Atlanta Falcons’ Xavier Watts Learned His Greatest Life Lesson From His Father’s Darkest Night

Most people see Atlanta Falcons’ Xavier Watts making blockbuster plays on Sundays. However, what they don’t see is the promise he made to the father who raised him from a wheelchair after one bad decision changed his family’s life forever.

Before Xavier Watts was even old enough to remember, his world shifted. In 2003, his 21-year-old father, Jeff, went out in downtown Minneapolis—a night that ended when a stray bullet shattered his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. But Jeff refused to let his darkest night break his family’s future. Instead, he made a radical choice.

“The biggest thing on my mind was, ‘I want to make sure I’m there to raise Xavier,’” he told the AJC. From Minnesota to Nebraska, Jeff Watts used his wheelchair as a living classroom, proving to his son that no mistake is too heavy to overcome. As Jeff told Irish Sports Daily, the tragedy ultimately allowed him to become “the perfect example” for his talented son, who took a liking to sports.

“That was just me being a bad kid, in the streets doing things that I had no business doing, so he sees that every day,” Jeff recalled. “I wake up, I’m in a wheelchair, and he knows what it’s the result from, and I think he understands that you only get one life, and one wrong decision can turn your whole life the wrong way.”

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Jeff explained to Irish Sports Daily that his father had him when he was only 17 years old, barely old enough to make good parenting decisions.

“The older you get, the wiser you get, and you start to realize what’s important, and what’s important in this world. I didn’t really have people telling me, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that,’ because they didn’t know themselves.” That’s when Jeff knew he had to make a change.

For Jeff, breaking the cycle meant stripping away the shame and being brutally honest about his rock-bottom moment. He laid out his mistakes so Xavier could use them as stepping stones. Decades later, the lesson stuck, a legacy was born, and the results speak for themselves.

During Xavier’s NFL debut against Tampa Bay in September, Watts totaled six solo tackles and two pass deflections. In the first month of the season, Watts collected 23 total tackles (17 solo), and two interceptions, earning him the NFL’s September Defensive Rookie of the Month.

Jeff knew he wanted Xavier to be raised differently, therefore, he knew he had to “be very honest with him about everything that happened so he can learn from it.” And learn from it, he did.

Xavier, who was selected by the Falcons in the third round of the 2025 NFL draft, told the AJC how he “definitely moved a lot smarter.” He learned early on not to “do dumb things that would put me in harm’s way or get me in trouble or do something that I know my parents wouldn’t want me doing.”

In 2023, Xavier played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, winning the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the best defensive player in college football—thanks in part to his parents’ Jeff and Fallon’s dedication, especially his father’s. After working grueling eight-hour shifts and hitting the gym after, Jeff would drive his son to practices, tournaments and eventually, college visits.

“We’ve been telling him that he’s in a boat where he’s in a little bit of a different situation than a lot of his friends,” Jeff said, per Irish Sports Daily. “You’ve got to see the bigger picture. You can’t always do everything that they’re doing. When it comes to hanging out, you have to be smart about what you’re doing.”  

It was advice forged in survival, and for Xavier, his father’s physical scars were all the proof he needed to listen.

“I know he [my dad] wouldn’t steer me wrong because he did some wrong. So, I knew in the back of my head, whatever he’s telling me to do, whatever he wants me to do, is probably for the best,” Xavier told the AJC. “And that’s why I just stuck to the plan and followed along. When I look back at it, he really did help me set up for the future.”