When I looked up his background, I thought for a moment that he might have gone to Norcross H.S. No luck, @gidion72. He went to GAC in Norcross before playing college ball on Rocky Top. Anyway, he's a "big nickel" type safety who went undrafted in 2019. Signed with the Vikings but didn't even make it to training camp before being cut. Eventually latched on with Green Bay and stuck with their practice squad for a couple of years, getting called up a few times and appearing in two games. Before the Cardinals game, the Falcons put backup safety Jovante Moffatt on IR and plucked Abernathy from the Packers practice squad to fill the roster spot. So basically they have him for a week in practice to let him audition for next year. The main downside to him: coming out of college, he was viewed as a long term project who wasn't even close to ready for real playing time on defense. His tackling needed a bit of work, and his zone coverage techniques needed a whole lot more work. He's a bit undersized for strong safety, doesn't have the instincts for free safety, and doesn't have the zone skills for outside corner. So why bother? He's not hopeless in man coverage, has the size and speed to fill in multiple positions (eg nickel, strong safety) and fits the prototype for a bump-and-run outside corner should the team choose to convert him at some point down the road. Oh... and he put up a 4.45 in the 40, 6.6 in the cone drill (!) and a 38.5" vertical at Tennessee's 2019 pro day. That will get you a few good looks from various teams. It wasn't enough to get him past OTAs in Minnesota, but he was enough of a system fit that it got him practice squad time for the Packers. Now the Falcons will see if he can show enough potential to get a spot on the 90-man preseason roster for 2023.
Norcross is now a double decker building, wonder if they use double decker buses, and he put 6.6 scoops of ice cream in a cone?
