Asa Watson felt the eyes.

It was the 2015 Budweiser Duels -- the qualifying event for the Daytona 500, aka the Super Bowl of NASCAR -- and Watson couldn't help but feel a bit out of place. The 24-year-old former tight end wasn't even six weeks into his second career as a jack man for Roush Fenway Racing's developmental team, but you'd never know it by watching his first three NASCAR pit stops. Watson's jacks were strong and clean, his movements smooth and precise -- all of which helped get his boss, Bobby Labonte, in and out of Daytona's pit row without a hitch.

But when Labonte's fourth pit stop rolled around, Watson's radio went dead, so he missed Labonte's instructions: replace only the two left tires. As the car rolled to a stop, Watson ran around to the right side and jacked the car. He looked to his left, no one was there. He looked to his right, no one was there. He looked over the car and saw a teammate laughing.

New sport. Same rookie mistakes.

From the sideline to pit row

Watson is the latest in a growing sect of pit crew members: former football players who still have a taste for competition. In an informal survey of NASCAR teams, ESPN found at least eight pit row workers who have some sort of NFL experience.

After failing to catch on in the NFL, Asa Watson put his athletic talent to work for Roush Fenway Racing. Courtesy of Roush Fenway Racing

In total, NASCAR has between 258 and 301 pit crew members who work on the cars during a race and a few hundred more in support roles. By comparison, the 32 NFL teams each have 90 men on the roster when training camp begins (2,880 total players), and they cut to 53 on the active roster, plus eight on the practice squad by the start of the season (1,952 players). That means more than 900 NFL hopefuls will be out of work by late August or early September.

Why have some of those players gravitated to NASCAR? Pit crews aren't what they used to be 15 years ago, according to driver Elliott Sadler, who Watson works for in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.

"Before, you didn't have to be an athlete; you just had to have car knowledge," Sadler said. "Now, it's so much different. It's so competitive on pit row. We'll teach you how to change tires, jack, gas, do all the things we want you to do. But you have to be an athlete."

Being an athlete is in Watson's blood. Growing up in Rock Hill, South Carolina, he was consumed by football -- and matching the exploits on the field of his older brother, Benjamin.

"He was always the strongest, the fastest and the best athlete," Asa said of Benjamin, who was drafted by the New England Patriots in 2004 and, now with the New Orleans Saints, is entering his 12th season as an NFL tight end. "His records were up everywhere at Northwestern High School, and it was kinda like I was living in his shadow. But it wasn't bad. I guess I couldn't ask for a better person's shadow to live under."

In 2009, a year after Benjamin played in Super Bowl XLII, Asa signed to play football at North Carolina State with hopes of one day playing on the game's biggest stage. That dream took a detour when, after his sophomore season, he was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a condition that can lead to periods of rapid heart rate. After two invasive heart surgeries, Watson found his way back onto the field after redshirting a year and caught 23 passes for 282 yards and his only collegiate touchdown, as a junior in 2012.

In the lead-up to the 2014 NFL draft, Watson drew interest from the Minnesota Vikings, Jacksonville Jaguars and Atlanta Falcons. But with Watson's family gathered in his parents' Rock Hill home, the draft began and ended without his name being called. An hour later, his phone rang. It was Nick Caserio, the Patriots' director of player personnel, offering him a free-agent contract.

Watson, left, was signed by the Patriots as an undrafted rookie but didn't make the team. AP Images/Steven Senne

"My brother was jumping on me. Everybody was hugging," Watson said. "My wife was crying."

The celebration was short-lived: Watson spent the offseason with New England but was cut on Aug. 10. Four days later, he signed with the Dallas Cowboys, who released him during final cuts. He worked out for the Chicago Bears midway through the 2014 season but left without a contract

At 6-foot-3, 237 pounds, Watson knew he was undersized to make it as an NFL tight end. It was time to figure out what would come next.

Athleticism matters most

Watson grew up within 175 miles of four of NASCAR's top tracks (Charlotte, Martinsville, Bristol and Darlington), but he never watched a race. So it's more than a little ironic that a day after his tryout with the Bears in September didn't yield a contract, he started cold-calling racing teams. Rodney Fetters, the pit crew coach for Roush Fenway Racing, was intrigued by the prospect of bringing a former NFL player to his team, so he contacted the Patriots for a scouting report.

When it comes to building a pit crew, size matters; the whole team can't look like offensive linemen -- or jockeys, for that matter. A mix of heights and weights is needed to fit specific jobs. A man Watson's size would be good as a jack or a gas man. Someone with a sprinter's attributes might be a tire carrier. A second baseman could be a tire changer.

Watson played tight end at North Carolina State and hoped to follow his brother, Benjamin, to the NFL. Joel Auerbach/Getty Images

But athleticism matters more -- and while athletes come in all shapes and sizes, someone with NFL-type skills is rare breed for a pit crew.

"For us, if we can get a guy at that level, who's achieved that highest level, and use his athleticism for the position that we have available on our pit crew, we'll teach him the skill set," said Chris Burkey, a pit chief for Jeff Gordon's and Kasey Kahne's crews at Hendrick Motorsports. "But he's already got the intangibles, the strength, the change of direction; he uses the height, the weight and the ability to just compete. So it's easy. No, we just got to teach him the skill set to be a pit crew."

