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Inside The Huskies

Atlanta Continues To Put Former Huskies In Football Limbo

Anterio Thompson finds himself on the sideline after going to the Falcons as a sixth-round draft pick.
Dan Raley|
Anterio Thompson (54) is shown at WSU with Buddah Al-Uqdah (3), Bryce Butler (92) and Jacob Lane (48).
Anterio Thompson (54) is shown at WSU with Buddah Al-Uqdah (3), Bryce Butler (92) and Jacob Lane (48). | Dave Sizer photo

By all accounts, Atlanta is a bustling metropolis, the largest city in the South in fact, that's full of good food, music and culture in general.

However, if you are a former University of Washington football player pursuing a professional career, best be advised to avoid the place at all costs.

It has become a grossly unfair obstacle course for those from Montlake seeking gainful NFL employment.

After playing just six seasons, one-time UW offensive guard Kaleb McGary recently retired from the Falcons as a former first-round draft pick who tore up a knee that made him miss all of last year and wouldn't let him resume his career.

Then there's celebrated Husky quarterback Michael Penix Jr., another first-rounder who went to great lengths to win the Falcons starting job last season only to go down with a knee injury after nine games and is trying to get everything back.

Another hard-luck UW guy is edge rusher Bralen Trice, who went Sugar Bowl and Alamo Bowl defensive MVP to suffer a couple of knee injuries that made him miss each of his first two NFL seasons and he's back for a third try.

Say it isn't so, but add rookie defensive tackle Anterio Thompson from the Huskies to the affirmed after the Falcons just put him on the non-football injury list (NFI) in advance of the opening of training camp. He remains on the active roster.

A sixth-round draft pick even much to his surprise, the 6-foot-1, 304-pound Thompson didn't participate in organized team activities or mandatory minicamp, according to Falcons on SI, after joining the Atlanta franchise because of his health concerns.

Whilte the Falcons haven't provided any detail on his condition, coach Kevin Stefanski confirmed Thompson's condition was "injury-related, but he's working through it."

Either way, this makes it even more of an uphill battle for the ex-Husky defender to land an Atlanta roster spot at some point.

After he was drafted, Thompson spoke to the Falcons staff in utter disbelief that this had happened to him.

His football journey has sent him from an Iowa junior college to Iowa to Western Michigan and last season to the Huskies.

Even at the UW, Thompson started just three of 13 games last season, but he obviously showed enough physical positives on film and in his UW Pro Day workout to interest the Falcons.

Yet now he finds himself in Georgia football limbo, a place that way too many Huskies have visited.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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