The Etiennes show to rookies everywhere what it means to be ‘an NFL family’

Her grandkids are crawling into trouble. Her daughters have their eyes stuck to the screen even as they wipe their own kids’ noses clean. Her husband, with an easy and wide smile stuck to his face, is somewhere around here, watching the game, shuttling various family friends to and fro, being a good host.

And Donnetta?

The mother of the Etienne boys?

She’s busy taking a rare moment on a wildly hectic Sunday to look around. Her back is to the projector in the Gallagher Lounge in EverBank Stadium — a risk considering her two NFL sons are sharing the field for the first time in their entire organized football lives — but it’s worth it. She’s looking out to see her family and what feels like the rest of their town of Jennings, Louisiana, all in one place, and she’s smiling.

“We wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Donnetta says. She points to the kids with the hand she’s also carrying a handkerchief with to wipe away the sweat as a Trevor Lawrence pass sails incomplete. “We’re here, at an NFL game. Everyone is doing something positive. We’re just blessed.”

It’s the first quarter of the biggest football game of the Etienne family’s collective football life. Their eldest son/brother, Travis Jr., whom they call TJ, began his sixth NFL season on Sunday in Jacksonville. He and his team are playing the Carolina Panthers, the franchise that drafted his younger brother, Trevor, in April. The two brothers were thus sharing a field during their 2025 season-openers — and at six years apart, this was the first time they could do such a thing.

And this was cool for the running-back brothers, sure. After the Jaguars’ 26-10 win, the brothers exchanged jerseys on the field, hugged, talked, did the ceremonial brotherly things. Travis Jr. had just run for 146 yards on 16 carries. Trevor only notched one carry but was reliable in the kick return game.

But to their grandmother and sisters and father and mother, Sunday wasn’t merely “cool.”

It was everything.

“We couldn’t miss this one,” says their younger sister, Danielle Lyons — who, like much of their family, is wearing custom-made jerseys, half Carolina, half Jacksonville.

“Nobody could,” adds Cynthia Lyons, the grandmother.

They all drove about 12 hours to get here. Shanea Lyons, the eldest sister, is a nursing student at a community college near Lake Charles and had to work out a schedule with her professors to take a test early to be at this game, she said. This game wasn’t a mere milestone.

“Today has been historical for us,” Shanea said. “We have a veteran and we have a rookie who are playing against each other. Same position. Today has been a blessing for the whole family.”

Every year, Week 1 is undeniably a special weekend. Teams are healthy. Undefeated. Possibility lurks everywhere, even after losses. But what often gets overlooked is the fact that in each Week 1 game, in every host stadium — a handful of players are taking their first NFL snaps, fielding their first NFL punts, swinging their legs for their first NFL kicks.

And behind every player, there’s a community believing, watching, praying — living each moment as if they’re playing, too. The same people talking about them in barbershops when the kids were in high school. The same parents who schlepped them to recruiting camps across the country. The same siblings who don’t see their brothers as anything but their brothers even as the rest of the world may see them as something else.

There’s a pressure that comes with being a player in the NFL. And with that, the family of those players feel it, to a certain extent, too.

But spend any time with the Etiennes, and you’ll figure it out: This isn’t a mere family. They’re “an NFL family.”

“They don’t see the wheels turning,” Donnetta says. “We’re a family unit. A family organization. They don’t see the wheels turning behind the scenes.”

Trevor and Travis Etienne flow by the gallon

It’s the beginning of the second quarter, and the score is tied, and you’re hearing stories about Trevor and TJ like you’re at a family reunion. Because … well … you are. Stories about Trevor letting Travis have a 100-yard head start in a race across 120 yards when Trevor was just starting to run and TJ was beginning to blossom as a football star. The father recalls a story about Trevor being called a “silent assassin” by a referee one day in middle school. About group texts.

Soon, though, you can tell they care for each other like doing so is their full-time job. After all, they know what it’s like to have people they love being very public figures — they know that it’s beautiful and special and, yes, “a blessing” — but also …

A bit stressful, the family says with a laugh.

