Who Is Akeem King? The Former NFL Cornerback Who Built a 25-Unit Real Estate Portfolio While Still Playing
Akeem Jerome King was drafted 249th overall by the Atlanta Falcons in the seventh round of the 2015 NFL Draft. He played 34 career games across four franchises, recorded 39 tackles and 3 pass deflections, and was never a starter in any meaningful sense. He was also, by the time he retired, a licensed real estate agent managing 25 rental units and enrolled in his second graduate program. Most NFL profiles stop at the stats. This one doesn’t.
From Track Spikes to Football Pads: Early Life in Nipomo, California
King grew up in Visalia, California, and attended Nipomo High School on the Central Coast, where he didn’t even play football until his junior year. His sport was track. He ran the 100-meter dash in 10.74 seconds, a school record that still stood when he left, and placed seventh in the triple jump at the 2009 CIF Southern Section Division III finals. Basketball was his other game.
When he finally put on pads, he played five positions. On offense: fullback, wide receiver, tight end. On defense: cornerback and linebacker. As a senior he averaged 29 yards per catch, scored four touchdowns, made 30 tackles, and picked off two passes. One college offered him a scholarship at the FBS level. San Jose State, recruiting him as a wide receiver.
He was the first Nipomo player ever to commit to an FBS program.
San Jose State: The Position Switch That Made a Draft Pick
King redshirted in 2010, the first year of Mike MacIntyre’s tenure as SJSU head coach. He never played wide receiver in college. The coaching staff moved him to safety almost immediately, then settled him at cornerback. In 2011 he appeared in the final two games of the season on special teams. In 2012 he played eight games, all on special teams, including San Jose State’s win in the Military Bowl.
His junior season in 2013 was his first real taste of the defensive backfield. He played all 11 games, finished with 15 tackles, and defended two passes, both in SJSU’s upset of No. 16 Fresno State to close the year. That game probably did more for his NFL prospects than anything else in his college career.
Senior year he started all 12 games: 71 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, 2 passes defended, a career-high 11 tackles against Utah State in November. At his pro day he ran a 4.41 in the 40-yard dash.
He also graduated with a BS in Business Marketing in May 2014 and enrolled in San Jose State’s MBA program for his final football season. The academic parallel track wasn’t accidental. He was already thinking about what came after.
Atlanta Falcons (2015–2016): A Super Bowl Season He Watched from the Sideline
The Falcons cut King in final roster cuts before the 2015 regular season. He was signed to the practice squad two days later, elevated to the active roster in November, and appeared in five games. Nothing spectacular, but he stuck.
Then in 2016, before the season started, he went on injured reserve with a foot injury. The Falcons went 11-5, made it to Super Bowl LI, and blew a 28-3 lead to the New England Patriots in overtime. King watched all of it from the outside. He had been on that roster when the pieces came together, and he missed the whole thing.
He was waived by Atlanta on September 1, 2017.
Seattle Seahawks (2017–2019): Three Years and a Starting Nod from Pete Carroll
The Seahawks signed King to their practice squad after Atlanta let him go. He spent the 2017 season there, including a stint on the practice squad’s injured reserve with an undisclosed injury. He never played a regular-season snap that year.
Seattle re-signed him in March 2018. He was waived again before the season, re-signed to the practice squad, then promoted to the 53-man roster a week into the year. From that point on he appeared in all 16 regular-season games, recording 21 tackles (16 solo). He started one game, Week 2 against the Bears, filling in at right cornerback for Tre Flowers.
After that season, Pete Carroll was asked about King specifically. Carroll mentioned his size, his speed, his ability to handle tight ends in coverage without getting knocked around. “He’s a bright spot for us,” Carroll said. That’s a restricted free agent getting a genuine compliment from a Super Bowl-winning head coach. It carried weight.
The Seahawks re-signed him in March 2019 to a one-year deal worth $1.4 million, with a $400,000 signing bonus and incentives that could bring it to $2.05 million. In 2019 he played 13 games in a backup role behind Bradley McDougald and Tedric Thompson.
Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins (2020): The End of the Run
King signed with Buffalo in August 2020. One week later he was cut to activate Duke Williams off the COVID-19 reserve list. In December 2020 he signed to Miami’s practice squad. His contract expired in January 2021.
That was effectively it. Five seasons, four franchises, 34 games. Not a star, not a starter, but someone who made NFL rosters every year from 2015 to 2020 as an undrafted-caliber prospect out of a non-power-five school.
