‘Nerve-wrecking’: How retired NFL players view their sons’ draft process
There’s one emotion that you wouldn’t necessarily quite expect from retired NFL players with sons in draft.
Nerves.
You would think that because they have been here before, they would be cool. Calm. Collected. That, however, is far from the case.
“It’s been nerve-wrecking a little bit,” Jason Taylor recently revealed on the NFL Network. The Pro Football Hall of Famer’s son, Mason, is a highly-touted tight end out of Louisiana State University. “It’s obviously more nervous for me now as a spectator than a participant.”
With the NFL Draft running Thursday-Saturday, much attention will be paid to the players. They, after all, will be the ones whose lives are forever changed when their names are announced. But for the fathers, especially those who have played at the next level, there’s a whole lot of nerves – but also an excitement about their sons’ ability to establish his own legacy.
“We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have this nervousness as a parent,” said Oronde Gadsden, a former Miami Dolphins receiver whose son, Oronde II, is also projected to be one of the top tight ends in the 2025 draft. “You always want to see your child do their best.”
The NFL Draft comes roughly nine months after that of the NBA, where the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James faced heavy criticism for the team’s selection of his son Bronny. Specifically, the word “nepotism” got thrown around a lot in relation to Bronny and the Lakers. Taylor and Gadsden, however, scoff at the notion that their sons’ success has anything to do with nepotism.
“Mason did all of this stuff on his own shield,” Taylor said. “He worked his butt off. His body of work speaks for itself. If someone wants to tell me that he did all of this because of who his dad is, that’s an ignorant, B.S. excuse to not be informed and do your homework.”
Added Gadsden: “As a dad, our job is to give our kids a better opportunity than we had and I think that’s all we’re doing. No other parent would fall short of doing that.”
It’s not nepotism, Gadsden continued, just because his son wants to follow in his dad’s footsteps and play professionally. The same goes for sons of electricians who want to join the family business.
“We’re just in a genre that brings more light to us than other dads,” Gadsden said.
That’s not to say their kids didn’t benefit from their father’s careers. Both Mason and Oronde II admitted to that during the NFL Combine.
“It impacted me as a player just you know being able to meet different people and being able to be in different experiences,” said Oronde II, who graduated from Plantation American Heritage.
“Just kind of having that insight, that inside scoop, that many people aren’t fortunate to have, it’s a blessing,” added Mason, a Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas grad.
It’s just that the nepotism title totally obfuscates the work that each individual put in, something that Taylor specifically didn’t like considering that Mason “had to go through the grind to get a scholarship” because “there was a lot of schools out there that wouldn’t give him a chance.”
“You poke the bear and you get bit,” Taylor said before sharing a specific message to the media members who would deem Mason’s draft stock the result of nepotism. “I would tell ‘em all to kiss my [butt].”
Despite the preparation that both sons have put in, the nerves haven’t stopped the nerves. As professional athletes, they are used to a certain type of control over their destinies. That, of course, is far from the case as they prepare to watch their sons get drafted.
“We can’t control it,” Gadsden said of the draft. “So I think that’s what give us the nerves. If it was us, we wouldn’t have no problem about it.”
Added Gadsden: “If you ask Oronde, he cool as a cucumber. But us, we’re used to controlling our own destiny.”
Maybe that’s why both fathers will be headed on a one-way trip to water works park this week. They understand the preparation. They understand the process. And they understand the sacrifices that not only them but their sons had to make to get there. So when their son’s name is finally called, everything — the nerves, the excitement, the passion – will be released with one good cry.
“I can’t put into words the feeling you get,” Taylor said of his seeing his children be successful. “But will I cry? Probably. If I don’t, great. I don’t want to hear any [s***] if I do.”
Gadsden too admitted that he would likely join Taylor in a cry before he shared some very critical piece of advice to his son.
“I’m going to shed a tear,” Gadsden said, calling himself “human.” “But the journey has just begun again. It’s a new chapter. Being there before, we know that the easy part is getting there; the hard part is staying there.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2025 at 7:22 AM.
