Acceptance
“He thinks about his relationship with Reid. It’s the best he’s ever had with a coach. It started with 11 p.m. phone calls his first year in Kansas City. ‘Hey, Starship! How you doing?’ (Reid calls him ‘Starship 14.’) Reid would ask about life, about his two girls. (Watkins’ daughters love Reid.) Their energies match. Reid gets him. Once, in a team meeting, Watkins leaned back to stretch a sore neck, and Reid, out of nowhere, yelled at him. ‘Sammy, stop! Stop talking to your people! They’ve been visiting me in my sleep! Stop!’ Confused, Watkins asked him what he meant. ‘You know, Mars, Neptune…’“
I feel like Watkins has found acceptance in Kansas City, not only from his head coach Andy Reid but also from his teammates. He was misunderstood, viewed as a crazy guy mumbling to himself in the corner of the Bills locker room when he entered the league, but with the Chiefs things are different. People actually value Watkins’ worldview and accept him for who he is. Maybe that’s why the prospect of being discarded by the Chiefs’ franchise as a potential cost-cutting measure was so upsetting to him. Maybe that’s why he considered retirement at one point. At the end of the day, I think everyone is looking for that same sense of belonging that Watkins found in Kansas City.
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