He quit football and moved home. Six years later, he made Falcons’ roster.

DeWalt answered. Cunningham talked. Moments later, DeWalt called his father. Then, he ate two meals and grabbed dessert. He’d made the team.

“It was probably one of the best moments in my life,” DeWalt told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Six years earlier, DeWalt called his father with a different message. He quit football. He was leaving Snow College, Utah, and heading home. “I’m not buying you a ticket,” his father said. So, DeWalt sold all his shoes, bought a plane ticket and bounced.

The rest of his life — post-football, post-school, and full-fledged adulthood — awaited. He picked up a job that figured to be the start of his next chapter. He stopped intensive training. His athletic career, minus recreational appearances, was over.

On Sunday, he may play in his first NFL game.

“My whole journey,” he said, “has just been working from the bottom.”

Surviving in Utah

Once the calendar flipped from fall to spring and he no longer needed to pass classes for the sake of playing football, DeWalt couldn’t be bothered by school. Through his freshman and sophomore years at Olympic High School in Bremerton, Washington, his GPA was sub-2.0.

He didn’t take school seriously. He rallied as a junior and senior, sitting as high as 2.9, but the damage was done. DeWalt self-admittedly hates math. He likes numbers, but he didn’t like what his GPA told him: He was academically ineligible to play college football.

A four-year varsity football player who also participated in basketball and track, DeWalt generated significant interest from junior colleges across the country but chose Snow College because he had a few close friends going there.

So, in 2020, an 18-year-old DeWalt packed up, left home and moved nearly 1,000 miles southeast to Ephraim, Utah, chasing this football dream.

He had no car. He couldn’t travel anywhere except on foot. Salt Lake City was two hours away. There was a stench from a nearby turkey farm filling the air at practice. Sometimes, 100 sheep would randomly run through campus. Ephraim had one Walmart, a McDonald’s and a few other mom-and-pops.

“It was brutal,” he said.

He lasted only five months. His head coach was fired. So, too, his position coach. He lost both his recruiters. He decided he couldn’t do this — attend junior college, play football and deal with Ephraim — anymore.

He was done.

Working the assembly line

DeWalt was late for the first day of the rest of his life. Only by a minute or two, he says. He tried to push the limit on sleep and caught unexpected traffic on his 40-minute drive. His shift at Metagenics ran from 4 a.m. to 2 p.m., blending protein products and standing alongside co-workers aged 50-plus, earning a wage that would’ve been suitable for a long-term career.

At 19 years old, he found his livelihood. He knew it wasn’t his calling, but it was a way to make due for a kid from an area where some go down bad paths and never make it out. Every work day from the winter of 2020 until the summer of 2022, DeWalt hit the road by 3:20 a.m. and clocked into his 10-hour shift.

“I can’t imagine doing that again,” he said.

When coaches from Butte College — a junior college in Oroville, California — called him a few months before the 2022 season, he wasn’t necessarily out of shape. He’d been going to the gym with his friends, doing workouts and occasionally playing at the football field for fun.

DeWalt decided he physically felt good enough, and betting on his football career seemed a better alternative than those early-morning wake-ups and 80-minute round-trip drives to Metagenics.

So, without knowing a soul in Oroville aside from the coaches who recruited him, DeWalt moved 11 hours south and jumped directly into 100-degree temperatures.

“It was definitely a culture change,” he said. “But for me, my dad always raised me on hard work, so regardless of what the conditions are — rain, snow, heat — whatever it is, it’s all good. Just work. That was my goal.”

On the day he moved into Butte, DeWalt met Aiden Sullivan, a freshman. They talked about goals, about long-term aspirations. Sullivan grew up with just his mother. DeWalt grew up with just his father. They bonded over their backgrounds.

Both had moments where they were ready to leave and no longer wanted to be at Butte. But they kept each other upbeat and focused on their goals. Sullivan, now a linebacker at Oregon State, achieved his mission. So has DeWalt.

Good shape or bad shape, happy or upset, DeWalt starred at Butte. He made four interceptions and 12 pass breakups to go along with 3½ tackles for loss. He had 14 offers and chose Akron, which had the best schedule — early-season challenges against Ohio State, South Carolina and Rutgers gave him a chance to compete against high-major programs.

A ho-hum first season at Akron saw DeWalt collect only seven tackles and make just one start in 11 games. He wasn’t on any NFL radars entering his senior season.

Then, his defensive backs coach left early in fall camp. It proved a blessing in disguise — and brought a new father figure into his life.

‘I like his vibe’

R. Todd Littlejohn woke up on a Monday in August still without a job. His phone rang. It was a coach on Akron’s staff, asking if he wanted to coach the Zips’ defensive backs. He accepted. He flew out Tuesday, and by Wednesday, he was on the field for Akron’s 11th practice of fall camp.

That night, DeWalt called his dad with a scouting report on his new coach.

“I like his vibe,” DeWalt said.