NFL Career Stats at a Glance
34 career games. 39 total tackles. 3 pass deflections. One start. Four franchises: Atlanta, Seattle, Buffalo, Miami. Drafted 249th overall (7th round) in 2015 out of San Jose State. Pro day 40-yard dash: 4.41 seconds. Listed at 6-foot-1, 215 pounds throughout his career, though one 2018 report from a Seahawks beat writer had him at 212; the 215 figure appears in more sources and is almost certainly the correct one.
Kings Key LLC: Building a Real Estate Portfolio While Still in the NFL
Real estate entered King’s thinking in 2016. He was on injured reserve with the Falcons, watching the season from the sideline, with time and a clear view of how short NFL careers actually are. He started reading. Books, podcasts, conversations with people who’d already done it.
In 2017, while on Seattle’s practice squad, he bought his first property. A townhome. That same year, November 9, 2017, he registered Kings Key LLC in Duluth, Georgia.
In 2018, while on the Seahawks’ active 53-man roster and appearing in all 16 games, he obtained his Georgia real estate license. Managing your own properties is one thing. Getting licensed so you can find and close deals independently, bypassing the 3% buyer’s agent fee on acquisitions, is something else. That’s a competitive edge, not a hobby.
By the time his NFL career ended in early 2021, he had a functioning real estate business. Since then he’s grown it to 25 units: single-family homes, multi-family residences, and an 8-unit residential commercial property, all dedicated to long-term rentals. His stated preference is multi-family over single-family, which makes sense from a cash-flow and management efficiency standpoint. More doors per transaction, one roof to maintain instead of five.
Kings Key LLC remains an active registered entity in Georgia as of 2025.
One thing that’s genuinely hard to find anywhere online: where those 25 units actually are. The company is registered in Duluth, and one LinkedIn post references a property in Duluth, but the geographic spread of the portfolio isn’t documented publicly. For a guy who obtained his license partly to deal without agents, the lack of a public property footprint tracks. He’s not trying to be a real estate influencer.
The Education Stack: Two Graduate Degrees, an MBA, and Ten Columbia Certifications
King earned his BA in Business Marketing from San Jose State in 2014. That’s the baseline. What he built on top of it is more unusual.
During his NFL off-seasons he used whatever programs the league offered. The NFL Business Academy. A stint at NASA’s Commercialization Training Camp, which gets mentioned in his profile but never explained anywhere. (The NASA camp exposes athletes and others to technology transfer and commercialization concepts from NASA research. It’s a legitimate and somewhat obscure program. The fact that King sought it out is either very calculated or very curious, probably both.)
After retiring from football he completed an MBA at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, one of the more well-regarded business programs in the country, followed by an MS in Strategic Management from Indiana as well. He also holds an MS in Construction Management from USC. That last degree is the one nobody mentions in context: if you’re building a rental portfolio and want to understand what contractors are actually doing, what renovations actually cost, and where the real margin leaks in property work, a construction management credential is directly applicable. It’s not a vanity degree.
He also completed 10 certifications from Columbia Business School, spanning real estate investment, value investing, tech innovation, and finance. His LinkedIn credential line lists CIBE (Columbia University) as part of this, though the full breakdown of all 10 programs isn’t publicly detailed anywhere.
The complete credential stack: BS in Business Marketing (SJSU), MBA (Indiana/Kelley), MS in Strategic Management (Indiana), MS in Construction Management (USC), 10 Columbia Business School certifications. That’s five distinct academic completions across four institutions, built between NFL seasons and after retirement.
Pro Athlete Community and What He’s Doing Now
King is a member of the Pro Athlete Community (PAC), a network for former professional athletes navigating post-career transitions. He described the experience as being brought “back into the locker room,” but with the conversations shifting “from game plans to life plans.” That’s a clean summary of what PAC actually does.
He’s married. He and his wife traveled through France, Italy, and Switzerland in 2023 (Switzerland was apparently the standout, best food of the trip). They honeymooned in Mexico. In 2024 they had a daughter.
His LinkedIn activity shows ongoing commercial real estate work and some involvement mentoring younger athletes, including former San Jose State players. He’s also connected to Iron EagleX, Inc., listed on one LinkedIn profile, though the nature of that connection isn’t detailed publicly.
He described himself as “passionate about investing, innovation, and problem-solving,” which is the kind of language that usually doesn’t mean much but in his case has a paper trail behind it. The degrees exist. The LLC is registered and active. The 25 units are real. He’s 33 years old and he’s been building the second career since he was 24.
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