Ja'Tyre
Carter.
Ja'Tyre
Carter.
Southern· 6'3"· 311 lb· 5.13s 40
"A White Castle basketball player turned tight end turned left tackle who started thirty-seven games at Southern and went to Mobile as the only HBCU player in the Senior Bowl, then managed thirteen NFL games."Pre-draft read
An athletic, still-developing lineman who moves like the tight end and basketball player he used to be. Carter is six-three and 311 pounds with 33 5/8-inch arms, a 34.5-inch vertical and a 5.13 forty, and the burst off the snap is genuine: he reaches five-techniques on zone concepts and repositions his hands without losing his base in pass protection.
What he lacks is accumulated craft. He got a late start in football, converted to the offensive line only after arriving at Southern, and the footwork and knee bend still lag the athleticism. He over-sets in protection, and sustainable power against heavy interior rushers is the last piece missing. He fights with urgency, but he wins on tools rather than feel.
A zone-running offense that puts its guards on the move, asking them to reach block and climb to the second level instead of drive blocking in place.
Year 1: practice squad developmental lineman. Ceiling: a starting zone-scheme guard if the anchor and footwork catch up.
A gap-and-power run game that asks him to displace a nose tackle from a standstill, which is exactly where his lack of sustainable power shows.
The Ourlads evaluation called for a redshirt year on a practice squad; the year came, but the progression did not.
Chicago Bears OL Ja'Tyre Carter dominating the Senior Bowl
His week in Mobile as the only HBCU player in the 2022 game.
Southern University guard Ja'Tyre Carter drafted in 2022 NFL Draft
Draft-day coverage of the 226th pick from an HBCU program.
Ja'Tyre Carter prepares for Southern Pro Day with NFL Draft weeks away
Local reporting on his pre-draft process in Baton Rouge.
Carter grew up in White Castle, Louisiana, unranked by recruiting services and coming off an accomplished high school basketball career, and he arrived at Southern in 2017 as a tight end. The move to the offensive line happened in Baton Rouge, and from there he became one of the most durable linemen in the program's recent history, starting 37 career games for the Jaguars.
His senior year was the showcase. Playing left tackle in 2021, he anchored a Southern line that finished 19th in the FCS in rushing at 197.7 yards per game while allowing 1.55 sacks per game and 17 for the season. The recognition followed: preseason first-team All-SWAC, second-team All-SWAC from the conference coaches, and Phil Steele's FCS All-SWAC Offensive Lineman of the Year along with a spot on his first-team All-SWAC list.
Then came the all-star circuit, and he took every invitation. Carter accepted bids to the East-West Shrine Bowl, the inaugural HBCU Legacy Bowl, the HBCU Combine and the NFL Combine, and on January 20, 2022 he was added to the National Team roster for the Reese's Senior Bowl, the ninth Southern player in school history and the only HBCU athlete in that year's game. Scouts left Mobile convinced the traits were real even if the technique was not.
- 01
Rare athletic testing for an interior lineman
a 34.5-inch vertical and 5.13 forty at 311 pounds, with a basketball background behind it.
- 02
Thirty-seven career starts at Southern
a three-year starter whose availability was never a question at any point.
- 03
Anchored a top-20 FCS rushing offense
Southern averaged 197.7 yards on the ground in 2021 and allowed only 17 sacks all season.
- 04
Urgent, adjustable hands in protection
he repositions without losing his base, which is uncommon for a recent position convert.
- 05
Full all-star circuit validation
Senior Bowl, Shrine Bowl, HBCU Legacy Bowl and NFL Combine invitations, the only HBCU player in Mobile.
- 01
Inconsistent footwork and knee bend as a pass blocker
he over-sets, loses his adjustment window and gets beaten back inside.
- 02
Not yet strong enough at the point
sustainable power against heavy interior rushers is the biggest gap between him and a starting job.
- 03
Late convert with limited football background
tight end until Southern, and the feel for the position still lags behind the tools.
- 04
Competition level is a real question
SWAC defensive linemen do not approximate what he will see every Sunday in the NFL.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.13sp50
- Vertical
- 30inp50
- Broad jump
- 108inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.84sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.90sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Southern | — |
| Career | — | — |
Offensive linemen do not accumulate individual statistics, and Southern is an FCS program whose season-by-season participation records are not published in the national databases, so no games-and-starts table is reconstructed here. The one figure verified by Southern's own athletic department is the career total: 37 starts for the Jaguars, cited in the school's January 2022 Senior Bowl announcement. Per-season game counts are left out entirely rather than estimated, and no zeros are entered for years without a verified record. The 2021 team context, 19th in the FCS in rushing at 197.7 yards per game and 1.55 sacks allowed per game for 17 on the season, comes from the same source.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Developmental Chicago interior lineman who lived on practice squads with occasional active-roster snaps.
Bears-drafted athletic lineman who reached a starting role before his technique capped him.
Day 3 guard whose NFL run never produced meaningful playing time.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Chicago signed him in May 2022 as the 226th pick and used him sparingly: three appearances as a rookie, then a second season as depth before the Bears waived him on August 26, 2024 in preliminary roster cuts. Through his time on active rosters he played 13 games with two starts, which is the entire body of his NFL work.
Carolina picked him up for the practice squad three days later and kept recycling him. He signed a reserve/future contract on January 6, 2025, was waived with an injury designation at the 2025 cuts on August 26, spent time on injured reserve before an injury settlement, and returned to the Panthers' practice squad on November 4. Another reserve/future deal followed on January 12, 2026, and the Panthers released him in final cuts on August 30, 2026. Four seasons, two franchises and 13 games is the honest total for a player everyone agreed was a projection: the athleticism was always there, but the technical growth that the scouting reports said would take a practice-squad year never fully arrived.