WESTFIELD, Ind. — Practice stopped. The music muted. The crowd fell silent.All that was left were the screams.Salvon Ahmed’s agony filled the air as he rolled around on the ground at Grand Park in August 2025. The running back’s right ankle was pointed in the wrong direction. It was an injury so gruesome that most of Ahmed’s former Indianapolis Colts teammates turned away once they saw the severity — including the one who caused it.Guilt rushed over Trey Washington and spilled out in tears streaming down the safety’s face. His tackle, an illegal hip-drop tackle, ended Ahmed’s season, and it also could’ve derailed both of their careers.“It was a traumatic experience, not only for me, but obviously for Salvon,” Washington told The Athletic during training camp, one year after making what he considers the worst mistake of his football career. “I just remember chasing to make a play. But it’s frustrating because at the time, Salvon was just trying to make that team like me. … It was a hard mental space to get out of because I knew I hurt somebody who was trying to feed their family.“I was just trying to feed mine, too.”Washington went undrafted last year out of Ole Miss, while Ahmed went undrafted out of Washington in 2020. The latter quickly earned respect in the NFL, scoring three touchdowns in six games as a rookie with the Miami Dolphins, before eventually latching on with the Colts in 2024. After spending that entire season on the practice squad, Ahmed’s goal, just like Washington’s, was to make the 53-man roster in 2025 and suit up on game days.But with one brutal tackle, that opportunity was snatched from him.“It was a regular football play, man,” Ahmed, now with the Chicago Bears, told The Athletic while still refusing to put any blame on Washington. “Trey was just trying to make a play.”To be clear, the tackle itself wasn’t the issue. Colts coach Shane Steichen had instructed his third-stringers and other reserves to tackle during an 11-on-11 drill. The purpose, Steichen said at the time, was so that players on the tail end of the roster could compile live reps that they might not get in the team’s three preseason games.In short, it was a chance for the underdogs to prove themselves, and Ahmed and Washington took it to heart. After Ahmed broke free for what appeared to be a surefire score, Washington chased Ahmed down, jumped on his back and hip-drop tackled him near the end zone. The NFL banned this tackling technique ahead of the 2024 season because of increased injury risk, but the NCAA hasn’t. The tackle wasn’t dirty, Washington insisted. It was instinctive. It was a tackle he’d done his whole life.“It was so crazy. (General manager Chris Ballard) came over to me as soon as it happened because I was already in tears,” Washington said. “It was great for him to come over and just let me know that I was just playing football. Zaire Franklin, DeForest Buckner, all those guys came to my support immediately.”But nobody’s message resonated more than the one from the man who suffered the injury. Ahmed was in excruciating pain while being carted off the field and taken to the hospital. He’d suffered a severe right ankle fracture, among other injuries, he said, that would require surgery and a lengthy recovery. However, before he began rehabbing his body, he opted to rehab Washington’s heart by having his family contact the rookie.“You think about a lot of different things when you get hurt,” Ahmed said. “Definitely a lot of emotions and a lot of choices, too.”One of those choices was to forgive.“I couldn’t imagine how he was feeling, feeling like he injured a teammate,” Ahmed continued. “… So, I just wanted my family to let him know it was OK. I got a lot of love for Trey and I’m wishing him nothing but the best. … It’s hard to go through that. I went through (my part of it), and I imagine he went through his own stuff, too.”Washington went on to make his NFL debut in October 2025, recording three tackles for the Colts in a blowout win over the Las Vegas Raiders, and he did so with a clear conscience thanks to Ahmed. The young safety also made sure to check in regularly on Ahmed, who said he used his rehab to teach his 7-year-old son, Cayden, that it’s “never over ’til it’s over and to never give up.”Ahmed, 27, signed with the Bears nine months after fracturing his ankle, and he scored on a 49-yard screen pass in their preseason opener, a 34-10 victory over the Cleveland Browns. That touchdown served as a full-circle moment for Ahmed and Washington, who are now on the Bears and Colts’ practice squads, respectively.