Mr. Thomas was born on Dec. 25, 1987, in Montrose, Ga., to Bobby Thomas and Katina Stuckey Smith.
According to a biography of Mr. Thomas on the Denver Broncos’ website, his mother and his grandmother Minnie Pearl Thomas were arrested on drug-distribution charges when he was 11. His father was serving in the Army in Kuwait at the time, according to local news reports. His mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison and his grandmother to life without parole.
In 2015, President Barack Obama commuted his mother’s sentence. She later wrote about expressing regret for the crime and seeking freedom for her mother, who was still in prison. “Because I refused to testify against my mother,” she wrote, “I received a 20-year mandatory sentence because I did not give ‘substantial assistance’ to the prosecution.”
The following year, Mr. Thomas met the president at the White House, according to the Broncos’ website. “We talked for a quick second,” he said. “I told him, ‘Thank you for what you’ve done for my family,’ for giving my mother clemency.”
In 2016, Mr. Obama commuted the sentence for Mr. Thomas’s grandmother, after she had spent 16 years in federal prison. Mr. Thomas said at the time: “This was a blindside shot, but I’m happy. I’m excited. The past two years, I got my grandmother and my mother out. And a lot of other people got their family members out that didn’t do crazy crimes, so it’s a blessing.”