Desmond Bryant '09 Signs with Cleveland Browns for $34 Million

One of Desmond Bryant ’09’s childhood dreams has finally come true.

After four seasons playing for the Oakland Raiders, the defensive tackle finally cashed in on a solid football career on Wednesday when he signed a five-year, $34 million dollar contract with the Cleveland Browns.

"I've always had a vision, since I was a young boy, that I was going to play in the NFL,” Bryant said at his press conference on Thursday. “But I never knew what kind of numbers would be on the contract. As I got older and got into the league and saw what other people were making, it was a goal of mine to be paid like the elite player that I feel I have developed into.”

The achievement of that goal marked the culmination of a long, often obstacle-laden journey to the NFL for the defensive lineman, who experienced his share of ups and downs both at Harvard and in the pros.

COMING TO CAMBRIDGE

After spending his first three years of high school in Middletown, Del.—where he played basketball and football—Bryant moved with his family to Elizabethtown, N.C. during his junior season. The defensive tackle graduated from East Bladen High School in 2004 following a senior year in which his team went 13-1.

After turning down scholarship offers from Duke, Florida A&M, and Towson, Bryant—with a 4.2 weighted GPA and a 1230 on the SAT—chose to attend Harvard.

“Desmond was a raw skinny kid when we recruited him,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy wrote in an e-mail. “It was a bit of a coup for us.”

“I was about 75 pounds lighter than when I came out of high school,” Bryant explained. “I feel like [switching schools] affected my recruiting as well.”

The lineman’s transition to the college game was initially a challenging one.

“At the beginning of the season, I had no confidence on the field and didn’t know what the plays were,” Bryant said at the time. “I didn’t know where I was supposed to be or what I was supposed to do.”

But the rookie soon figured it out and earned a starting job at defensive end by the middle of his freshman season for a team—led by fellow future pro Ryan Fitzpatrick ’05—that went a perfect 10-0.

But Bryant’s progress was halted when Murphy was forced to suspend the lineman for one season after his freshman year for an undisclosed violation of team rules. Murphy allowed Bryant to play the final two games of the regular season, against Penn and Yale, and then the lineman returned for his junior year, when he appeared in all 10 games.

Following that season, the psychology concentrator was forced to take another year off, this time for academic reasons.

But when he returned to campus, he was a better player than ever.

Playing alongside his brother Brenton, then a junior, Desmond led the team with eight quarterback hurries and 4.5 tackles for loss, helping earn him second-team All-Ivy honors.

“He made steady progress throughout his career,” Murphy wrote.

EVERYTHING IS OAK-AY

Bryant was not selected in the following year’s NFL draft, but was able to earn a free agent contract with the Oakland Raiders.

“Coming out of Harvard, obviously it’s difficult to get into the NFL,” Bryant said. “I felt as if I was given a chance and able to make it to a training camp, that once there, I would handle the rest.”

That was exactly what happened for the lineman, who impressed the Raiders coaching staff the in preseason by recording sacks against the 49ers and Saints.

After making the Raiders’ 53-man roster in 2009, Bryant continued to stand out. He appeared in all 16 games during his rookie season, recording 24 tackles. The following year, he recorded his first sack, and then earned the starting job midway through the 2011 campaign, during which time he registered five sacks and 35 tackles.

“I think one of my strengths as a player is being able to rush the passer and affect the quarterback,” Bryant said. “I am out there giving 100 percent on every play. I love to be on the field as much as possible and trying to make something happen.... I like to think I play whistle-to-whistle, sideline-to-sideline on every play.”

The lineman continued to do just that last season, when he registered four sacks. Playing both inside and outside for the Raiders, he continued to establish himself as one of the league’s best run stuffers.

“His size and his athleticism [show] up on tape,” new Browns coach Rob Chudzinski said. “He’s a relentless guy and is solid against the run with really good pass rushing ability as well.”

BROWNIE POINTS

Coming into the 2013 offseason, Bryant was widely considered the best defensive tackle on the market, and the Browns jumped at the ability to lock him up on the second day of free agency.

“Des is a player that we were very anxious to try to get,” said Cleveland general manager Joe Banner, who noted that while working for the Eagles four years earlier he had tried to sign Bryant as a UDFA. “He fits what we are looking for.... We feel very lucky to get him.”

Bryant chose the Browns’ $15 million guaranteed offer over interest from a number of other teams, saying he was excited about the franchise’s future.

“I am ecstatic to be here working with this new group of guys,” Bryant said. “They really know what it takes to help build a winning team. It’s exciting. I can feel an energy in this building like things are really moving in the right direction.”

Bryant’s much-publicized arrest for alleged public intoxication—in which his mugshot went viral online—did not serve to limit the Browns’ interest.

“We looked at everything that we could,” Banner said. “We evaluated his situation, looked at his history and felt very comfortable that he fit the profile of what we were looking for here.”

“I obviously made a mistake,” Bryant added. “I apologize for everything that happened. I feel like I have learned from it and I have moved on from that. I think I have done enough over the years I have been in the league to exhibit that that’s really not the kind of person that I am.”

Chudzinski agreed, saying that the arrest did not reflect Bryant’s true personality.

“Once you get to know Des a little bit, [it becomes clear that] he has a chip on his shoulder,” the coach said. “What he has done with his career is a testament to his hard work. He is a self-made man in that way. Those are the types of guys that we want to have here, that have that type of attitude, that chip on their shoulder to be a great player and to be the best.”

Murphy believes that for newly-affluent defensive lineman, that best is yet to come.

“[Bryant] has improved steadily since he signed a free agent NFL contract,” Murphy wrote. “The bottom line is that he is just reaching his full potential now and in that sense he’s a late bloomer who has yet to plateau.”

--Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @Scottasherm.