Brandon Wilson

BIOGRAPHY

Brandon Wilson was born on July 27, 1994, in Shreveport, Louisiana. He is a safety in the NFL.

During high school, he helped lead Calvary Academy to the Louisiana state semifinals as a senior, Wilson rushed for 1,800 yards with 21 touchdowns as a senior while accounting for 500 yards receiving and six more scores. He averaged 33 yards per kick return as a senior.

He did not saw action in 2012 but on 2013, Brandon played in 12 games as a reserve defensive back and special team’s contributor, and returned a blocked field goal 78 yards for a touchdown at UTSA, he was named The American Athletic Conference’s Special Teams Player of the Week following the game. He played in all 13 games during the 2014 season, making eight starts at defensive back and as a special team’s contributor, finishing the year with 33 tackles and one forced fumble. Wilson recorded two tackles in Houston’s comeback victory in the Armed Forces Bowl over Pittsburgh and recorded a season-high five tackles and one forced fumble vs. Tulane. He made his first career start and registered three tackles at BYU.

For the 2015 season, he made 13 starts in 14 appearances with the first 12 coming at cornerback and two at running back late in the season. Brandon was the only player in the nation to score multiple touchdowns in all three phases of the game with two each on offense, defense and special teams, and he also led The American and ranked sixth nationally with two kickoff returns for touchdowns. Wilson became just the second player in Houston history with multiple kickoff return touchdowns in a season and became the sixth player in program history to record a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the win at Louisville. On 2016, he started the first two games for Houston before missing the next three games due to injury, he saw action in 10 games, making eight starts, finishing the year with 43 tackles, including four tackles for loss and two sacks, five pass breakups, one interception and one forced fumble. He also added 21 kick returns for 510 yards while pulling in five receptions for 52 yards and four carries for six yards while seeing time as a running back in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Wilson was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the sixth round, 207th overall, in the 2017 NFL Draft. He was one of three Houston Cougars to be selected that year. He was only the fourth player ever selected by the Bengals organization after a trade up in the draft. The team elected to play Wilson at safety rather than the cornerback position he played in college.

He injured his knee during rookie minicap, and was placed on the non-football injury list in late July. Wilson was waived on September 2, 2017 and was signed to the practice squad the next day. He was promoted to the active roster on November 11, 2017. At his 2018 junior year he appeared in 12 games with one start at tackle, posted 10 tackles, eight solo, one sack, one forced fumble and one blocked kick, forced the first fumble of his career at No. 3 Ohio State (10/6), made three stops against Iowa (10/13), blocked the first kick (PAT) of his career against No. 18 Penn State (10/20) and recorded his first career sack in the season finale against Purdue (11/24). On March 11 2019, Wilson signed a 1 year contract with Cincinnati.