Like Father, Like Son: The Christian Watson Story

In 1993, the Green Bay Packers drafted Tim Watson. He helped raise, train and teach the team's second-round pick, receiver Christian Watson. “I would take Christian’s work ethic and talent over anybody else.”

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The athletic ability of Christian Watson, the receiver the Green Bay Packers selected in the second round of last week’s NFL Draft, was on display from an early age.

“We were at a Texas Roadhouse and they have the booths that are elevated,” Watson’s father, Tazim Wajed, recalled on Sunday. “We were going to the restroom to get ready before we eat. Christian at the time was probably 2, 2 1/2. He was sitting the furthest in the booth. ‘Let’s go, boys. We’re going to the restroom.’ Christian is just taking a long time. He’s kind of scooting along on his knees and he makes it near the end of the booth.

“For some reason, he decides, ‘I’m going to show you all something that you’ve never seen before.’ Imagine being flat on your knees. He sprouts up and lands down on the regular floor and is in a Spiderman position and then stands up and just starts walking. The whole place goes silent. Everybody’s like, ‘Did y’all see what just happened?’ Mind you, he’s like 2 1/2 so he’s not even as tall as the chair we’re sitting in. So, when I tell you that what you see athletically is not a surprise.”

Wajed, who as Tim Watson was drafted by the Packers in 1993, has been a coach, trainer and mentor for his sons. Tre Watson was an All-American linebacker at Maryland in 2018 and plays in the CFL. Christian was an All-American receiver at North Dakota State.

The Packers gave up two second-round picks in a trade with Minnesota to get to No. 34 overall to help offset the loss of Davante Adams.

“Tre had a cup of coffee in the NFL but he doesn’t have Christian’s athletic profile that’s just ridiculous,” Wajed said. “Christian from Day 1, after he was able to walk and talk and get around, he was the best athlete everywhere we ever went. He would do these things physically that we would look at each other and be like, ‘Did you see that?’”

That includes a night at Texas Roadhouse. It includes the barrage of big plays in helping North Dakota State win FCS national championships in 2018, 2019 and 2021. And it includes the Scouting Combine, when Watson assembled a legendary set of athletic numbers. At 6-foot-4 1/8 inch, he ran his 40 in 4.36 seconds and posted a 38.5-inch vertical leap and an 11-foot, 4-inch broad jump. By Relative Athletic Score, Watson was a 9.96 on a 0-to-10 scale. With a perfect 10, Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson is one of only 10 receivers since 1987 with a better score.

While Watson was always athletic, he wasn’t always tall. Famously, he was 5-foot-9 following his junior season at Plant High School in Tampa, Fla. “He was maybe 140 pounds soaking wet,” Wajed said.

“He was just so little,” he added. “He stayed little for a long time. He could have been Calvin Austin, that receiver from Memphis [who, at 5-foot-7 3/4, was drafted by Pittsburgh in the fourth round]. That’s what he was looking like he was headed to because he wouldn’t grow.”

When Watson grew, it was as if he’d been stretched like taffy. By the time spring practice arrived a few months later, he was 6-foot-1.

BEFORE: Christian Watson is the third of five children of former Packers draft pick Tim Watson (now Tazim Wajed). From left in this photo, taken when Watson was a sophomore in high school: Christian, his father, older brother Tre and older sister Alexus. (Photo courtesy Tazim Wajed.)

AFTER: This photo was taken when Christian Watson was a sophomore at North Dakota State. From right, it’s Watson, his dad, older brother Tre and older sister Alexus. (Photo courtesy Tazim Wajed.)

While the recruiting world didn’t take notice – that’s how one of the great prospects in the draft wound up at an FCS powerhouse – his father certainly did. It was following that 4-inch growth spurt that Wajed forecast greatness.

“Between his junior and senior years of high school, I felt like, ‘Christian is going to be a first-round draft pick,’” Wajed said. “I knew from that point that we were over the hurdle that was in the way. He is the best athlete I’ve ever seen, and I played on the field with Deion (Sanders), I played with Dale Carter, T-Buck (Terrell Buckley) was with me when I was in Green Bay. I’m telling you, that young man is the best athlete that I’ve seen in person.”

