Dec 1, 2019; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Chiefs running back Darwin Thompson (34) runs against Oakland Raiders defensive tackle P.J. Hall (92) during the second half at Arrowhead Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports
January 27, 2018
Darwin Thompson stands alone on a snowy field in a frozen stadium. It’s late January, 2018. The brand-new Utah State running back moved the 1200 miles from Jenks, Oklahoma, two weeks before, putting him another step closer to the dream he’s been chasing ever since he was born.
He stops for a moment to take it all in. The lights don’t shine as brightly on Utah State as they do elsewhere, but it’s still Division I — a far climb for a 5-foot-8 running back who left high school with no offers and scrapped through two years of junior college at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M.
Two more years and Darwin will stand at the top of the mountain where the lights are brightest. In the midst of a blizzard in Miami of red and gold confetti. Super Bowl champion.
He pulls out his phone. He has a message to share before he gets back to work.
“Imma let y’all boys know something,” Darwin says between breaths in the cold air. “Dogs make it out of NEO. NEO ain’t for everybody. But I’m telling you, once you get to the end, it’s going to make you a better person, a better student, give you a great work ethic, all that, man.”
This isn’t the end, though. Darwin still has the final leg of the climb ahead of him. He still has to prove to the NFL the same thing he proved to defenders across the college football world this past fall. Pound for pound, inch for inch, I’m the strongest player in this class. Underestimate me at your own peril.
Signing Day, 2015
Darwin never had to look far to find his destiny. It was obvious and inescapable the second he was born and swaddled in an Oakland Raiders jersey. He was in love from the moment he touched a football. His mother, Lashonne, would look out the window to see him shrugging off the neighborhood boys in the yard like water droplets. She says he still has runs that look like his youth highlights.
“He’s been dragging people since 7th grade,” she said. “He was a small kid, but he was strong though. Darwin could always lift anything.”
His first-ever carry in his second-grade football league went for 75 yards. The other kids called him “AP” — an homage to former Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson who ran like a horse through the Big 12 and NFL. His older cousin, David Thompson, played at Oklahoma State and still ranks third on the Cowboys all-time rushing list ahead of Barry Sanders. Darwin thought he’d follow in his footsteps. Even from a young age, he threw himself into preparing for life as a football player, to the point where he’d cry sometimes if he couldn’t score every time he touched the ball.
It seemed like the stars were aligning, like the pieces of an origin story were all clicking into place. Until they weren’t.
Darwin stopped growing. His frame couldn’t match the rising heights of his dreams. He kept waiting for the day he’d step in to Peterson’s 6-foot-2 shadow and fill it completely — holding out hope for a growth spurt that would shift another cog of his NFL dream into place. But by the time he reached high school, it became all too clear he’d never rise above 5-foot-8.
Darwin felt like he stagnated in other ways after he arrived at Oklahoma prep powerhouse Jenks High. He didn’t dominate on the field right away like he had at other levels. Other distractions came up, like girls. He never had an issue applying himself in the weight room, but that same dedication didn’t extend to his grades.
Darwin played his entire freshman year on the junior varsity team before getting a call up to varsity for the playoffs. Oklahoma State sent out some feelers but, after receiving his transcript, snapped back its interest like a turtle into its shell.
“He didn’t attack probably his grades like he should have when he was a freshman,” his high school strength coach Jordan Johnson said. “It’s an uphill battle the rest of your high school career.”
As the next two years passed by at Jenks, Darwin failed to break into the starting lineup. It wasn’t a lack of talent or work ethic — in fact his coaches say he excelled in that area. He dominated in the weight room. As a 170-pound senior, he could front-squat more than 400 pounds and his 345-pound hang-clean stands to this day as a Jenks weight room record.
“I’ve never seen anyone pound for pound as strong as Darwin,” said Johnson, who worked as an assistant strength coach at Arkansas with runners like Darren McFadden, Peyton Hillis and Felix Jones before coming to Jenks. “Those guys are great athletes, but Darwin by far is the most impressive player I’ve seen in the weight room, high school or college.”
But the mental aspect of being a running back wasn’t clicking, and the depth chart ahead of Darwin at Jenks was stacked with elite talent.
“I think the reason he didn’t get a lot of offers out of high school was he wasn’t seeing things from the Xs and Os standpoint,” said Dub Maddox, his offensive coordinator at Jenks. “The competition there is so high, you just don’t get the reps.”
As a senior with no serious recruiting prospects, Darwin realized he was running out of time. He dedicated himself to his schoolwork and re-took several classes to try and boost his GPA. As he dug into his homework, it spilled over into his play.
Darwin went on a tear in the playoffs, with multiple 100-yard rushing games. He had 13 carries for 144 yards in the state championship against rival Union High and set up the go-ahead touchdown with a 51-yard dash in the second quarter.
“He was just a different player,” Johnson said. “He was a big reason why we won the state championship in 2014.”
It still wasn’t enough. On signing day as friends and teammates committed to various Power 5 and Division I schools, Thompson had nothing — no FCS or Division II scholarships, not even an offer for an NAIA school.
