Ex-Husky Trice Signs NFL Rookie Deal with the Falcons

Bralen Trice, after patiently letting his slow-starting University of Washington football career play out and end with a flourish, was rewarded on Friday when he signed an estimated four-year, $5.9 million rookie contract with the Atlanta Falcons.
Last month, the 6-foot-3, 245-pound Trice went to the Falcons as an edge rusher in the third round of the NFL Draft, taken with the 74th overall pick.
His yearly deals range from $1.07 million this season to topping out at $1.8 million in 2027.
"You won't be regretting this pick at all, Atlanta," Trice said after he was drafted. "Just know I'm showing up and doing everything for you guys."
Recruited out of Phoenix, Trice didn't play his first two seasons at the UW, redshirting in 2019 and opting out the following year because the COVID pandemic.
In 2021, he was a sub for the first 10 games for a bad Husky football team that would finish 4-8 before starting the final two games against Colorado and in the Apple Cup against Washington State. With starting edge rushers Zion Tupuola-Fetui and Ryan Bowman missing most of the season, Trice should have played a lot more. In his third game, he scooped up an Arkansas State fumble and ran 72 yards for a touchdown.
Kalen DeBoer's coaching staff made Trice a two-year starter and he was twice named first-team All-Pac-12 and selected as the defensive player of the game in both the Alamo and Sugar bowls.
In Atlanta, Trice will be reunited with a former UW teammate in quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and with the Husky coach who probably should have used him more, Jimmy Lake, now the Falcons' defensive coordinator.
Now a self-made, multi-millionaire, Trice impressed people after disclosing at the Sugar Bowl how he had used some of his name, image and likeness money for a charitable cause, helping a Dominican Republic man finish his home.
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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.