(2023) Bryan Bresee-DT/DL-Clemson

Bryan Bresee

DT

6’5, 305

RS Sophomore

Strengths	Weaknesses
Great Burst and Explosiveness Off the Line Powerful Drive Strong Hands Twitchy Able to Shed Blocks Well Lined up Across the D-Line	Injury History Injuries Seemed to have Affected His Play  Concerns with Tackling Can be Forced out of his Run Gap

2022 Statistics (Per PFF)

*(Ranking is out of the 330 Defensive Linemen with 300+ Snaps this season)

2022 Statistic	Total	Ranking *	Rank Percentile
Pressures	24	T-59th	Top 18%
Sacks	3	T-69th	Top 21%
QB Hits	4	T-55th	Top 17%
Hurries	17	T-58th	Top 18%
Tackles	9	T-299th	Bottom 10%
Missed Tackle %	31.3%	T-326th	Bottom 1%

Write-Up:

Bryan Bresee is an interior defensive line prospect who had a tumultuous 3 year career at Clemson. As a freshman in 2020, Bresee made an immediate impact on a very talented Tigers defense, and was seemingly on the path to a very bright future over the next few seasons. Unfortunately, Bresee tore his ACL early in his 2021 campaign. Though he was cleared for the start of the 2022 season, his overall play seemed to have been affected by the lingering side effects of the injury. He missed 4 more games this season, and went through some intense personal tragedy. 

Bresee’s best tape comes from his 2021 season before his injury, and one of the main reasons for this is how explosiveness he was off the line of scrimmage. He times the snap well, and has a great first step that helps Bresee get positioning on his opposing blocker. He is a twitchy rusher, and has a variety of initial rush moves as well as block shedding strategies; he is surprisingly polished for how little football he has played at the collegiate level overall. In run defense, Bresee can quickly shed his blocker and blow up a play in the backfield, but can also use his burst to quickly close off running lanes. He has the size and length to hold contain if he is told to do so.

The elephant in the room with Bresee is that his play since the ACL tear definitely dipped in most aspects. Overall, the impact in the majority of his game was minimal, but his explosiveness definitely took a hit as he continued to recover over the course of the season. One area of his game that took a major hit was his tackling ability. He shockingly finished with one of the highest missed tackle rates from any interior defensive player in this class. Watching the tape, some of the missed tackles are a bit exaggerated, but his lack of burst did leave him a step behind at times. In addition, runners were now able to work around him much easier, and runners could bounce around the outside against him. There were also far too many times where Bresee was forced out of his run gap, something that was not much of an issue in the past.

Bryan Bresee presents an extremely polarizing situation for NFL GMs to evaluate. The highs with Bresee, especially in his earlier tape are exceptional. He has great burst, a fairly polished rushing attack, and the ability to blow up run plays. However, the past two seasons have affected Bresee quite a bit. It is hard to project if the injury lingering this season was only for this year, or if this is something that will affect him the rest of his career. And with the concerns, how high should Bresee go in the Draft? Personally, I still see Bresee as a 1st Round talent, but spending a top 10 pick on him may prove to be too much of a risk for many GMs to take.

Draft Projection:  1st Round