The kid can be forgiven for wondering whether he’s been banished to an echo chamber.

“You know what?’’ teases safety Joshua Bell. “He gets the best of both worlds. Me on one side, Jamar Wall on the other side.

“Oh, yes, we are in his ear. Constantly.

“So he gets to lay back in the hammock. Me and Wall, we’re the posts around the hammock. Meaning he can be swinging there, sipping piña coladas, having fun, jumping around, doing what he wants.

“Cause he knows we got him.”

The wildly-entertaining Bell, of course, doesn’t mean so much as a syllable of it.

If anything, where Tunde Adeleke’s concerned he acts like a mother hen – anxious to make sure her chick reaches the far side of the road safely.

“Seriously,’’ says Bell,  the linchpin of the Stampeders’ secondary, “he does what he has to do. He is a football player. A foot-ball player. Can’t sell him short on any aspect of the game. Mentally, he’s strong. Strong. A cerebral player, doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. And if he does, he hears it from me, or from Wall: ‘Uh, uh. You sucking right now, Tunde.’

“More than anything, though, that happens in practice. Cause we make our mistakes in practice in order to minimize them in games.”

Adeleke was selected in the third round by the Stamps in the 2017 draft (Photo by David Moll)

Sunday, of course, isn’t just any game. It’s the Western Final against the Edmonton Eskimos (2:30 p.m., McMahon Stadium) with a berth in the Grey Cup on the line.

With Shaq Richardson nicked up and unable to go, at 22, Tunde Adeleke – the freshman out of Carlton – starts at SAM linebacker for the atone-minded Stamps against those nefarious northern interlopers, with veteran Joe Burnett in support.

In the most critical game of the season, no less. So, any jangling nerves, kid?

“Actually I’m pretty confident,’’ says Adeleke. “I’ve been practicing there for the last couple weeks and played against Winnipeg in that spot. The coaches wouldn’t put me there if they weren’t confident I could play that position.

“The thing with this team is that everyone helps everyone else out. When a rookie does get in, the veterans help us stay on track and keep the (level of) play up.”

The Bell-Wall Dolby Stereo-level chatter in his ears, Adeleke says, is actually of great benefit.

“Oh, yeah, those guys talk,’’ he acknowledges with a slight smile. “A lot. Every play. Wall right beside me and Bell right beside me, making sure I know what to do, where I should be, even mid-play. There’s communication on every play.

“By doing that, they make things easier.”

Adeleke has displayed remarkable versatility over the course of his rookie campaign, drawing in at safety, DB, kicker returner and, for the season closer and now Sunday’s Western Final, the SAM spot.

Adeleke celebrating his first CFL touchdown on a punt return on June 29 (Photo by Richelle Foster)

“I just wanted to make sure I could get on the field … somehow,’’ says Adeleke. “If Bell’s healthy, I’ve got to find a way to get on the field, make plays and prove my worth to this team.”

Far from a beast physically, the third-round, 25th pick in the summer’s CFL daft, stands 5-foot-10 and tips the Toledos at a willowy 190 pounds. Yet among the aspects of his play that has most impressed head coach Dave Dickenson is the ability to tackle.

“It was just one of the things coming in … during the draft I heard from a few teams that didn’t think I was that physical, not that good a tackler,’’ acknowledges Adeleke. “So when I came in here I wanted to show teams I could tackle, that it’s something I excel in.”

Head coach Dave Dickenson hands a lion’s share of the credit for making the right pre-draft read on the kid to his general manager.

“I’ll give Huff a lot of credit on Tunde. We all saw a great returner. He was right up there with the top CIS returners we watched on tape.

“But Huff had this feeling he could transition to a safety/SAM type of player. He’d been playing boundary half over at Carleton and we didn’t see a lot of that on tape.

“But like I said, Huff’s smart and he had a feeling. So we took him. We thought we got a bit of a steal. But I think he’s progressed, given us more than we were expecting in Year 1.

“We have a lot of faith in Tunde. He’s impressed me. Ultimately, he’s been a good find for us.”

That level of faith is being rewarded Sunday afternoon.

“It’s going to be a huge game,’’ says Adeleke. “But you’ve got to think of it as just another game even if it is the West final. Gotta play it like you’ve been playing all year.”