‘No bad days’: How Chiefs’ Justin Watson was driven and shaped by older brother Tommy

At a Chuck E. Cheese when he was about 7 years old, Justin Watson redeemed tickets for a football. No wonder his father, Doug, was puzzled when he saw Justin instead holding a tiara a few moments later. Turned out he overcame his shyness to ask for a trade since he thought his little sister, Abby, would want the tiara.

That’s Doug Watson’s favorite story about his son, who as a child on Halloween tended to reach for Almond Joys every chance he could since it was the favorite candy of his mother, Terri.

Those stories, his parents will tell you, speak to the essence of who he is.

And you can see how that parallels the play of the receiver in his first season with the Chiefs — the receiver who played 57 of 65 snaps last week against the Chargers with JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mecole Hardman out hurt and Kadarius Toney sidelined by an injury during the game.

Watson, quarterback Patrick Mahomes says, sees the big picture in such a way that he can tell everyone else where to line up … and has been helping others all along.

The under-the-radar dependable one to whom Mahomes turned in a key third-and-17 for a 25-yard gain on a day when he led all Chiefs wide receivers with 67 yards.

The particularly selfless one who relishes downfield blocking, something you’ll surely see again Sunday when the Chiefs play host to the Rams at Arrowhead Stadium.

“He’s always looking to see how he can help somebody else,” Terri Watson said in a family phone interview with The Star.

Some of that is by nature. Some is a reflection of the selfless values of parents the Pennsylvania native considers the hardest-working people he’s ever known.

But perhaps nothing has influenced Watson’s consciousness of others, his drive and embrace of being part of something bigger than himself than his oldest brother Tommy, who was born with cerebral palsy.

Tommy is his parents’ “angel,” Justin says.

But that seems an apt term for how Justin views him, too.

He’s the reason, Justin says, that he lives (and plays) by a code that says “there are no bad days” — words that came to him as an epiphany when he was in high school and have guided him ever since.

We’ll come back to that realization in a moment.

Safe to say, though, that that feeling was within him even before he began to articulate it that way.

“Justin has always looked at Tommy and felt, obviously, touched by Tommy’s physical condition. Because it’s not easy being Tommy,” Terri Watson said. “And Justin has thought it out deeply, thanking God for what he does have. He does not take it for granted at all, knowing every time he wakes up and can do something it’s a gift. Because Tommy wasn’t so lucky with that.”

While trying not to hold back their other kids, Alex, Justin and Abby, the Watsons made virtually all family decisions based on how it would affect Tommy — who can’t walk, talk or feed himself and is legally blind —but for years went to his siblings’ events.

Meanwhile, the family went to many of his at the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children and learned of a bigger world than their own.

“They saw people differently because of Tommy,” Doug Watson said.

If the family was invited to someone’s house or to an event and there was no easy access for Tommy, they simply didn’t go.

The children seldom, if ever, questioned that, and Justin says now he wouldn’t even call that a sacrifice.

At home, Doug and Terri were so adept with making Tommy part of everything that for a long time the kids didn’t understand why extra help sometimes was needed.

By his late teens, though, Tommy was getting too heavy for such essentials as Doug carrying him into the shower. His siblings weren’t grown enough to be able to take that over. They needed help.

They wept when they moved him into the Merakey Allegheny Valley School, which “provides … a full range of services to individuals with all levels of intellectual and developmental disabilities.” But they always see him several times a week and are grateful for his care.

It was there that Justin one day experienced a certain clarity about Tommy’s role in his life that has fueled him ever since.

After a day of triple practice sessions at South Fayette High, Doug took Justin to visit Tommy, who is 8 years older than the 26-year-old Chief. In the hallway, Justin was complaining about the practices and a new pair of cleats giving him blisters.

Then he entered the room where his brother greeted him with a huge smile as he sat among a group of 15 or 20 others in wheelchairs.

“That’s a day that really changed everything for me,” Justin said at his locker earlier this week. “I thought, ‘Man, if Tommy had one day in my shoes, he would run until he passed out. Until his feet were bleeding. Until he threw up. And as soon as he could do it again, he would.’ ”

So “no bad days” guided him, off the field and on.

At the crossroads when he had to decide how much of himself he would invest in sports, he told himself he was all-in.

Told himself “anything I’m going to do, I’m going to do with (Tommy) in mind. And give it my absolute everything just like I know he would if he had a day to do the same.”

Through a record-setting career at the University of Pennsylvania and being selected by Tampa Bay in the fifth round of the 2018 NFL Draft and the ups and downs and injuries along the way to being signed by the Chiefs last offseason, that’s been the through line for Watson.

Tommy’s influence helps account for the way Watson sees and plays the game and why he’s first to jump up when someone goes down, as Mahomes noted.

Not to mention why he’s compelled to try to put a smile on the face of any child — particularly ones contending with some of the same things he has seen challenge Tommy.

One of the highlights of Watson’s NFL career actually was a 2019 preseason game in Pittsburgh. Because Tommy was able to attend one of his games for the first time Justin was in middle school.

In photos from that day, you can see Justin’s radiance from the thrill of having Tommy and all his family gathered around.

The special bond among them includes a language all their own, one built around loving gestures. When Tommy’s happy, Terri said, his entire body loosens up and he makes sounds of contentment as he snuggles or leans into loved ones.

While all of their kids are close, the Watsons know, they see something unique about Justin and Tommy’s wavelength.

For instance, Justin has certain noises, including one like a duck call, that always make him light up.

“He’s got great hearing, so he listens and communicates more in laughs and smiles …,” Justin said, later adding, “I could tell him anything in the world, and he wasn’t going to tell a soul. And there’s power in that. He’s a guy I’ve always leaned on.”

There’s power, too, in the constant reframing of perspective that Tommy inspires. If life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react, as Watson believes, Tommy is “living testament” to that with the joy he conveys amid suffering and hardship.

That example deeply influences Watson’s view of the world.

“I lean on my faith a lot in all areas in life, especially when there’s things that I can’t quite understand,” Watson said. “And so I always know there’s a reason behind anything we go through in life. With Tommy, I know that when this life ends he’ll be in a better place, alleviated from all his pain and suffering and hurt.

“The other thing I rest on is that what he’s going through now has changed so many people’s lives. Our whole family, everyone that he touches, are better people because of him.”

Including, no doubt, himself.

Amid a career reset with the Chiefs and recently married, Terri Watson said, Justin “knows that he’s been blessed beyond blessings.”

With help, as ever, from all his family … and from Tommy in its own profound and poignant way.