FLOWERY BRANCH — As of Thursday morning’s surprisingly temperate, humane Falcons practice, the count had reached 585 days. Not that John Atkins is keeping the exact tally of how long it has been since he last stuck his nose into a real live game of football. All he knows for certain is that it has been long enough.
That great chunk of time away since opting out of the 2020 NFL season because of the worrisome uncertainties of COVID-19 is now melting away in the routine of a training camp. Because, he said, “Once you get back out here, you’re so happy to get rolling again.”
And as for the natural worries that Atkins may have sabotaged his career by being one of the more than 60 NFL players who opted to sit out last season, there is one simple mitigation.
“It all led me to here. I’m just grateful to be here,” he said.
Here as in back home, back to the state where he was born and where he played his college football in Athens, just 40 miles from Falcons camp. At Georgia, he played the most thankless position on defense – nose tackle (job description: Hair clog in the opposing offense’s plumbing). Yet, with an immense physical presence, a broad gap-toothed smile and the sturdiness of a cast-iron wood-burning stove, Atkins managed to make himself pretty popular on a 2017 Georgia team that won a Rose Bowl and nearly a national title.
In brief, the NFL career that followed has been spotty. Signed by New England as an undrafted free agent. Released. Picked up by Detroit, where he eventually worked his way up from the practice squad to appear in a dozen games in 2019, six of them starts.
Taking on offensive lineman two at a time was only a little light lifting compared with the decision Atkins wrestled with when COVID came calling. The father of four – with his youngest newly born – he just couldn’t square playing last season with the unknown risks he might be bringing home. The league offered an opt out – with a stipend that would be applied against future earnings – and Atkins took it.
The first of June, the Lions waived Atkins. In his last NFL appearance with Detroit, Dec. 29, 2019 against Green Bay, Atkins had played the most snaps in his time with the Lions – 51 – and came up with three solo tackles.
Two weeks later the Falcons signed him, taking a flier in hopes of adding some depth to the middle of coordinator Dean Pees’ three-man line.
In a further cruel twist, the man who once had gotten as far away as possible from the NFL and COVID just came off the Reserved/COVID-19 list this week. As a result, Atkins missed the Falcons’ first five practices. Asked if he feels any more comfortable playing in the current viral environment than a year ago, he said, “I still don’t know all the science about it, but the big part was getting vaccinated. That was a big step for me.”
Atkins spent his season of COVID exile at his home in east Georgia, in Grovetown. While his wife worked, he helped look after the kids, who range in age from newborn to 7. Although he emphasized that he didn’t cook breakfast so much as he just poured cereal.
For a man as wide as Atkins – listed at 6-foot-3, 320 pounds – the big challenge would be not to get significantly wider during the pandemic. That, after all, was a common predicament across the land.
“That’s when you really find out what you’re made of – you don’t have anybody telling you have to get up and go work out, you have to do it on your own,” he said. He made use of the weight room at his old high school in Thomson and ran on his own.
But he acknowledges that there was nothing he could do to replace the work he missed. “Getting in shape was big, but getting in football shape is way bigger,” Atkins said. “You can run all day on a treadmill, but once you get out here in this heat, it’s a whole different ballgame.”
Looking back on the lost season, Atkins is unwilling to see it as forever altering his career arc. He publicly expresses not one regret about opting out in 2020. As for the cost of his decision and the 585 days – and counting – between games, he simply replies, “It’s really hard to say because you take a year off and pick right up where you left off, basically. You take a little time to get back in condition, but once you get back, there’s really not a big difference.”
Atkins chooses only to recognize the opportunity he gets now to play so close to many of his best football memories. And to perhaps fashion a few new ones.
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