Football runs deep in the gene pool of the family for the No. 8 player on our countdown of Washington’s best first-round picks. Desmond Trufant, who was selected by the Atlanta Falcons with the No. 22 pick of the 2013 draft, is one of three brothers who all played in the NFL.
Mr. and Mrs. Trufant knew the recipe for cornerbacks since all three of their boys played the position. Marcus, the oldest, played for the Seattle Seahawks and was a founding member of defensive coordinator Dan Quinn’s “Legion of Boom.” His brother, Isaiah, found himself on several different NFL rosters as a cornerback and special teams gunner.
The youngest of the three, Desmond was a stand-out athlete in not just football, but in basketball and track at Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma, Washington. He earned first-team All-Narrows League and first-team All-State honors as both a running back and cornerback during his senior year.
Desmond was also the only member of the Trufant boys to play for Washington, with Marcus playing for Washington State and Isaiah with Eastern Washington. Desmond’s time at Washington that could be deemed by some as the start of UW’s emergence as the new “Defensive Back University,” or DBU.
Trufant proved himself immediately during his time on Montlake, playing in all 12 games during his freshman season, staring 9 of them. He won the Travis Spring Most Outstanding Freshman award at the team’s postseason banquet and was an All-Pac-10 honorable mention.
He started all 13 games during his sophomore and junior seasons and won the team’s Don James Perseverance Award as a junior, and started 45 straight games before a hamstring injury against Colorado sidelined him during his senior year.
Despite missing several games, he was still selected to the All-Pac-12 first-team and to the second-team All-America by FoxSportsNext.com. His teammates voted for him as a captain in the 2012 season, and he also won the Guy Flaherty Award, Washington’s oldest and most prestigious honor, at the team’s postseason awards banquet.
After being the third cornerback taken in the 2013 draft, he found himself immediately competing for a starting position in Atlanta. He and Asante Samuel were named the starters by head coach Mike Smith and after Samuel was released in 2014, he was named the team’s top corner.
He went on to play for the Falcons for a total of seven seasons, including in 2016, when Atlanta lost the Super Bowl to the New England Patriots.
He was released by the Falcons in March 2020 and just a week later, Trufant was picked up by the Detroit Lions, who signed him to a two-year $21 million contract. He was released at the end of the season after he was placed on injured reserve.
Desmond signed with the Chicago Bears in 2021, but had to leave camp after the death of his father. He wound up playing 10 games that season with the New Orleans Saints and the Las Vegas Raiders .
At his peak, Trufant was one of the best defenders in the league and became a dynamic cover corner, tallying some impressive numbers in his career with 366 tackles, 6 sacks, 14 interceptions and 7 fumble recoveries.