Former Washington defensive tackle Anterio Thompson’s NFL career is over before it ever got started.
The Atlanta Falcons lineman will medically retire because of a genetic mutation in his spine, a diagnosis he says he knew nothing about until doctors told him on May 8. Thompson said he was informed then that he would never play football again, less than two weeks after the Falcons made him a sixth-round pick on April 25.
Thompson never made it onto the field for Atlanta. He opened training camp on the active/non-football injury list July 25 and was moved to the reserve/NFI list on Aug. 31, 2026, after missing both the preseason and regular season.
He addressed the situation in an Instagram story Thursday that was screenshotted and spread across social media.
"I've been better than anyone would be in my situation," Thompson said in his Instagram story. "As a football player, you know one day you'll have to hang up your cleats, but you just hope it's on your terms. ... It's hard to explain what it feels like to go through the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in (a) matter of seconds."
Thompson’s path to Washington was a winding one. Before arriving in the Pacific Northwest in 2025, he spent one year at Iowa Western in 2022, transferred to Iowa in 2023, moved to Western Michigan ahead of the 2024 season and then landed with the Huskies for his final college season in ’25.
At Washington, the 6-foot-4, 310-pound tackle played in all 13 games and started three. He finished with 30 total tackles, 17 of them solo, along with 2.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks and two passes defended.
Thompson said Thursday’s message was not meant as a plea for sympathy.
"The post I posted Thursday wasn't a cry for help or me asking for sympathy," Thompson shared on Instagram. "I just want to lay that part of me to rest.
Football was everything to me, I just knew regardless of how bad the world was around me, (that) I had football. This is my last post talking about this publicly as I don't want to bring any more attention to this (than) it needs.
I have no further comments."
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