Josh Norman’s story is one you don’t hear every day. Fresh off of signing a 5-year, $75 million deal with the Washington Redskins, Norman knows where he came from.

And he’s intent on where he’s going.

After his world was shook by the Carolina Panthers rescinding the franchise tag and releasing him into the free agent market, the Redskins were the first to reach out.

Team president Bruce Allen quickly sent Norman a text with a picture of a No. 24 (Norman’s number with the Panthers) Redskins jersey.

“First, I think 30 minutes after the whole thing went down, I was still shell-shocked,” said Norman. “I think the President [Bruce Allen] sent me a picture of a jersey and I didn’t see it until a day-and-a-half, maybe two days later after everything went down. I saw it and the text he wrote me and I just looked and I smiled. I was like, ‘Wow.’ This felt pretty cool to have a team send you actually something like that and really, really want you that bad.”

Norman isn’t the product of a Power-5 school. He played at Coastal Carolina.

He was a walk-on for the Chanticleers at that.

The Redskins’ courtship of Norman to close last week was the first bit of fanfare the 28-year old had received in his career.

“It showed me that they’re willing to do anything to make it happen because I never really… all my life I wasn’t recruited by any big-time organization or anything like that. Coming through high school, there was no big one other than Georgia but I went up there – they didn’t come see me. College, I walked onto Coastal Carolina. Coming out of Coastal Carolina to the Carolina Panthers, there wasn’t no big hoorah, but now on the biggest stage in the world and I get to be a free agent, geez, it was like a party.

‘So I kind of got a feeling of how those first-rounders and everybody felt when all the glitz and glam started coming. So I enjoyed it, man. I was very appreciative of it.”

That courtship ended with Norman signing a mammoth deal that pays him among the elite at his position.

Did the former walk-on at Coastal Carolina take some time to reflect on how far he’s coming while flying home on Redskins One?

“I’ll be honest with you, I did in a way but I kind of stopped myself because I’m not done yet. I’m not done yet.

“I haven’t really gotten to the point where I feel like I made it. I haven’t. I don’t feel like I made it. I feel like there is still work to do just because, I mean, I even get chill bumps right now telling you all and talking to you about it because I have got so much more to accomplish. I’m just starting, to be honest with you.

“All my life I’ve been doubted, counted out and cast away. But now, I have got a chance to make those doubters and anybody who said anything about me reflect back and make that wrong a right, show them something different, man.

“And that’s what I’m going to bring here, I’m going to bring to everybody else, man, because I really don’t care about that. I really don’t. You talk about me, I’m just going to put that extra luggage in my bag. And when I drop it on the field between them white lines, I’ll show you differently.”