He couldn’t walk this spring. Now, Billy Bowman Jr. is back for Falcons’ D

FLOWERY BRANCH — Billy Bowman Jr. turns around and lifts up the seat at his locker, giving way to a chest of cleats. He reaches in and grabs a pair of custom red Nike Vapors, clutching them like valued memorabilia. He only wore them once, and he’ll never wear them again.

Those cleats — with the red Nike swoosh and white outline, the bright red laces and a strange cuff at the back, leaning right against his Achilles — were on the Falcons defensive back’s feet for the worst day of his life.

At the beginning of a normal Friday practice in Week 11 of last season, Bowman crumpled to the grass at the Falcons’ practice facility. He still doesn’t know whether it was the cleats or the lingering effects of a hamstring injury he suffered earlier in his promising rookie season. But he knew, on that fateful Friday afternoon, his future flipped on its head.

“I knew right when it happened that it was a torn Achilles,” Bowman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I’ve never felt it before, but I knew what it was.”

For the next 2½ weeks, Bowman had a cast on his foot. He slept with a pee bottle next to his bed because he couldn’t get to the bathroom on his own. When he showered, he had to sit on the ground. Every time he lay down, he had to keep his foot elevated.

Bowman is self-dependent. The Achilles is the body’s anchor. What happens when man loses anchor? Self-dependent becomes dependent. He couldn’t walk anywhere without help.

He spent his free time — of which there was plenty — scrunching his toes and doing everything he could to regain strength and movement in his feet and calf. But the Achilles rehab process doesn’t speed itself up for anyone.

Bowman transitioned to a boot nearly three weeks after surgery, but he still couldn’t put any pressure on his foot. So, for roughly four weeks, he used a scooter as his primary source of transportation. After a month and a half of no pressure, Bowman shed the scooter but kept the boot.

There he was, a professional athlete whose body is the vessel of his livelihood, unable to walk for so long that he still doesn’t know the exact time frame. Was it three months? Four? By the time he reached the point where he could wear his Hokas and On Clouds, he’d lost track.

“I didn’t have to learn how to walk again,” Bowman said, “but I had to learn how to use my foot and my toes again.”

Bowman is back healthy now, emerging from the injury-darkened cloud of the past 10 months to play in his first game of the season, a 35-14 win over the Packers last week on “Thursday Night Football.”

He’s wiser. He’s seen a different side of things.

The Denton, Texas, native had never been injured to that extent before. It was a dramatic change from the lifestyle he’d made his identity since he was a kid, when he was the hardest worker on every team he’d played on, when he never took days off.

He left Oklahoma as a “legendary figure” for the way he handled business, rookie linebacker and former Sooner standout Kendal Daniels said. “The name Billy Bowman rings a lot of bells around Oklahoma,” Daniels added.

And for Bowman, that was often all that mattered. Until November.

“I’m learning there’s a lot more to life than football,” Bowman told reporters before the season. “I kind of look at this injury as giving me a step back from all my hard work, all the things I’ve done.”

Bowman took a few vacations. Saw different things, tried different foods, different, different, different. But this fall, he realized his heart’s loyalty is still tied to the same thing it always has been: football.

“It brought me back to ground zero,” Bowman said. “I honestly didn’t even know I’d make it to the point where I’m back practicing, and here I am.

“But ultimately, being back now, I’ve realized that I’ve missed it so much.”

The Falcons missed Bowman, too. After he underwent surgery in November — one day apart from quarterback Michael Penix Jr.’s ACL surgery — he rehabbed in California before returning to the team’s facility in the spring.

One of the team’s core tenets, secondary coach Justin Hood told the AJC, is wrapping its arms around its people, be it coaches, players or anybody else. The Falcons saw Bowman at his lowest and proceeded to rally behind him.

“Billy is, first and foremost, a tremendous person,” Hood said. “When you talk to Billy specifically, you really see the personality and his character come through, because he’s at a dark moment and he knows what his goals are and he’s even more committed to accomplishing those.”

‘When I’m out there, everybody feels me’

He’d spend OTA practices watching from the weight room, churning his legs on elliptical machines and dreaming of the day he’d get to run around again. Sometimes, he’d walk down the small slope, across the grass practice surface and into the subsect of the Falcons’ nickel corners. Other times, he’d run on side fields — anything to get some movement.

By the middle of training camp, Bowman’s hours in the weight room didn’t creep into practice time. He’d watch plays from behind the secondary, taking mental reps and putting himself in the cleats of the team’s nickel corners. In some scenarios, he’d even take light walk-through reps.

Hood steadily saw Bowman’s mental acumen rise. When nickelbacks Avieon Terrell and Darnay Holmes left the field after practice snaps, Bowman would ask, and answer, questions. Bowman, Hood said, was “the same Billy that he’s been mentally, but even more so locked in.” He had no other choice.

“When you can’t move and you can’t function, you can’t operate athletically or physically,” Hood said, “what needs to heighten? It’s been his mind. It’s been his awareness.”

During his absence, Bowman watched and thought, thought and watched, and couldn’t stop picturing himself in the Falcons’ defense — and how he’d elevate it.

“Just how my presence is felt out there,” Bowman said.
“In my opinion, I haven’t done nothing, but when I’m out there, everybody feels me.”

The Falcons still felt Bowman in meetings each day. “Billy is awesome just to have in the room,” Hood said. It’s his demeanor, his leadership. He’s vocal. Teammates hear him.

Ten months removed from his Achilles tear, Bowman returned to full practice participation entering Week 1. The Falcons’ new staff — led by coach Kevin Stefanski — finally experienced Bowman’s presence.

On Thursday night, the Packers did, too.

Bowman played 43 defensive snaps, 65% of the team’s total, at nickel corner in the Falcon’s win at Lambeau Field. He made one tackle and deflected a pair of passes. He smiled at his locker after the game, elated by the thrills of his return — a feel-good moment on a feel-good night.

And the Falcons certainly noticed Bowman’s presence. He nearly had one interception and could’ve had another, too.

“It was a great boost to our football team, to our defense,” Stefanski said. “Plays so hard. Got his hands on a couple footballs there. So, he shows up. He’s that player, whether he’s inside, outside, doesn’t matter. Just being around the ball, playing hard. Feed off his energy.”

Bowman hears the general consensus that players are often at their best two years removed from Achilles injuries, but he doesn’t fully abide by it. His body is better now than it was before the injury, he says, and he’s hitting numbers he couldn’t previously.

Familiar with NBA legend Kobe Bryant’s “Mamba Mentality?”

Bowman keeps the book on the top shelf of his locker. He read it during his recovery and still keeps it with him. It’s centered on Bryant’s pillars of passion, obsession, relentlessness, resilience and fearlessness, core traits that Bowman used to persevere and conquer.

Bowman, 23, won’t enter his Kobe Year until next January. By then, he hopes he’s put his career back on the trajectory it was headed before Nov. 21.