Greek-American Rookie Athan Kaliakmanis Throws First NFL Touchdown in London

By Taki Panos

Nobody in Washington planned for Athan Kaliakmanis to be playing quarterback in October. The rookie was the third name on the depth chart, a seventh-round pick taken 223rd overall. Then, on a Sunday afternoon in London, he was on the field at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and by the third quarter he had thrown his first NFL touchdown pass. The Indianapolis Colts won 30-13, as ESPN reported, but the Greek-American rookie left with a moment of his own.

So this is not a story about a fairy-tale finish. It is a story about a young player getting thrown into the deep end and swimming, and it has a Greek thread running through it. If you are new to American football, a third-string quarterback in the NFL is the man who mostly holds a clipboard and hopes nobody gets hurt. On Sunday, two people did.

Washington were already without starter Jayden Daniels, who was out with an elbow injury. Marcus Mariota started in his place but left after the Commanders' second drive with a knee injury, and coach Dan Quinn said afterward it looked like an MCL problem, ESPN reported. That meant Kaliakmanis, in his first regular-season NFL game, in a foreign country, against a Colts team that would not wait for him to settle in.

The first half was rough, as you would expect. Early in the third quarter he threw an interception that helped set up a Colts touchdown, the kind of mistake that can flatten a young quarterback's confidence for the rest of the afternoon. But he kept going, kept taking the snaps and kept looking downfield, and the moment that will stick came soon after.

With good protection, Kaliakmanis dropped back, went through his reads and spotted Treylon Burks running free down the field. He launched it 47 yards right into Burks's arms for the touchdown, as the Commanders' own website described it. The score cut the Colts' lead to 17-13, and for a few minutes the game had a pulse again.

On the next drive he faked a handoff, rolled right and hit Dyami Brown for 48 yards. That is not a rookie hiding. That is a rookie trying to make plays, and after an interception, that choice says a lot about him. Coaches spend years trying to teach young quarterbacks to forget their last mistake. Kaliakmanis seemed to manage it in a single series.

Indianapolis answered with a 52-yard field goal from Spencer Shrader and a 4-yard touchdown run from Daniel Jones early in the fourth quarter, and Jonathan Taylor ran for two touchdowns on the day. Kaliakmanis finished 15 of 33 for 186 yards with one touchdown and one interception, per ESPN and FOX Sports. Not a pretty line, but not a frightened one either.

Here is where the story gets personal for Greek fans. Kaliakmanis is Greek-American, and the Commanders' website says he wears his heritage with pride. According to The National Herald, he has a tattoo sleeve on his left arm with the Greek word "οικογένεια", meaning family, along with an icon of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, his namesake.

One of his nicknames is "The Greek Rifle", which is about as good a nickname as a quarterback can ask for. Before the NFL he played college football at Minnesota and Rutgers, and he earned his roster spot in Washington by winning the third quarterback job in preseason. Nothing about his path was handed to him, and Sunday was the first public reward for all of it.

For now, his role goes back to backup. The team named Daniels the starter for the Week 5 game against the New York Giants, and Kaliakmanis said he was excited to support him and to be back at Northwest Stadium, a place he said "feels like home." That is the right answer for a rookie, and it also happens to be the honest one.

My take: the scoreboard was not kind, but the debut was. You do not often see a third-string rookie get handed the ball in a foreign country and come out with a long touchdown throw on his record. Greek fans on both sides of the Atlantic now have a new name to follow, and if you want to see where many of them live, start with our map of the biggest Greek communities in America.

For more stories like this one, keep an eye on our Greek Sports section. The Greek Rifle has one touchdown in the books. Every career has to start somewhere, and London is not a bad place to begin.

Sources: ESPN, Washington Commanders, Sky Sports, The National Herald, FOX Sports.

Image: Athan Kaliakmanis in 2025 by Bobak Ha'Eri, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).