“We take it just as seriously as they do,” Danielle said. “They look at them like players, but ...”

“But this is my little brother,” Shanea said.

“We’re his protection,” Danielle said.

Shanea: “I know this is a business, and everyone has the right to their own opinions ...”

Cynthia: “Everyone has their own opinion, but that don’t make it right.”

When there’s something that the brothers do wrong and are getting heat for it online, they have to fight every urge not to defend them.

“After Travis fumbled the ball last season, the Jags fans ...” Danielle paused. “We typed something up, and he was like, ‘Nope. Nope.’” She laughed. “He’ll put you in social media timeout. He keeps us very limited when it comes to stuff like that. Because we’re thinking, ‘We’re supposed to protect. But he’s like, ‘No, we don’t worry about that.’”

“If somebody is going through something at a different moment, we’ll send a prayer, we’ll send scripture,” Shanea said. “We’ll keep each other level-headed. Are you OK? Is your mental OK?’ We just keep each other grounded. Because having two brothers in the NFL is a lot of pressure on the family.”

When some undue stress comes on their brothers, instead of going online, they go to each other.

“And we go pour into them, and say, ‘Everybody makes mistakes, shake it off,’” Cynthia says.

And when Grandma feels like her family is getting done wrong?

She laughed:

“I’ll say an angry prayer.”

Ryan Fitzgerald’s family is a new NFL family

The Etiennes have advice for days about what to tell newly anointed NFL families. The sisters say they always advocate for someone being at one of their brothers’ games. (That was easier, of course, when they played on college Saturdays and pro Sundays — now it’ll take some more scheduling.) They also encourage checking in regularly, not only with their brothers/sons but also with each other.

Another family that might use that advice this year is the Fitzgeralds.

As in: Ryan Fitzgerald’s family.

Fitzgerald is the Panthers’ kicker. The undrafted rookie has a monster leg and is no stranger to having kicking success in Florida, the state of his NFL debut Sunday. He went 13-of-13 at Florida State last year and was an All-American. He’s even been at EverBank Stadium before — his first visit was in 2005, as a fan, for the Georgia-Florida game. The Coolidge, Georgia, family loved the Bulldogs.

It’s halftime, and you ask Fitzgerald’s mother how the tailgate was going, and she smiles.

“We actually don’t tailgate,” Sandy said. “We get here as soon as the gate’s open so we can see him warm up. We’ve always done that, whether it’s high school, college, or NFL now. ... But today, when he got on the field, I started smiling real big. But all of a sudden, it just kind of hit me, and I just started crying.”

The father, Chad, understands why.

“Seeing him achieve his dreams,” Chad said. “Since he was 3 years old, we’ve been going to Georgia games, and both of the boys grew up Georgia fans. ... He always said, when he was tiny, he was going to play at the next level. And then when he was at FSU, he was saying the same things.”

The father would always temper his eldest son’s lofty expectations: Well, let’s just focus on making the next kick.

It led him to Sunday, where Ryan went perfect kicking, nailing his only field goal from 48 yards out and then his only PAT, too.

It led him to everything.

One big surprise on the Fitzgerald side pregame: Ryan’s younger brother, Brett, 19, is at Georgia Military College. He’s also a kicker. Ryan, 25, is six years older than him.

Same position. Six years apart. Same as the Etienne brothers.

The families are connected in this way. They’re also connected in the way that they’re families of NFL rookies.

They’re watching their sons live their dreams — and by doing so, in an ineffable and loving and undeniable way, they’re living their own dreams, too.

This story was originally published September 8, 2025 at 6:00 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Charlotte Observer

Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the Pro Football Writers Association, the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned six APSE Top 10 distinctions for his coverage on a variety of topics, from billion-dollar stadium renovations to the small moments of triumph that helped a Panthers kicker defy the steepest odds in sports. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22. Support my work with a digital subscription