Nobody in the Tyson household was handed anything.
John Tyson played college football at Florida A&M before joining the United States Air Force, where he was stationed in Alaska and Arizona. He met Sandra Brown in Tucson, where she was also serving in the Air Force. After their service, they moved to Texas to raise three sons, all of whom reached the highest levels of college athletics.
Berron played Division I football at South Alabama. Jaylon was taken 20th overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2024 NBA Draft. And Jordyn, the youngest, the one who was sometimes told he could not play at the park with the older guys, is projected to be called on Thursday night in the first round of the NFL Draft.
If that call comes before the 33rd pick, John and Sandra Tyson will have done something that has not been documented in the history of American professional sports: raised two sons who were first-round picks in the NFL and NBA.
What the History Actually Shows
Andscape covered the specific same-city angle in its pre-draft feature on the Tyson family: if Jordyn is taken by the Browns, he and Jaylon would be the first siblings drafted in the first round of two different professional sports in the same city. The broader claim (that no family has ever produced two first-round picks in the NFL and NBA) has not turned up a counterexample in pre-draft reporting by outlets including Andscape and The Mirror US.
Plenty of brothers have reached the professional level across sports. Some have been drafted in the first round of one league. None have produced siblings drafted in the first round of both the NFL and NBA.
The Williamses, the Mannings, the Kelces (the famous football sibling combinations) are well documented and have generated legitimate multi-generational legacies. But those pairs played the same sport. The Tysons are doing something structurally different: two professional-caliber athletes in two different sports, both selected by franchises in the first round.
Jordyn’s projection entering draft week ranges from pick six to pick 15, with the New York Giants at fifth, the Cleveland Browns at sixth, the New Orleans Saints at eighth, and the Kansas City Chiefs at ninth all linked to him in mock drafts and pre-draft reporting. If any of those calls come in, the record is theirs.
There is one additional dimension to the Cleveland scenario. If the Browns take Jordyn at sixth, both Tyson brothers will be playing professional sports in the same city, Jaylon with the Cavaliers and Jordyn with the Browns. The odds against that outcome, built over two separate careers in two separate sports, are considerable.
The Brother Who Wouldn’t Let Him Quit
In the fall of 2022, Jordyn Tyson was a freshman wide receiver at Colorado. He tore his ACL, MCL, and PCL in his left knee. The injury ended his season, and nearly ended his career.
He has described what followed as a period of serious doubt. The surgeries, the rehabilitation, the uncertainty about whether his knee would come back the way it needed to. He played three games in 2023 at Arizona State and did not record a catch. The momentum that had made him a high-priority recruiting target out of Allen stalled at the worst possible time.
Jaylon Tyson made that choice difficult.
“He would always try to come play at the park with us and play at the Rec Center with us and all that,” Jaylon said. “We sometimes wouldn’t let him play, but he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing, and I feel like that’s where that toughness comes from.”
The pushing did not stop when the injuries arrived. Jaylon called constantly. He refused to allow the narrative of the little brother who got hurt and never came back. The mental model Jordyn watched growing up, his older brother outworking and outpersisting every obstacle, became the template for his own recovery.
Jordyn’s account of what Jaylon meant to his career is unambiguous.
“My brother is the only reason why I’m here at ASU,” Jordyn said. “He’s the only reason why I’m here. He instilled in every bit of work ethic I’ve got in my life.”
That quote lands differently in the context of what Thursday night could mean. Jordyn Tyson is at Arizona State, healthy enough to be a top-10 projected pick, because his older brother spent years refusing to let him believe that was not possible. The family that produced an NFL first-round prospect and an NBA first-round pick built that output the same way: one refusal to quit at a time.
The Production That Got Him Here
In 2024, Jordyn Tyson posted 75 receptions, 1,101 yards, and 10 touchdowns for Arizona State in the first full healthy season of his college career. The efficiency numbers were exceptional. He was the kind of receiver who made the catch and did something with it.
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In 2025, a hamstring injury limited him to nine games. He still managed 61 receptions, 711 yards, and 8 touchdowns across that shortened window. The per-game production held. The concern that follows him into Thursday is not whether he can play at this level when healthy. He finished the season with an 81.2 PFSN CFB WR Impact Score (B-).
It is the straightforward question any NFL front office with a first-round pick will ask: can he stay healthy enough to build on it?
The Colorado injuries gave that question its weight. So does the 2025 hamstring issue. The injury history is real, and it is documented in every scouting report. But the player who came back from a triple ligament tear and produced back-to-back seasons of first-round caliber work did not accomplish that by treating difficulty as an option.
