"We went into survivor mode," Elisha said. "The fire was coming in and it was coming fast."

As the large group of family and friends evacuated the house, the fire trucks began to arrive. As the house burned, many of them ended up sitting outside in lawn chairs at the bottom of the driveway. Some watched the draft on their cell phones.

Despite all the chaos and disappointment that day, Grady said he thought Day 2 of the draft would still end with some positive news.

"The third round is going and in my head I'm like, 'There [isn't any] way I'm getting past the third round so it's coming sometime soon,'" Grady said.

But it wasn't to be. The Cleveland Browns selected Washington State defensive tackle Xavier Cooper with the No. 96th overall pick, the last defensive tackle taken in the third round.

At that point, Grady was at a loss as he tried to wrap his head around it all.

"I'm emotionally dealing with the fire; I'm emotionally dealing with still having not gotten drafted yet," he said. "In a span of hours, things go from high and hopeful to, 'What is going on?'"

The next day, Grady and his family watched the final rounds of the draft in Covington, Ga., at their cousins' home. By the time the fourth round ended, two more defensive tackles had come off the board.

Grady found himself lying on the floor of the room with tears rolling down his face.

Part of the reason he was so perplexed was because throughout the entire pre-draft process he received nothing but positive feedback in terms of what NFL teams thought of him. Yet there he was with the fifth round about to start and he still hadn't heard his name called.

How could this be happening, he thought.

And just as Grady began to think about the possibility of going undrafted, his phone rang.

When he answered, Atlanta Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff and head coach Dan Quinn were on the other line telling him the club had traded up to select him with the 137th pick.

Grady's family couldn't hear who he was talking to, so they had no idea if it was a team or not.

As he hung up the phone, he said to his family with a smile, "I'm staying in Atlanta."

After everything the Jarrett family had endured that weekend, finally some good news. A dream come true, in fact. It was a moment Grady and Elisha will cherish forever.

Elisha has never missed one of her son's football games – from youth football through college – and every time he stepped on the football field, she was in the stands, right by his side every step of the way.