Confidence trait most players still lack on draft night

MIAMI GARDENS — Jason Taylor emerged as a rare player after teammate Trace Armstrong convinced him to be confident in his so-skinny frame. Taylor would eat two peanut butter sandwiches before weekly weigh-ins only to see the scale rarely budge beyond 242 pounds.

“F—- the scale,” the Miami Dolphins legend wrote on a note he put in his locker and looked at each week on his way to the Hall of Fame.

Dwyane Wade sweated after practice near the end of his Miami Heat career, shooting 3-point shots, one after another, as his game needed to change in a new era. Why?

“I’ve got to get my confidence right to take it,’’ he said. “I haven’t used it much.”

It’s NFL draft weekend, and the question again is what defines a pro talent. Size? Speed? Intelligence? The question changes after the draft when the real work of development begins with words like technique, discipline and — the one all players struggle with at times — confidence.

Jaelen Phillips began talking with a confidence coach midway through his rookie Dolphins season. In so doing, the defensive end showed himself as a normal rookie, tangled and uneven, a real person trying to be a real success.

“When I came into camp and started getting hit with some adversity again, I just had to kind of re-position myself and refocus my energy and my attention,’’ he said. “So I ultimately ended up — I’m really grateful for the fact that that happened because in the span of the season I felt myself growing as a person.”

The confidence coach, Ben Newman, was introduced to Phillips by Kaleb Thornhill, the Dolphins player development coach. Newman authors books, delivers talks, works with Fortune 500 executives and the Alabama football team.

Phillips began wearing a wristband with the words, “Just Watch Me.”

“That just basically evokes an emotional response from me,’’ he said. “Just kind of having a chip on my shoulder still and just reminding myself that I still have everything to prove to myself and to haters.”

Is that why Phillips bloomed the second half of the season, finishing with 8 sacks? Was it the normal progression of a young player?

This is the battle most players face in some jumping to the pro game in any era. Some of that confidence is injected by coaches. Dolphins legend Bob Griese struggled in his fourth season when benched in a game for John Stofa. Outsiders wondered what would happen next — insiders, too.

“I don’t care what the owners says, the writers say, anyone says,’’ coach Don Shula said. “Bob is our quarterback.”