Growing up the son of former Pittsburgh Steelers TE and current team scout Mark Bruener, football is all that Washington linebacker Carson Bruener has known. He’s always been “Mark’s son” but now in a funny way of life coming full circle, Mark Bruener is going to be known as “Carson’s Dad” because the Washington Huskies’ linebacker and team captain finds himself on the cusp of achieving his life-long dream of making the NFL.
Following a dominant 2024 season at the University of Washington where he was a team captain, earned the program’s Defensive MVP award, and was one of just two Big Ten players with 100+ tackles and three interceptions on the year, Bruener finds himself on the doorstep of making the NFL, just like his dad once did.
In a way, life is coming full circle for Bruener, who competed in the 2025 East-West Shrine Bowl, just like Mark did back in January 1995 at Stanford. It’s not just the ties to Washington where father and son played, it’s going through the pre-draft process at the Shrine Bowl, meeting with teams and getting an opportunity to reach the next level.
Even with life coming full circle for Carson, he’s had an uphill climb to get here, especially being the son of a former All-American and a first-round pick. He’s out to make his own legacy though.
“I followed my dad’s legacy and that it was hard to do. I mean, my dad was an All-American at the University of Washington and one of the best tight ends in the history [of the program]. He’s in the Huskies’ Hall of Fame. And me coming into that school, it was a lot of pressure, ’cause a lot of people, a lot of the interviews and articles that came out was Carson Bruener, Mark’s son. It was never about me,” Carson told Steelers Depot at the East-West Shrine Bowl in Frisco, Texas, in January. “It was always combined with both of us. And that was my biggest challenge with myself, is creating my own legacy. But it’s something I felt like I was able to do really well and succeed at…yes, my dad built a great foundation for me, and he’s my role model in my life.
“He’s the one who I look up to extremely. The biggest thing that has really helped me, especially through my career at the University of Washington, is truly recognizing the greatness and the achievements that my dad has had. But also just being where my feet are and knowing that this is my own journey, and this is my own life.”
It is his own life, but that hasn’t stopped him from tapping into that legacy, and rightfully so. During the 2023 season with the Huskies in the College Football Playoff championship game and taking on Michigan, Carson wore Mark’s 1991 national championship jersey pre-game. Mark took it out of a display case for the special moment, which Washington captured on its Instagram page.
Wearing his father’s jersey pre-game before the biggest game of his life was special, but so, too, was being able to point up into the stands at NRG Stadium and find the seats where he sat as a kid, watching his father’s final NFL seasons with the Houston Texans.
Life coming full circle again.
For Bruener, that mentality of being where his feet are and knowing that this is his own journey has gotten him to this point in his career. Being that legacy player following his father’s history at Washington was tough, but playing a different position and being the type of leader and player he was during his time for the Huskies helped Carson forge his own legacy.
In 52 career games, Bruener recorded 306 tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, five interceptions, 14 pass breakups and four fumble recoveries. He finished his career just outside of the top 10 in program history in tackles, and he did that while splitting time in 2022 and 2023 before becoming a three-down linebacker in 2024.
The 2024 season was a coming-out one for Bruener, who dominated for the Huskies from start to finish. In a starting role and as a captain, Bruener had 11 games with at least six tackles and four double-digit tackling games, earning team Defensive MVP honors.
“It meant a lot, ’cause I mean, just through all the ups and downs in my career at U-Dub, it showed that really hard work pays off. And if you keep your head down, you grind, things will go your way,” Bruener said of his final season at Washington. “And it might not be right now, it might be 10 years down the road, 40 years down the road. But for me it was my senior year. And that’s something where I knew I was never gonna leave. UW was my school.
“And no matter what adversity struck or anything like that, like I was here. I was here to stay. I was here to work. And just kind of seeing all that hard work paid off meant a lot.”
In a time of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal, where college players can jump to another school at the first sign of adversity, Bruener stuck it out. That hard work and adversity paid off as Bruener had a great year, improving his draft stock.
In the process, he was able to learn from the likes of Steve Belichick and even Bill Belichick at times, as Steve was the defensive coordinator at Washington in 2024 and Bill was a consultant. So, Bruener’s had plenty of NFL influence around him most of his life.
It’s not just his father or the Belichicks during his time in Washington, either. Growing up around the game, and with Mark serving as a scout since 2009, Carson has been around the Steelers’ facility often and has gotten to know the members of the front office over the years.
So, when he sat down with vice president of player personnel Dan Rooney Jr., and senior scouting assistant Kelvin Fisher at the Shrine Bowl, it was like catching up with old friends, even with the elephant in the room being his father at the table as well in his scouting role.
“I walked in, and the Steelers were the first team in that room that I was actually able to meet with. My dad was across from me, and I met with Dan Colbert, one of the other scouts that I’ve met before. But it was something where my dad, he gave me his space,” Bruener said. “At the same time, he was like, ‘I would love to hear this interview,’ but at the same time he’s like, ‘This is your moment, I don’t wanna take away from you. I don’t wanna be that hovering father.’ Him just still being in that room, and after the interview looking up and seeing him there, it was awesome.
“But I wouldn’t consider flipping a switch [to talk to them in a professional setting] because the biggest thing is I just wanna be who I truly am, be the same guy every single day. So meeting with these guys, it was a very relaxed conversation where yes, they’re still asking the same questions they would ask any college player, but having that pre-relationship kind of going into things for me personally, it made things a lot easier talking with them, ’cause it was someone who I already knew, who I already trusted, who I’ve talked to before.”
He’s already followed in his father’s footsteps going to Washington and created his own legacy there. Now, it’s off to the NFL, and depending on where he gets drafted or signs, it’ll be an opportunity to create his own legacy at the highest level, too.
It would be pretty darn cool if Bruener landed with the Steelers or even the Texans, adding another chapter to the Bruener legacy in the game of football as things could become full circle in that aspect, too.
Life has a funny way of working out the way it’s supposed to in the end.