Slotting former NFL players into a pit crew is easy. It's filling the rest of the support team that's a challenge. NASCAR teams have turned to recruiting to build their rosters. Stewart-Haas Racing has gone across the Southeast recruiting student-athletes through 30-minute presentations at colleges and universities.

Hendrick is one of a handful of teams that host an NFL-style combine.

Burkey, who spent four years as a scout with the Miami Dolphins, including two under Nick Saban, runs Hendrick's combine. He has participants do the short shuttle, L drill, vertical jumps and bench press, as well as a NASCAR version of the shuttle run with lug nuts to test hand-eye coordination.

It's all done "so we can separate the athletes," Burkey said.

About 15 minutes after picking up a jack for the first time during his initial meeting with Fetters at Roush's headquarters outside Charlotte, Watson had picked up 90 percent of the basics -- how to grip, carry and run with a jack at waist height and how to set it under the car, tighten the handle and pump the jack to raise the car. Being a jack man also requires Watson to pull the tires off the car and set them down for the tire carrier.

"I can't teach you repetition and I can't teach you experience," Fetters said. "You got to get all that yourself. You have to live it."

Watson has been honing his new craft as the secondary gas man for Sadler's No. 1 car in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and serving as jack man for the No. 32 car during Sprint Cup races. He is trying to learn the nuances that separate the pedestrian from the elite on pit row.

As the jack man, Watson is the pit team's center, making spur-of-the-moment decisions that make be the difference between winning and losing. Watson is responsible for lowering the car on his jack, a sign to the driver it's clear to leave the pit box. Before he does that, Watson needs to make sure the gas tank is full and all the tires and lug nuts are in place. Only then can he lower the car.

As a jack man, Watson's responsibilities echo those of a football center. Courtesy of Roush Fenway Racing

The money can't compare to the NFL -- a starting pit salary is around $40,000 versus the NFL minimum of $435,000 -- but it beats being unemployed.

And from the racing teams' perspective, the risk is minimal. Burkey sees only upside to bringing in former football players.

"They understand how to take care of their bodies," Burkey said. "They understand how to lift. They understand how to condition. You just have to teach them how to become a pit crew member. And we like to teach guys from the ground up."

'It tends to take a lot out of you'

Fetters started Watson by introducing him to the jack. After Watson came in on his own time three days a week for three months, he progressed to stationary pit stops. The training continued for two months before Watson was working on a live car, which was nerve-racking. One time, Watson dropped the car too soon and a teammate's hand got caught under the tire.

The hardest part for Watson was figuring out how to control the jack -- "this unfamiliar piece of equipment" -- to get it to lift the car.

Even though the practices were just 45 minutes, short compared to football standards, they were exhausting.

"This was like a breeze when I first got there," Watson said. "Once I started to actually do real stops, I was like, 'OK, this is why you can only do a few stops,' because you're jumping off a concrete wall onto the concrete ground and running around the car. It tends to take a lot out of you."

Former NFL long snapper Boone Stutz says working on a pit crew satisfies his drive to compete. Harold Hinson Photography

Indeed, the weekly grind in NASCAR isn't that different than in the NFL. At Hendrick, pit crews have access to a 3,000-square-foot weight room and a turf field to train on, with a full-time strength-and-conditioning staff on hand. Boone Stutz -- a former long snapper for the Atlanta Falcons and current crew member for Stewart-Haas Racing -- says his daily practices serve as a constant measuring stick. "It does fulfill the desire to compete," he said. "You see your times. You know when you do well. You know when you do bad."

Joe Piette, Stutz's pit crew coach, immediately recognized Stutz's discipline, especially when it came to preparation. It showed in how quickly Stutz picked up his role as a gas man. Two weeks after picking up a gas can for the first time last August, Stutz was already practicing live pit stops. By February, he was gassing Danica Patrick's Sprint Cup car. Like in football, repetition made Stutz better. Stewart-Haas practices typically consist of six pit stops, ranging from changing four tires to damage repair to dealing with a flat tire. Stutz works with weighted gas cans full of water instead of gas, constantly going through the motion of filling a car.

"The focus they have when they're practicing is what stands out to me," Piette said about former football players. "Every chance they get to run a practice pit stop, they want to do it the best they can do it. They want to be the best at it."

Settling into a new world

About six weeks before Watson sat in the back of Sadler's trailer before an Xfinity Series race at Phoenix International Raceway in mid-March, the New England Patriots won Super Bowl XLIX about 13 miles away.

That world is long gone for Watson.

He's traded his team-issued sweats for navy-blue work pants and a short-sleeved, light-blue mechanic's shirt. Instead of shoulder pads, a flame-resistant fire suit sits in his locker. The plush locker room at Gillette Stadium is a distant memory, replaced by the cramped quarters of a NASCAR trailer.

Watson had his shot at the NFL. But he's moved on. He's warmed up to idea of a smaller team and the fact he gets to see much more of his wife, Vanessa, who's pregnant with their first child.

"I really enjoy this," Watson said.

Watson has already accomplished one feat not many former NFL players have: He's felt the eyes on him at a Super Bowl.

Of NASCAR, that is.