“That’s the best situation I could have ever faced in my life,” Darwin says. “That was a humbling experience. I thought I was on top in high school, thought I was that guy. It made me set back and get to work.”
The Mud: 2016-2018
After graduation, Darwin’s football prospects were limited. Aside from trying his luck as a walk-on somewhere, the only actual offer on the table was from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, a junior college about 90 minutes away in Miami, Okla.
At first, Darwin was skeptical. He didn’t know much about JUCO; he used to think that was where kids in jail went to play football. But if this was the path, so be it. His conviction never wavered.
“I live my life by that, it’s all a part of God’s plan,” Darwin said. “I’ve always came out on top.”
It didn’t get any easier. Right away the coaches redshirted him for the year to train and build up his body. Darwin thought he was ready to play. He called his dad, who reassured him. It’s a blessing in disguise, son. It’s going to happen for you.
So Darwin threw himself into training. He practiced with ankle weights, then ran stadiums every day after practice. He continued to lift, gaining muscle and strength. He worked on learning not just every aspect of the running back position, from running inside zone to pass protection to route running and catching the ball cleanly, but what everyone else’s job on offense was and how all the parts related. When he wasn’t working out or watching tape, he buried his nose in his books.
“He became a student of the game instead of just an athletic freak that lined up and played,” said Clay Patterson, his head coach his sophomore-year at NEO. “Darwin is obsessed with football, and he realized if he became obsessed with all aspects of his life that helped him do that, he’d really develop into that complete back.”
By the time spring practices rolled around, Darwin had started to draw attention. Bowling Green, a Division I school in the MAC conference, even extended an offer. His parents were ecstatic and wanted him to take it. Darwin strongly considered it.
“Darwin’s been the kind of kid who’s always known he can play at the highest level,” Patterson said. “He was at the point where he was going to walk on at a school and prove he can do it… Every FCS (school) around was going after him. He had opportunities to leave after every semester.”
But the timing never felt quite right. He’d formed a bond with Patterson. Both had been born at the same hospital in Tulsa and Patterson knew Darwin’s uncle David. Darwin would do yoga in the mornings with Clay and his wife Ashley and he spent almost as much time studying in Ashley’s office on campus as he did with Clay watching tape.
One year, Darwin stayed on campus at NEO during a holiday break to focus on a chemistry class he needed to graduate early. He caught a sinus infection and ended up spending most of the break at the Patterson’s house, nostrils stuffed with cotton to catch the bleeding, hood up around his ears because of the fever, studying chemistry in the kitchen with Ashley. At a charity 7-on-7 tournament Clay was playing in later that night, one of the other players started talking trash and bumped into Clay. He turned to see Darwin storming out onto the field, bloody cotton, hoodie and everything, ready to defend his coach.
“We feel like he’s our son,” Clay said.
So despite a plethora of chances to leave, Darwin stayed at NEO. His sophomore year as the starter, Darwin erupted. In 12 games, he ran for almost 1391 yards, the second-most of any NJCAA player in 2017. He was named conference MVP and second-team All-American.
Several more schools came calling, and it didn’t take long for Utah State to set itself apart. Head coach Matt Wells and several other coaches were from Oklahoma, and Darwin was drawn to what he called a unique environment with the Aggies.
Once again, Darwin flourished. Under the guidance of strength and conditioning coach Dave Scholz, he dropped his 40 time by a tenth of a second and increased his vertical by three inches. Scholz also helped him fix some chronic ankle sprains, introducing him to functional-range conditioning to stay flexible and take the stress off his body.
“You have to be a strength coach to appreciate the kind of numbers he was able to put up in such a short time,” Scholz said. “He rock-bottom front-squatted 500 pounds at 195, more than twice his body weight. It’d typically take a guy five or six years minimum if he’s genetically gifted. He’d have to squat six to nine times a week. Darwin did it in one and a half.”
Unbelievable lift by @DTRAINN5 today…dude is 195 lbs. and handled 500 lbs. with ease on the Front Squat today…no belt or support of any kind and a FULL SQUAT #frontsquat #fullsquat #depth #freak pic.twitter.com/4FPDUzL3NN
— David Scholz (@coachscholz) July 20, 2018
Scholz never pushed Darwin to his absolute limit. Once he saw him squat 580 pounds ten times with ease, he told Darwin, “That’s enough, you’re plenty strong.” Darwin still doesn’t know how much he can lift. He can bench press 425 pounds, and the last time he maxed, he squatted 695 pounds so easily he thought he could have danced with the bar.
“I still surprise myself every time I go into the weight room,” he said.
Darwin’s strength for his size jumped off the screen all year, starting in a near-upset of Michigan State in the season opener as he bounced off Power-5 defenders and bulldozed one defensive end into the end zone. Darwin ran for more than a thousand yards, averaging 6.8 YPC, scoring 16 total touchdowns and earning second-team All-Mountain West. According to stats compiled by Pro Football Focus, Darwin broke 61 tackles on 175 touches, which was the fourth-best rate of the 210 college backs last year that had more than 100 touches.
