Payton Wilson is chasing his MLB brother’s greatness. The NFL Draft is his next step.

Not much rattles Bryse Wilson. And that makes sense. The Milwaukee Brewers relief pitcher, after all, plays one of the most pressurized positions in baseball — one in which a good slider can’t win a game but a hanging curveball can lose one and change seasons and careers in the process.

But there’s something that does rattle Bryse, he admitted with a laugh:

Watching his brother, Payton, play football.

“I get probably twice as nervous watching him play than I do pitching in actual games,” Bryse told The Charlotte Observer last week.

Bryse Wilson is Payton’s elder by two years. The Hillsborough, North Carolina, natives are “as tight as it gets.” They’ve been that way since they were little. Today, Bryse finds time in his MLB schedule to call his brother two or three times a week. Payton, in return, texts his brother after he gets a glimpse of his line on the box score. (Payton doesn’t watch Bryse’s games live; Payton gets nervous, too.)

In a few weeks, though, that nervousness might dissipate.

Payton Wilson will soon be one of the handful of North Carolina natives to hear his name called in this year’s NFL Draft, which will be hosted April 25-27 in downtown Detroit. The 23-year-old linebacker is one of the most decorated players to come out of N.C. State’s football program and is a projected second- or third-round pick.

Bryse, because of his travels, won’t be able to watch the draft with Payton and their parents, Chad and Tracey. But he said he plans on tuning in to Day 2 live.

How will Bryse feel?

“Obviously extremely happy,” the elder Wilson said. “I feel like there will be a little nervousness on my part that’s lifted because he made it. Obviously, on his part, just from my experience, there will be more pressure put on his shoulders. That’s really when it starts. But I guess as the brother, it’s like, ‘Alright, he got it. He made it. Now let’s see what he does.’”

What Payton Wilson has already done

To understand what Payton Wilson might one day do, it’s important to know what he’s done.

And for a majority of his life, the linebacker admits, he’s been “chasing” his brothers’ greatness.

“In Raleigh, I’m Payton Wilson,” Wilson said. “But when we go back to Hillsborough, I’m Bryse Wilson’s little brother.”

The Wilson brothers grew up wrestling when Payton was 4 and Bryse was 6. Wrestling on the mat, yes — with rules and certain safety restrictions and all that — but also just as brothers do. Bryse, according to Payton, accrued his fair share of wins. They grew up on a farm in the 9,000-person town of Hillsborough with their parents, Chad and Tracey, and the brothers adopted what Payton called a “country strong” mentality in any sport, in any venue.

Bryse and Payton both played football at Orange High School. But as Bryse gravitated toward baseball, Payton did the same with wrestling. The “whoopings” he took from his older brother as a kid translated to toughness as an adolescent, Wilson said. Payton won a state championship in the sport as a junior in high school — his last year before enrolling in college early and pursuing his football dream at N.C. State — and credits his reliable tackling ability to the grappling techniques he learned on the mat.

In Raleigh, Wilson was a contributor as a freshman and a leader as a sophomore. Injuries kept him as a Wolfpack for five years. He missed the 2021 season due to shoulder surgery. He followed that season up with a renewed focus on nutrition and recovery — he put on some extra weight and now sits at 6-foot-4, 233 pounds — and that resulted in two years of healthy, productive football, something the pro scouts took notice of.

His final year in college, he finished with 138 tackles and six sacks and a forced fumble and three interceptions — one of which he returned 19 yards for a touchdown — en route to the 2023 Butkus Award, which recognizes the top linebacker in the country.

He’s since steadily risen in the eyes of NFL scouts since the conclusion of his final season, too. He’s healthy, for one, a question mark he’s had to address to teams looking to draft him. He grades out well in film. Draft profiles praise his football IQ, his tackling ability, his instincts. He’s also fast. He recorded a head-turning 4.43 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine in February, quickest of all linebackers at the event, a stat that has certainly caught the attention of inside linebacker-needy teams. (Wilson has spent the past few weeks traveling all around, Bryse said, and meeting with a handful of NFL teams. As of last week, Payton made trips to visit with the Cowboys and the Seahawks with plans to visit Pittsburgh, too.)

And everyone who he’s played with, or who he’s played for, can attest to probably the most important part of his legacy.

“Nobody plays harder than Payton Wilson,” N.C. State head coach Dave Doeren said after a coaches clinic in Charlotte earlier this year. “In 30 years, I’ve never seen anybody play like he plays effort-wise. It’s insane how hard he plays football. He loves the game. He plays every snap, literally, like he may never play another snap. It’s incredible.”

Payton Wilson models game after Luke Kuechly

To many Carolina Panthers fans, that work ethic sounds familiar. Luke Kuechly, the Panthers’ only seven-time Pro Bowler and one of the greatest linebackers of all time, was known for that, too. And while he was the ninth overall pick in the 2012 draft, a bit higher than where Wilson is projected, the two have been drawing comparisons all offseason, all the way up to their scruffy hair as they entered the NFL.

Part of that, of course, is because Wilson — and Bryse, for what it’s worth — looked up to Kuechly as a kid.

“The No. 1 is Luke Kuechly,” Wilson said when asked who he modeled his game after. “I’m from North Carolina. He was obviously with the Panthers. The way that he played the game, I mean obviously outside of his football IQ, knowing literally every play that was coming, playing with his hair on fire, trying to take people’s heads off. It was something that I just wanted to do.

“And, you know, I’ve actually been in contact with him, and just the person that he is outside the game: He’s never changed, everything goes to the Lord for him, so just on and off the field, just trying to model my game after him.”

Trying to assess if Wilson can catch Kuechly one day isn’t yet fair. A lot explains that: The linebacker position has changed. So have NFL offenses. Also, and not to understate it, Kuechly was a unique “dawg” — the variety that Panthers general manager Dan Morgan is seeking out right now. Kuechly notched 191 tackles his junior (and final) season at Boston College. That’s 191 tackles in 12 games — about 16 a game.

No matter the fairness of it, one thing is clear: Wilson certainly appears to have the aptitude Kuechly once did.

“Wherever I meet you, I want to prove that I’m the bigger man, the stronger man,” Wilson said — his younger-brother, state-championship-wrestler persona revealing itself. “And if you beat me, I’m coming back 100 times and we’re gonna go until I win. That’s just my mentality.”