Efland Amerson, the player’s father, stood there with his arms around his son, a junior who was thought to be N.C. State’s best defender. A Navy psychologist, Efland told David that perhaps he could benefit from this. As he had told him often in recent years, it was all in how he looked at it.

“He didn’t say anything for about five minutes,” Efland said this week. “I could feel his body trembling. David has never really failed at anything.”

Eight months later, David became the Washington Redskins’ top draft pick in April, selected with the 19th pick of the second round. He earned his name in college as a defensive back willing to gamble, who could jump routes. In 2011, he set school and ACC single-season records with 13 interceptions. Then in 2012, he gave much of it back as teams took advantage of his tendency to try for big plays rather than staying with assignments. Tennessee’s offensive plan last August clearly targeted Amerson, and Miami went after him later in another N.C. State loss.

“It wasn’t so much [that] I gave up two touchdowns. It wasn’t that guys were just straight-up beating me,” the 6-foot-3, 194-pound rookie said this week. “It was more that I was beating myself.”

His father, who divorced Amerson’s mother, Tawanna Taylor, years earlier, spent much of his son’s youth overseas on work assignments. Efland’s training is child psychology and pathology, including mental illnesses. It’s an odd thing reappearing in a son’s life and, regardless of his degrees and commendations in the field of neuropsychology, trying to tell him how to handle success and adversity.

So they established trust simply, going trout fishing and having dinner after games. Sometimes they simply caught up on lost time. Other times, David would tell his dad about his goal of playing in the NFL. Efland talked with his son about balance, a word he used with clients in the Navy — he’s finishing a fellowship in Charlottesville — and those from his private practice. Efland said that during his son’s breakout season in 2011, he still explained to his son that extremes are mirages; the tide, no matter how high, always recedes.

Sure enough, a year later, difficulties found David. But rather than trying to analyze his son, Efland tried only to offer fatherly guidance.

“The relationship would change if I start to find myself going into a therapeutic mode,” said Efland, 49. “That kind of naturally happens to me to a certain extent: ‘How are you feeling with this. How are you feeling with that?’