Cincinnati Bengals draft Clemson’s Barrett Carter

Three Clemson Tigers earned selections in the 2025 NFL Draft last month. The Cincinnati Bengals selected linebacker Barrett Carter, the Los Angeles Chargers added safety R.J. Mickens and the Dallas Cowboys picked running back Phil Mafah.

T​he Bengals selected Carter in the fourth round with the No. 119 overall pick. His selection marked the fourth consecutive year that Clemson has had a linebacker drafted, tied with Alabama for the nation’s longest active streak. ​

Carter played 52 career games with 40 starts for Clemson, collecting 254 tackles (31.5 for loss), 12.5 sacks, 24 pass breakups, three interceptions, two forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries. He was a two-time All-America and All-ACC honoree, and his 2,482 career snaps represent the most by a Clemson linebacker on record. As a senior last season, he earned first-team All-ACC accolades and was named as the seventh Butkus Award finalist in school history.

“Barrett Carter, he is the epitome of a Clemson Man, first of all,” Head Coach Dabo Swinney said. “He’s a team captain, he’s a graduate. He is a Swiss army knife. He can really do a lot of things as a football player. I think he has multi-position value, is certainly a core special teams guy right out of the gate, and an incredible personality for the locker room. He’s a guy that just brightens every room that he walks into. And I have zero doubt that he’s going to have a heck of a rookie year.”

“Barrett is a student of the game and super eager,” Position Coach Ben Boulware said. “His eagerness was one of the things I noticed when I returned to Clemson. He obviously was a very advanced product when I got here, but despite being near the end of his college career, he was still eager to ask questions like he was a freshman. He acted like a senior from a maturity and communication standpoint, but he never lost that eagerness to learn and to be a student of the game. He tapped into the resources that we had, and that’s on top of him being an incredible athlete.

“He’s a 4.5 guy who is super versatile. He’s a three-down ‘backer who can play all the positions, including playing in the box, or playing the nickel, which is one of the most sought-after positions in the game right now. High football IQ, but his biggest intangibles are his eagerness and willingness to learn on top of being an experienced football player.”

• Carter became the 84th NFL Draft selection in Dabo Swinney’s head coaching tenure and the 16th fourth-round pick of his tenure.

• Carter became the Bengals’ seventh all-time selection from Clemson, joining TE Jim Riggs (1987), DT Donald Broomfield (1999), DT Brandon Thompson (2012), WR Tee Higgins (2020), OL Jackson Carman (2021) and Myles Murphy (2023).

• Carter became the first Clemson player ever to be selected with the No. 119 overall pick.

• Carter became the ninth off-ball linebacker drafted from Clemson since the 2015 NFL Draft. Carter joined Stephone Anthony (2015), Tony Steward (2015), B.J. Goodson (2016), Dorian O’Daniel (2018), Isaiah Simmons (2020), Baylon Spector (2022), Trenton Simpson (2023) and Jeremiah Trotter Jr. (2024) in that group.

• Carter’s selection represents the fourth consecutive draft in which Clemson has had a linebacker selected. Clemson and Alabama are the only programs in the nation to produce at least one linebacker in each of the last four NFL Drafts.

• Carter’s selection marked the third time under Dabo Swinney and seventh time in the Common Draft era (since 1967) that a linebacker has been Clemson’s first selection of a draft. He was the first linebacker to be Clemson’s first pick in a draft since Isaiah Simmons was selected No. 8 overall in 2020.

• Carter became the 25th member of Clemson’s front seven to be drafted since the 2015 NFL Draft.

• Carter’s selection marked the ninth time in the last 11 years that a defensive player was Clemson’s first selection in a draft. The two exceptions in that span came in 2017 (WR Mike Williams at No. 7) and 2021 (QB Trevor Lawrence at No. 1). Clemson’s defense has now produced the program’s first pick of an NFL Draft 18 times since the turn of the century and in 12 of the 17 drafts of Dabo Swinney’s tenure.

• The selection of Carter — a Suwanee, Ga. native — marked the fifth consecutive year that Clemson’s first selection in an NFL Draft hailed from the state of Georgia (Cartersville’s Trevor Lawrence in 2021, Dacula’s Andrew Booth Jr. in 2022, Marietta’s Myles Murphy in 2023 and Atlanta’s Nate Wiggins in 2024).

Clemson has now had at least one player selected in 23 consecutive drafts since 2003, representing the second-longest streak in school history behind a 24-year streak across the 1951-74 NFL Drafts. Clemson has had multiple selections in every draft of that 23-year streak and is one of only six schools to have produced multiple draft picks in each of the last 23 NFL Drafts alongside LSU, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio State and USC.