This is the second chapter of an ongoing “Homegrown” feature series highlighting Falcons players from Georgia who have excelled in high school, college, and the pros.
Tori McElhaney, who was in the stands with Dee Alford’s friends and family, narrates Alford’s game day narrative through the eyes of the people who love him the most as they watched him play the game he loves the most.
Dee Alford celebrated his 26th birthday on a game day in 2023. The Falcons were playing the Minnesota Vikings in Week 9. As a result, his family and close friends filled up practically a whole row in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. They were ready to rejoice whether they won or lost.
As kickoff approached, friends made their way to their seats. Several of them were Alford’s old teammates at Tusculum University. Some of those guys got up at three a.m. to make the hours-long drive to Atlanta. After the Falcons game, Alford’s birthday party was scheduled to commence.
Alford’s father, Felton Jackson, stated that the plan was already in place. The group planned to drive 45 minutes to an hour south of Atlanta to Griffin, Ga., to Jackson’s house. Wings, of course, a cake, and undoubtedly positive feelings would be included at the party. It was debatable whether or not the celebration would be a surprise for Alford.
“Does he know we’re here?” one of my friends said.
“He had to know to get the tickets, right?” someone else said.
The chat was interrupted by pregame festivities. Alford was about to take the field with the Falcons, and the group spent the next five minutes looking for him in the sea of red and black.
Alford’s father sat calmly with a little smile on his face while his buddies cheered when they saw him running out of the tunnel. Jackson, you know, has been a long-time Falcons fan.
“Since the Michael Vick era?” Or are we referring about the ’98 Dirty Birds?”
Jackson burst out laughing.
“Oh, since the Williams Andrews days.”
Alford was born in Mississippi but reared in Griffin. He considers himself to be a true Georgia boy. His father feels the same way. So it’s weird for Jackson to witness his son suit up for his favorite professional team.
Jackson couldn’t help himself when the defense took the field to begin the game. He was overjoyed. Even with his heavy shades covering his eyes, you could see it on his face. If he’s being truthful, he’s been proud for a long time.
“What does it feel like, seeing Dee out there?”
“We’re so proud of him.” We truly are.”
Sitting alongside an NFL player’s family while he rushes around the gridiron allows you to experience the actual ebbs and flows of a game in a way that few others have. Every tackle or pass that was broken up was felt. Based on what Alford performed, the breath of every friend or family member in the stands was taken in anticipation or a triumphant yell.
They pulled out their phones as he went out to field his first punt return. Their gasps were clear and filled with excitement as they snapped photos and recorded films.
“There he is!”
“Let’s go! Let’s go!”
“Boy, I want him to run it back.”
When he missed out on a sack, their collective breath hitched.
“I wanted that for him so bad.”
“He nearly got there.”
“Didn’t wrap up. He sometimes just gets going too fast.”
When Alford made a tackle for a loss alongside Bud Dupree, they released that collectively held breath with a cheer.
Between it all – the highs and the lows, the quiet moments and the loud – Jackson told stories about his son.
During a TV timeout, Jackson proudly explained that he is in possession of not one, not two, but three game balls, all gifted to him by Alford.
He proudly listed them one by one: a game ball from Alford’s time with the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2021. There was also his first interception, a game-winning pick in the Falcons’ 23-20 victory over the Browns in 2022. Oh, and he couldn’t forget the punt return touchdown Alford scored in the Falcons’ 2023 preseason game versus Miami.
During an attacking series, Jackson flipped the subject, telling how Alford ultimately decided to pursue football after spending the most of his childhood and young adult years developing his basketball skills. Alford didn’t really get into football until his senior year of high school. What is the explanation for this?
“I’m just too short, Dad,” Jackson remembers a teenage Alford saying to him.
He laughed at the memory as adult Alford roamed the Falcons sideline, awaiting his next chance for a defensive stand.
His son was speedy, though, Jackson was quick to point out.
He was speedy enough to catch the attention of the Falcons and several other NFL teams after that year in Winnipeg, when he won a Grey Cup championship.
Alford hit the road soon after that, traveling from Chicago to Detroit to Atlanta to work out with NFL teams. There were a lot more teams left on the list, but once Atlanta called Alford and presented him with an offer following the workout, there was no turning back.
That’s because playing for the Falcons was a dream realized for Alford and his family.
Alford’s path to the NFL wasn’t easy. It’s actually a story quite unlike many others.
A Griffin native went to college in northeast Tennessee and had to struggle for a scholarship.
Despite shattering school records, Alford didn’t have many draft prospects when he finished, so he opted to take his talents north to Canada. With the COVID-19 pandemic raging, Alford’s first professional season was canceled, and he went a year without playing football. He worked the night shift at a nearby FedEx, stacking boxes and unloading trucks, to keep himself busy and his money flowing. He’d leave work about six or seven o’clock in the morning and head straight to the gym.
Alford never stopped moving or working, and when football finally returned to his life, he kept at it.
A year later, he was winning a championship in Canada as one of the league’s best and most productive defensive backs, a CFL All-Star in his first season no less.
A year after that, he became the Falcons starting slot cornerback.
At every step, his father was there, watching and cataloging the moments of his son’s football career just as he cataloged his movements in the first half of the Falcons game against the Vikings that Sunday afternoon in November.
During the game, Jackson wasn’t boisterous. He wasn’t loud. He was locked in. More than anything, though, he wasn’t shocked that he was there in the stands, nor that his son was there on the field.
“People come to me and say they’re amazed by what he does,” Jackson said, “but I’ve seen it his whole life.”
The game reached a bitter end.
The Falcons lost and Alford injured his ankle in the fourth quarter. In the locker room, he was somber while answering the media’s questions about the game.
With his head low, he pulled his black Amiri bomber jacket on. He packed up his backpack at his locker. He slid on his sunglasses, and shuffled out of the Falcons locker room.
Once he exited, the scene that played out before him was anything but somber. It was joyous. Hugs that could almost be described as tackles enveloped Alford. Echoes of, “Happy birthday, man!” and “There he is!” could be heard down the tunnels of the stadium.
With arms slung around one another, the group of friends traveled out to the field where Alford had just played. They handed off phones, one by one snapping photos of each other with Alford. Group photos were taken, too. Backs were turned to show off their “Alford” Falcons jerseys. At one point, the group broke off, one friend running routes in the end zone against another in imaginary coverage. Alford looked on with a smile, quite similar to the fond smile worn by his father not two hours earlier.
The defeat still stings, and bitterness lingered in the stadium air like a morning fog. But there was happiness when Alford walked back out the tunnel, another year older and surrounded by his favorite people. The game’s pressure was dissipating, and the page was already turning.
As the fog of sorrow lifted, all that remained was pride… as well as a party that may or may not have come as a surprise.