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Ra'Shede Hageman is a defensive tackle for the Atlanta Falcons. He also has a dark and complicated past. Hageman spent a night in prison as a result of a domestic violence incident that took place in March of 2016.
Ra'Shede Hageman, who was just re-signed by the Falcons in April, is thankful to have ultimately received his shot at glory despite his severe wrongdoings and violent actions. The veteran defensive lineman realized while in his prison cell that he had to turn his life around — and fast.
“If I never had another sign in my life, I had one there,” Hageman recently said, via Dan Pompei of The Athletic. “God was talking to me. He was telling me, ‘Yo, you need to get your shit right. You need to get away from her. This is a warning.’ It was a game changer.”
The 28-year-old Hageman has spent his entire NFL playing career as a member of the Falcons. The Falcons originally selected Hageman in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft out of Minnesota. As it stands today, he has appeared in 44 regular season games, with those outings coming between the 2014 and 2017 campaigns. Over the course of his NFL career, the seasoned defensive tackle has recorded 61 total tackles, four sacks and one pass defense.
Those statistics are part of the public record, but a bigger and more alarming part of the public record is the collection of actions Ra'Shede Hageman must learn from. It's one thing to be given a second chance; it's another thing to truly make the most of it — not just on the field, either, but also as a reformed citizen off the gridiron. Hageman faces tests which are public, but also private. He needs to pass all of them to justify this second chance granted to him by the Falcons.