Buzz for the short Utah State back began to build. Darwin never planned to declare early for the draft, but as the year went on, it began to make more and more sense. He had several long talks with his parents and coaches, including Clay Patterson.
Patterson told Darwin he thought he should stay and get his degree. Darwin asked him if he thought he could make it. Patterson replied he didn’t think Darwin would get drafted unless he ran a certain time in the 40-yard dash.
Watch me, I’m going to run that.
“The kid is so driven,” Patterson said. “He has a chip on his shoulder that’s huge because people thought he couldn’t do it, that he wasn’t fast enough, he wasn’t big enough. He’s got that thing inside of him that’s going to allow him to be successful, especially as he’s grown as a man.”
By the time Wells and a large chunk of the coaching staff left for Texas Tech, Darwin’s decision was sealed. He bypassed his senior season and declared for the NFL Draft.
March 27, 2019
The ugly truth about making it to the NFL is first impressions are often all that matters. Once a player gets four or five stars, he’s on a shortlist that’s hard to crack. Other times, there’s a perceived athletic limitation that sticks to a player like a label, letting NFL talent evaluators easily categorize them at the expense of missing their true potential.
In Darwin’s case, he was a 5-8, 200-pound JUCO transfer who maybe had a future as a third-down back. But Darwin likes to say he’s not small, he’s just short, and he’s capable of so much more than a bit role.
“I don’t think he’s just a third-down back,” said DeAndre Smith, Darwin’s running back coach at Utah State. “He’s strong enough, he’s physical enough. Football players are football players, you’re strong, you’re strong. He’s every bit as good as anybody I’ve ever coached.”
Had he stayed for his senior season, Darwin might have had enough exposure for an invite to the NFL Scouting Combine and a chance to prove to all 32 teams their label was wrong. But at that point in his career he was well-used to doing things the hard way. He wasn’t one of the 337 players or 28 running backs invited.
There was a part of him that chafed at having to watch the Combine from afar as guys he trained with like D.K. Metcalf, Parris Campbell and A.J. Brown ran through the drills. At EXOS, a high-level athletic training facility in Phoenix, he and Metcalf would compete to see who could drop their body fat the lowest — Darwin says he was actually ahead of Metcalf for a while and got as low as 3.4 percent before the latter caught up with his reported otherworldly 1.6 percent at the Combine. He called to congratulate Metcalf after his blistering 4.33 run at 228 pounds.
“You’re running for your life right there,” Darwin said. “That 40-yard dash, you’re running for your life.”
Though there was no doubt he’d have rather been in Indianapolis, Darwin was at peace as he watched the backs who were invited to the Combine largely fail to stand out.
“There’s a reason I wasn’t there,” Darwin said. “There’s a reason I get a chance to showcase my talent at my pro day.”
On March 27 at Utah State’s pro day, Darwin put up 28 reps on the bench press, had a vertical leap of 39 inches and a broad jump of 10 feet, six inches. Those would have ranked first, third and fifth at the Combine. He also ran a 40-yard dash between 4.46 and 4.53 seconds, which would have put him in the top ten at the Combine.
It was enough for the Kansas City Chiefs, looking to add to their running back room after dumping Kareem Hunt, to pull the trigger in the sixth round of the draft a month later.
The Next Leg
In one sense, Darwin reached the top much faster than expected. His head coach, Andy Reid, waited 21 years and endured countless disappointments before winning his first Super Bowl.
But Darwin’s rookie year didn’t necessarily follow that same progression. During training camp and preseason, he started to build some buzz. His work on the field was strong and he drew praise from the coaching staff for his mature approach to the game.
“The kid’s an unbelievable kid,” Chiefs OC and RB coach Eric Bieniemy said. “You fall in love with the person. The kid has tremendous work ethic. Obviously the talent speaks for itself. But one thing that you appreciate about him is that he comes to work every single day understanding that the classroom is important, that meeting room that we have is important, we step out on this field in individual it’s important. You wish that everyone would have that same demeanor.”
Once Kansas City traded away Carlos Hyde, it looked like the path to early playing time was opening for Darwin. But the Chiefs promptly signed LeSean McCoy, pushing Thompson back down the depth chart. Even after Damien Williams was injured, Thompson played sparingly for the first 12 weeks of the season.
“Probably because of his size, he’s been doubted his whole career,” Johnson said. “That chip on his shoulder that he trains with and works with everything he does is probably a big reason he’s successful. If someone tells him he can’t do it, he’s going to do it and prove people wrong.”
Toward the end of the year, though, Thompson started to pick up momentum. He scored his first NFL touchdown in a Week 13 win against the Raiders, carrying the ball 11 times for 44 yards. He carved out more of a regular role and had a chance at a touchdown from the one-yard line in the Super Bowl.
If history is any indication, there might still be a long, looping NFL journey ahead for Darwin. But one way or another, he’s going to keep fighting to keep living his NFL dream — where he knows he’s always belonged.