It takes more than great athleticism to make it in the NFL, obviously. It takes a great work ethic and a great knowledge of the game. Neither were an issue with Watson.

“I was really high-level working out and was still very physical myself,” Wajed said. “Christian wanted to race me all the time, he wanted to work out with me. The boys would go out and train with me. He developed a work ethic. He literally would run next to me when running repeat quarter-(miles). I’m running quarters, and this little itty-bitty kid is running right there behind me. So, he developed a work ethic and a tolerance to things that made people quit. His friends thought they wanted to until they trained with us for 10 minutes.”

Meanwhile, Watson soaked up the knowledge from a father who didn’t stick in Green Bay but played through the 1997 season. When Watson was 8, “Christian could recite the route tree.” In the yard, he would tell his son to run a ‘2,’ so Watson would run a slant. He’d tell him to run an ‘8,’ so he’d run a post. Day after day, those routes were run and run again with an eye toward greatness.

He learned the little things, such as how a well-placed hip would negate the need for silly illegal-block penalties. There’s little doubt Watson’s ability to block, via strength and technique, scored him points from coach Matt LaFleur in the evaluation process.

“Christian learned the technical aspects of ball-handling, of blocking,” Wajed said. “He has been playing football for 18 years. He has never fumbled the ball. Not once has the ball fumbled out of his hands when he has it secured. That’s unheard of. I’m going to tell you why that is the case. From the very beginning, Christian was taught leverage and where the ball should be as it relates to the defender and possible contact. He was taught a protection arm. You will see the opposite arm of where he has the ball, you’ll see him use it very offensively. Whether you’re talking about a stiff-arm or blocking the guy, they cannot get to the ball when Christian’s carrying it.”

Well-schooled in the finer points of football, Wajed can’t believe the pundits called his son “raw” in the weeks leading to last weekend’s draft. Sure, he played against lesser competition than, say, Garrett Wilson and Jameson Williams, but he’s been trained from an early age to play the game the right away. That training continued with one of the great college football programs in the nation.

And therein lies the advantage of that late growth spurt. Because he was 5-foot-9 as a high school junior, he had to play the right way. He couldn’t rely on a freakish combination of height and speed to win matchups based on talent alone.

“He had to learn the game at the basic level, at the detailed level,” Wajed said. “So, that’s how he was built. I believe that gives him an advantage. He had to do things at a different level because he couldn’t just go out and win with athleticism. …

“I will tell you – and this is not dad-speak, this is coach-speak – I’m going to tell you right now that I wouldn’t take another receiver over Christian’s level of football intelligence. What Christian did was what he was asked to do at NDSU. They won four national championships when he was there. I don’t understand what they’re looking for in terms of the player. He played within a system and he made some things happen within that system that really hadn’t happened before from the wide receiver position.”

As Wajed spoke, still basking in the glow of his son being drafted by the same team that drafted him 10,595 days earlier, there was a blanket lying next to him. It was created by the parents of the kids who played in the youth league that Wajed had founded. It read, “Whatever you do, do it with enthusiasm.” It was part of Wajed’s message to the kids of that league, including his sons, to prepare and play with great effort.

After all, you can’t control how big you are. You can’t control how fast you are. But you can control effort, desire and attitude.

As a kid, Watson had those intangible traits. It was only later that he grew to become one of the top receiver prospects in the draft and a member of the Packers.

“I’m not one of those parents who just think their kid is the best. My kids will tell you I’m the toughest one on them,” Wajed said. “With Christian, people will say, ‘They were out there playing against guys who are going to be future plumbers and lawyers.’ That’s what everybody in college is playing against. I don’t care if you’re playing at Georgia, you’re mostly playing against people who are going to do something else for a living. That’s the point I want people to understand. I’m not telling anybody that somebody’s going to go from college to the NFL and it’s going to be easy. But I would take Christian’s work ethic and talent over anybody else.”

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Photos for this story are from USA Today Sports Images, North Dakota State University and Christian Watson's father.