Nick
Muse.
Nick
Muse.
South Carolina
"A 6-4 tight end who climbed from third-team All-CAA at William and Mary to a 425-yard SEC season, then spent four NFL years turning a frame and a pair of hands into one catch and a Super Bowl ring."Pre-draft read
A tall, wide-bodied tight end who wins with size and reliable hands rather than separation. At 6-4 3/8 and 259 pounds with 27 bench reps, Muse boxes out defenders over the middle, sits down in zone windows and finishes catches through contact, which is what made him a volume target in the CAA and a steady chain-mover at South Carolina.
The limitation is speed. A 4.71 forty and 30.5-inch vertical put a ceiling on the vertical seam element, and his 12.0 yards per catch in three SEC seasons reflects a short and intermediate menu. As a blocker he is willing and has the frame for in-line work, but the pad level and sustain are ordinary, so he profiles as a TE2 who must earn his keep on special teams and situational passing downs.
A play-action offense that uses two tight ends and asks the second one to work the intermediate middle rather than run vertical seams.
Year 1: practice squad TE3 and special teams body. Ceiling: a TE2 who catches 25 to 30 passes in a two-tight-end scheme.
A spread system that isolates its tight end on vertical seams and expects him to run away from safeties, which his 4.71 speed will never do.
Every team that kept him valued the frame and the hands, and none of them found a role that needed his legs.
Nick Muse college highlights
The Vikings' own draft-day reel of his South Carolina tape.
All catches from TE Nick Muse
Every college reception compiled, the clearest look at his catch radius.
Nick Muse: like I've done before, I know I have to prove myself all over again
The rookie on arriving as a 227th pick who had already transferred up once.
Muse grew up in Belmont, North Carolina, went to South Point High School, and followed a path his family already knew: his older brother Tanner was a Clemson safety who became an NFL draft pick. Nick started at William & Mary, catching four passes for 55 yards and a touchdown as a freshman in 2017, then breaking out as a sophomore in 2018 with 30 receptions for 453 yards and a score, good enough for third-team All-CAA honors.
That production earned him a move up. He transferred to South Carolina for 2019 and caught 17 passes for 158 yards in eight games while adjusting to SEC speed. In 2020 he was the best version of himself: 30 catches for 425 yards and a touchdown in 10 games, 14.2 yards a reception, the most efficient season of his college career.
Muse then took the extra year of eligibility the NCAA granted for the pandemic season and returned for a third year in Columbia. The 2021 numbers went down rather than up, 20 catches for 222 yards and two touchdowns in 13 games, and the reduced per-catch average told scouts what the testing confirmed at his pro day in March 2022. Five college seasons and two programs produced a well-built, dependable target without a separating trait, and that combination is exactly what gets drafted at the very back of the seventh round.
- 01
Genuine size at the position
6-4 3/8 and 259 pounds with a 6-5 3/8 wingspan, big enough to shield defenders away from the football.
- 02
Strong hands and contested-catch finishing
he plays through contact in traffic and rarely surrenders the ball at the catch point.
- 03
Real strength for a tight end
27 bench reps at his pro day, functional power that shows up when he sustains at the line of scrimmage.
- 04
Five years of production across two levels
101 catches and over 1,300 yards between William & Mary and South Carolina.
- 05
Proved he could climb
a third-team All-CAA year turned into a 425-yard SEC season against considerably better competition.
- 01
Limited vertical speed
a 4.71 forty and 30.5-inch vertical mean he will not stretch a defense or win up the seam in the NFL.
- 02
Ordinary separation underneath
most of his college production came on volume and body positioning rather than route-running nuance.
- 03
In-line blocking needs work
the frame is there, but the pad level and sustain are not yet at a starting-caliber standard.
- 04
Production trended the wrong way
his yards per catch dropped from 14.2 in 2020 to 11.1 in his final season at South Carolina.
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | William & Mary | — | 4 | 55 | 1 |
| 2018 | William & Mary | — | 30 | 453 | 1 |
| 2019 | South Carolina | 8 | 17 | 158 | 0 |
| 2020 | South Carolina | 10 | 30 | 425 | 1 |
| 2021 | South Carolina | 13 | 20 | 222 | 2 |
| Career | — | 31 | 101 | 1313 | 5 |
South Carolina lines and game counts come from Sports Reference, which includes bowl games; the 2019-2021 totals there are 31 games, 67 catches, 805 yards and three touchdowns. The two William & Mary seasons are taken from his verified receiving totals, but the CAA game counts are not published in the same databases, so the games field is left out for 2017 and 2018 rather than filled with an estimate or a zero. Career receiving adds the two schools exactly: 101 catches, 1,313 yards, five touchdowns.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Big-bodied depth tight end who bounced between rosters and never cleared a handful of receptions.
Undersized-athleticism TE who carved out a long career as a dependable TE2 and special teams contributor.
Another late-round Vikings tight end whose NFL time was almost entirely practice squad.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Minnesota took him 227th overall and the Vikings kept him around for three seasons on the churn between practice squad and active roster: waived on August 30, 2022 and re-signed to the practice squad a day later, promoted to the 53 on November 19, waived on January 6, 2023 and re-signed again, a reserve/future deal on January 16, and finally released on November 26, 2024 with another practice-squad landing. Through 2024 his NFL production was one reception for 22 yards.
The travel after Minnesota was constant. Philadelphia signed him to the practice squad on January 22, 2025, which put a Super Bowl LIX ring on his hand when the Eagles beat Kansas City 40-22, and he signed a reserve/future contract on February 14 before being waived in final cuts on August 26. Arizona signed him on October 8 and released him on October 28, the Rams on November 11 and released him on December 9, and the Jets on December 10. Detroit signed him on August 3, 2026 and let him go six days later; Atlanta signed him on August 11, released him in final cuts and re-signed him to the practice squad, then promoted him to the active roster on September 16, 2026. He is still in the league, which is more than most 227th picks can say, but the resume is a ring earned on a practice squad and a single catch.