’t noticed any change in Jennings’s psyche.
“He’s not in the tank or anything like that,” Marshall said. “He’s very workmanlike about what he’s doing. But I didn’t ask him about how he’s feeling or anything — because I was afraid he’d tell me.”
Defensive back Jordan Babineaux is among the players who have rushed to Jennings’s defense this season. When reporters descended on Jennings’ locker after the benching, Babineaux tried to shoo them away.
It brought back memories of a postgame locker room incident in 2006, when Babineaux barked at reporters who had surrounded Boulware’s locker minutes after the safety had given up a game-winning touchdown pass against San Diego.
Babineaux did not want to compare the situations, and he added that he isn’t trying to single Jennings out.
“At this point right now, being in the situation we’re in, we could all use a little uplift,” Babineaux said this week.
Jennings started 20 of Seattle’s past 22 games — a concussion relegated him to a lesser role in the Oct. 5 game against the New York Giants — before officially losing his starting job on Oct. 12. He had given up too many long passes, including two touchdowns, in the first four games of this season.
This week, Jennings said that demotion came as no surprise.
“I’m a realist,” he said. “I know this is a business. They do what they feel like they have to do, and if I was making the calls, I’d have done the same thing.
“Right now, I’m just not right on some things. I just have to keep watching film and work it out.”
As for Wilson, he has taken the opportunity and run with it. The 23-year old returned an interception for a touchdown to spark the Seahawks to a win over San Francisco 11 days ago, and he squelched a possible touchdown on Sunday when he dropped Eagles running back Brian Westbrook three yards behind scrimmage at the Seattle 7-yard line.
“There was no question Josh was a talented player from the get-go,” Seattle’s Babineaux said. “Everyone knew that. Now that he’s got a year under his belt to know the game and learn it, he’s playing at a different level.”
Wilson is playing like a veteran, which is just what he set out to do.
“I had one thing on my mind in training camp,” he said. “I wasn’t going to come out here and be a rookie anymore.”
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