Former Carolina Panthers lineman says UNC prospect son ‘self-made’ ahead of NFL Draft
Bryson Nesbit still remembers the confetti hitting the field.
As the 2009 New Orleans Saints celebrated their Super Bowl XLIV win over Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts in Miami, the then-7-year-old aspiring athlete took in the scene that would serve as the culmination of his father’s NFL career. Jamar Nesbit, Bryson’s dad, lifted the Lombardi Trophy over his head during the postgame celebration, which continued the following week with a parade down Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
Bryson vividly remembers the parade, too, just as he remembers the Super Bowl halftime show with The Who and defensive back Tracy Porter’s championship-sealing pick-six. Those memories helped fuel Bryson’s athletic career in the shadow of Jamar’s 11-year NFL stint, which began with the Carolina Panthers in 1999.
“That (Super Bowl) really set my life on the trajectory to know I wanted to do the same thing for my family,” Bryson told The Observer in March following his pro day workout at the University of North Carolina.
While Bryson has always had Jamar around for advice and guidance, the elder Nesbit has seen his son take control of his destiny.
Despite growing up with a Super Bowl champion as a father, Bryson, according to Jamar, has entered the NFL landscape with the work he’s done by himself. And next week’s NFL Draft — whether Bryson is selected as a draft pick or signed as an undrafted free agent — will be the next step in his own football legacy.
“I told him I’m so proud of what he’s been able to do and the way he’s been able to do it,” Jamar said. “He’s self-made, and everything he’s getting and the things that he’s accomplished, he’s done on his own.”
From the court to the gridiron
Bryson, like his father, didn’t start playing football in high school until he was an upperclassman. Jamar wanted Bryson to focus on other sports until he was physically ready for the rigors of football.
The talented hooper made his transition to football as a junior at South Mecklenburg High, and he immediately started turning heads with his athleticism. Jamar served as an assistant coach on Bryson’s high school team, and the two Nesbits found instant success together as Bryson took in offer letters from notable schools like North Carolina, LSU, N.C. State, Florida and Georgia.
Entering college, Bryson was ranked as the 12th-best tight end in the country, according to 247 Sports. While both his father and his mother, Tara, played college sports at South Carolina, Bryson decided to head to Chapel Hill to play for the Tar Heels.
As a freshman in 2021, Bryson caught seven passes for 154 yards and a touchdown. From there, he just kept getting better, producing 76 catches for 1,092 receiving yards and nine touchdowns combined in his sophomore and junior seasons.
“He hasn’t reached his full potential yet,” Jamar said. “And he’s gotten better every single year that he’s played. And he has a hunger and thirst and a desire to be really, really good — if not great — and he loves the sport. This isn’t a chore for him. He’s not clocking in because he has to, right? He’s at home, figuring out ways to get better, ways to design better plays. So, he’s doing everything that you would want a professional player to do, and he’s been a professional since the day that he stepped on campus.”
Bryson had an uneven senior season at North Carolina in 2024 as the program struggled in Mack Brown’s final year as head coach. While he collected 24 catches for 264 yards and three touchdowns in his final college campaign, the uncontrollable variables surrounding the program — namely losing QB Drake Maye, who went third overall in last year’s draft to the New England Patriots — factored into the pedestrian numbers.
Still, Bryson kept perspective on his underwhelming stat sheet and decided to enter the draft as Bill Belichick took the reins to the program in the wake of Brown’s dismissal. His overarching perspective has come from his self-awareness and upbringing.
“I’ve grown a lot with that,” Bryson said. “In the past, I could have had a bad day and been down on myself right away. I think just keeping that mindset and reminding myself of that mindset has really helped a lot and helped me push past some harder times and situations that I wish went differently.”
Building his own legacy
Bryson, a Charlotte native, has good size for the tight end position (6-foot-5, 238 pounds), even from the NFL standpoint. He has reliable, experienced hands, and a notable catch radius. But some evaluators still have some questions about his overarching athleticism and ability to block at the next level.
Those questions have led notable draft analysts to project him as late-round pick or undrafted free agent. While he had a 32.5-inch vertical jump and a 9-foot-4 broad jump at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, his pro day jumps at North Carolina were less impressive.
“In an age where offensive coordinators are always trying to find mismatches in the slot, Nesbit could hold some late day-three or priority undrafted free-agent value to some coaching staffs,” Pro Football Focus’s lead draft analyst Trevor Sikkema told The Observer. “His height and length play into his strengths as a high-point receiver with a big catch radius. However, his lack of fluidity and agility, even for his size, brings concerns that he will be too easily covered beyond contested catch opportunities against NFL defenders.”
But as with anything in the NFL, teams can’t teach size, length and a strong pedigree. And Bryson has shown he can consistently pluck the ball out of the air when his number is called.
The fact that he’s only been playing football for six years might also intrigue a team that could view Bryson as a blank-canvas prospect.
“I feel like I have a lot of untapped potential,” Bryson said. “I don’t know what I don’t know, still. So, I’m just excited to keep coming in every day, learn something new, and get one percent better every day. It’s been my motto since high school, since I first started.”
Jamar, who made a career out of blocking defenders, pushes back against the notion that his son doesn’t have the toughness to handle himself at the next level. While Bryson has a humble disposition, his father points to his film to show that a switch flips when it’s game time.
“It shows up on film,” Jamar said. “For all the guys, the coaches and the scouts, they’ll go do their research and they’ll ask the questions, and to a person, I don’t think the kid has any enemies, which is hard to do. But on the field, like he knows what his job is, and he’s playing with a passion because he loves the game itself.
“And so, there is a little bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, Clark Kent — like he’s a really soft-spoken introvert off the field. Now, on the field, you want a guy that’s gonna go out there and compete. So, it’s really, ‘I’m going to save all the angst and anger and all that sort for the field, and then off the field, quiet time and fishing and all that.’ That’s what makes him happy.”
Finding a fit in the NFL
Bryson was a Saints fan growing up, because New Orleans was the setting of Jamar’s glory days. Given his love for the franchise, he found an inspiration on the Saints’ offense as he learned to play the game.
Michael Thomas — a three-time Pro Bowl and two-time All-Pro receiver — was big, athletic, and fast. He worked mostly out of the slot, similar to an “F” tight end, and Bryson found a kindred spirit in the wideout.
“The way that he paid attention to route detail, every route looks the same, that was something that I really thought I could take into my game as a tight end,” Bryson said.
According to Jamar, Bryson’s self-taught nature extended beyond studying Thomas. Bryson would spend plenty of time off the field thinking up ways to best be utilized in offenses. While scouts and media evaluators might not value his blocking ability, Bryson’s knack for getting open and catching the ball are hard to ignore.
He’s also willing to put the work in to get better.
“Our saying, when I was coaching him in high school, (was) we weren’t practicing for Fridays, we were practicing to get to Saturdays,” Jamar said. “And so when he stepped foot on this (UNC) campus, and he got to college, our saying was, ‘Look, we’re practicing for Sundays.’ Wherever you are, that’s a given. Where you’re getting to get to is not. So, put your efforts into where you want to get to. He’s put the work in and put himself in a position to hopefully get to Sundays.”
Bryson’s next step toward getting to Sundays is next week’s draft.
The class is considered to be quite loaded when it comes to tight end talent, so Bryson might need to wait a while before he hears his name called. But he can take solace in the fact that his father went undrafted in 1999 and still turned in a long-lasting NFL career.
Wherever Bryson ends up, the spotlight won’t be too big for him, because as Jamar says, it’s all he knows. All the young playmaker wants is a chance, and he hopes that opportunity will come before the calendar turns to May.