Vibe turned into connection, which turned into trust, hard coaching and a father-son relationship.

In a late-October bout with Buffalo, DeWalt gave up a deep ball on the far side of the field. Littlejohn yelled and asked what he was doing. DeWalt shunned Littlejohn. Littlejohn pulled him off the field. He went to the bench, where Littlejohn voiced his complaints. DeWalt left mid-conversation.

“Don’t you ever walk away from me,” Littlejohn told him.

DeWalt returned, but was late getting onto the field as a gunner. Littlejohn asked if he was ready to play corner again. DeWalt shook his head no. A few plays later, DeWalt tapped Littlejohn and said he was ready to go.

Akron led Buffalo, 24-16, but the Bulls were driving toward midfield with two minutes remaining. Akron needed a play. DeWalt made one. He intercepted a pass, and while running around in celebration, he pointed directly at Littlejohn.

“He comes over, gives me a big hug and says, ‘Thank you for believing in me,’” Littlejohn told the AJC. “And I about lost it.”

Their relationship blossomed. They bonded over their Seattle roots, Tacoma neighborhoods and the grind of junior college. On DeWalt’s senior day, Littlejohn walked with him.

“He was like, ‘You put up with my mood swings. You put up with all of this stuff. And yet you’re still there. You’re still consistent. You still believe in me,’” Littlejohn said. “We’ve developed a relationship where he actually calls me his dad and I call him my son and we both say, ‘I love you.’”

For DeWalt, Littlejohn was one of a kind. Throughout his life, DeWalt became prone to watching people in his life — coaches and otherwise — give up on him. They grew tired of him acting a certain way or saying specific things, and felt he wasn’t playing to his physical talent level.

Littlejohn never did.

“You let me play and you believed in me,” DeWalt told Littlejohn of the roots beneath their bond. “I’ve never had a coach that believed in me.”

Dewalt never stopped working

Justin Hood turned on Malcolm DeWalt IV’s tape this spring, and the Falcons’ secondary coach immediately let his mind wander.

“I was like, ‘Man, he’s intriguing,’” Hood told the AJC. “You can see the tools, you see the athleticism, the length, the speed.”

The Falcons set up a call to interview DeWalt thereafter. Hood tested his football IQ, seeing what he knew, what he could retain and how he acted in a classroom environment. DeWalt came across eager to learn and asked great questions. At his pro day, the 6-foot-2, 190-pounder ran a 4.38 40-yard dash and walks around with 32 ⅞-inch arms hanging by his side.

DeWalt checked all the boxes, but he went undrafted. The Falcons, however, viewed him as a potential post-draft steal.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, man, this kid’s got some potential,’” Hood said. “We were fortunate enough to get him here.”

DeWalt joined a secondary with eight cornerbacks carrying at least three seasons of NFL experience — a daunting sight for an undrafted rookie, but DeWalt focused on learning from starters A.J. Terrell and Mike Hughes.

And he never let himself think he couldn’t make the team.

“It was never a doubt in my mind,” DeWalt said, “because I know what I can do and what I can bring to a team. I know I’m athletic enough. It was just all about the mental.”

Belief is at the forefront of DeWalt’s future.

Littlejohn described him as a free spirit with an analytical mind — but with a tendency to overanalyze at times. He’s confident, but there are moments his confidence drops depending on his environment. The verbiage of the Falcons’ playbook threw him off this summer. He still battled past demons of people saying he couldn’t do certain things.

But DeWalt never stopped working. Two weeks after signing with the Falcons, he bought an Audi. He didn’t have a car in college and wanted one so he wasn’t reliant on teammates for rides to and from the facility. He wanted to be in the office first thing that morning, and leave late at night. That, he decided, was the blueprint. He was right.

DeWalt flashed during training camp and had a strong preseason. He nearly intercepted a pass against the Broncos before being ruled out of bounds, and he finished with two tackles on special teams, tied for second-most on the team. Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski touted his special teams influence and daily growth.

By the end of August, when cuts were due and futures decided, the Falcons felt DeWalt’s blend of traits, meeting room participation and his ability to transfer his style of play from college to the next level made him too tough to waive.

So, the 24-year-old who grew up in tough Seattle roots, who grinded through two junior colleges, who had his future set at Metagenics and who, after 257 draft picks came and went, found himself unselected, survived.

Afterward, he called Littlejohn with a message. “Now, you’ve coached another one in the league,” referencing Littlejohn’s lengthy list of NFL defensive backs. Making it was step one. Surviving is step two. Thriving is the third step, perhaps distant, perhaps close.

Littlejohn feels “the sky is the limit” for DeWalt. The Falcons haven’t quite found his ceiling quite yet — but with patience, belief and opportunity, they’re at least curious about just how high he can climb.

“You can just see the development and the growth in him, so we’re extremely excited about him and his potential and what he could become,” Hood said. “He’s built a solid foundation. Now, let’s start laying some more ground.”