Kansas City Chiefs part ways with 2023 NFL Draft pick BJ Thompson after 2024 cardiac arrest kept him off the football field
Chiefs DE B.J. Thompson won’t be returning to the football field in Kansas City.
The Kansas City Chiefs and 2023 NFL Draft pick B.J. Thompson have agreed to part ways after a scary health incident rendered him unable to return to the field.
In the summer of 2024, Chiefs DE BJ Thompson suffered a cardiac arrest at the team’s practice facility during a team meeting. Harrison Butker alerted the team’s medical staff, who resuscitated Thompson with CPR and a defibrillator, and he was discharged from the hospital four days after the incident. Thompson attended the Chiefs’ Super Bowl ring ceremony, but he stayed on the non-football illness list for the entire 2024 NFL Season.
The team waived Thompson with an injury designation in May, at which point he reverted to the non-football illness list again.
“Just real quick with BJ Thompson,” Chiefs HC Andy Reid said back in May. “I think he saw where we waived him to (injury) designation there. So he is making progress, but just not quite, not quite there yet, but he’s made great, great strides. And so in this day and age of the way football is, we had to do something there. And this is the route that we went. But it doesn’t mean his career is over by any means, just where we’re at today.”
Thompson was selected by the Chiefs in the fifth round (166th overall) of the 2023 NFL Draft out of Stephen F. Austin. He appeared in a single game in 2023, recording just two tackles. He became a Super Bowl champion in Super Bowl LVIII against the San Francisco 49ers.
Thompson had 2025 and 2026 remaining on his rookie deal, and the non-injury settlement suggests that the team will at least pay a portion of his remaining salary.