Antuan Minye' Edwards (born May 26, 1977) is a retired

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player. He played

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to risk management, the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

. Edwards was drafted by the

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...

in the first round (25th overall) of the

1999 NFL Draft The 1999 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 17–18, 1999, at the Theater at M ...

out of

Clemson University Clemson University () is a public land-grant research university in Clemson, South Carolina. Founded in 1889, Clemson is the second-largest university in the student population in South Carolina. For the fall 2019 semester, the university enro ...

High school - college career

He attended Starkville High School in Mississippi, where he played

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

, safety, and

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offen ...

. He was named All-American as a safety in his

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

year. At Clemson, he started thirty-three games and recorded a total of 219 tackles, with eight interceptions. During his senior year, he was a first-team All-

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

and was a finalist for the

Jim Thorpe James Francis Thorpe ( Sac and Fox (Sauk): ''Wa-Tho-Huk'', translated as "Bright Path"; May 22 or 28, 1887March 28, 1953) was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. A member of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native ...

award.

Professional career

Early career

Edwards was selected in the first round of the 1999 NFL Draft by the Green Bay Packers, the first of three consecutive defensive backs the Packers would take in that draft; the others being

Fred Vinson Frederick "Fred" Moore Vinson (January 22, 1890 – September 8, 1953) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 13th chief justice of the United States from 1946 until his death in 1953. Vinson was one of the few Americans to ...

and Mike McKenzie. Edwards would play all sixteen games of his rookie season, starting one of them. During the course of the year, he made a total of thirty tackles (twenty-six solo), had four interceptions, and was named to the ''College & Pro Football Weekly'' All-Rookie team. The following season, he started three games but saw his tackle total go down to twenty-five, while defending nine passes and two interceptions. Edwards only played in three games in 2001 when he suffered a knee injury and was placed on injured reserve. In 2002, he started the season as the team's starting safety, but was replaced early on by rookie Marques Anderson following a forearm injury. He spent the rest of the season as a backup and totaled forty-four tackles.

Later career

He beat out Anderson for the starting job in

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

and started a career-high twelve games, and recorded 51 tackles. He would finish the season on

injured reserve The injured reserve list ( IR list) is a designation used in North American professional sports leagues for athletes who suffer injuries and become unable to play. The exact name of the list varies by league; it is known as "injured reserve" in th ...

following a late-season injury. He left the Packers at the end of the season to join the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team pla ...

. He started eight games for the team and had 35 tackles when he was released from the team. He was claimed by the

St. Louis Rams The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis from 1995 to the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994. The arr ...

, where he ended the season with five starts and 30 more tackles. Edwards then signed with the

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

but was cut, and signed with the

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...

. He started one game and had eleven tackles for the season, but was cut early on. He joined the

Washington Redskins The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) N ...

, but was released early in camp.

NFL statistics

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Antuan 1977 births Living people American football safeties Atlanta Falcons players Clemson Tigers football players Green Bay Packers players Miami Dolphins players People from Starkville, Mississippi Players of American football from Mississippi St. Louis Rams players Starkville High School alumni