A scouting report for Brock Bowers might just extol his athleticism in the “Pros” column and list a bunch of other names under the “Cons” heading.
The rationale for selecting Bowers, who has a top-10 pick in the NFL Draft, is that the Jets, who have the No. 10 pick, are believed to be strongly considering him coming Thursday night, but he is not in the formation. He creates mismatches throughout and you can see it in all the videos of him catching passes. He broke tackles with soft hands and accelerated Georgia’s SEC defensive backs.
The argument against spending premium draft capital on Bowers is largely riveted to the NFL’s history of upside-down tight ends. All-Pros Travis Kelce, George Kittle and Sam LaPorta weren’t first-round picks, but Noah Fant, OJ Howard and Hayden Hurst were.
Both lists have been going on for the past 20 years.
Does the NFL have a problem scouting tight ends when first-round pitchers have alarmingly high error rates and long lists of stolen bases in the mid- and late drafts?
“What we’ve seen is [is] An athletic tight end may have fought the football more than necessary,” said SiriusXM NFL analyst and former Buccaneers GM Mark Dominik. “You have to see how naturally they catch the ball. I think that’s a big part.”
Kittle (a fifth-round pick) and Kelce (a third-round pick) are the poster boys for arguments against overdrafting tight ends, but the list of value picks goes much deeper.
Second-rounders LaPorta, Trey McBride and Cole Kmet and fourth-rounder Jake Ferguson join Kelce and Kittle as non-first-rounders who finished in the top 10 among tight ends in receptions and yards last season. .
First-rounders who finished in the top 10 in receptions were Evan Engram, David Njoku, Dalton Kincaid and TJ Hockenson.
As a larger sample size, 13 different tight ends have been named first- or second-team All-Pro by various outlets since the final selection of regulars Jason Witten and Tony Gonzalez in 2012.
First-rounders Vernon Davis, Greg Olsen and Hockenson are second-rounders Rob Gronkowski, Zach Ertz, Hunter Henry and LaPorta, Kelce, and also third-rounder Jimmy Graham and fourth-rounder Jordan Cameron. , Kittle, is an outlier against Darren in the 6th round. Waller and Delanie Walker.
“I remember we were talking about Kelce.” [2013] You go into the draft room and you’re like, ‘Well, he doesn’t block anybody,”’ Dominick said. “No one cares. The reality is, you’re drafting a tight end to score points, to be a problem in the middle of the field, to be an outlet for the quarterback. [on] The screen and the various operations you can do with it. And Brock Bowers does all of that up to nine points. ”
That’s nostalgic.
Many of the arguments in favor of Bowers were used to support the Falcons making Kyle Pitts the highest-drafting tight end in history (No. 4) three years ago.
Pitts rushed for 1,026 yards as a rookie, but has struggled to justify his draft status in the two years since quarterback Matt Ryan left Atlanta.
“Productivity at that position still depends on who’s throwing the ball,” one NFL scout told the Post. “You can experience breakups, you can get the ball 50-50, you can do all the good things. Guys who play with good quarterbacks have an advantage.”
Pitts may scare some teams away from Bowers, but that’s not the case with the Jets with Aaron Rodgers.
“The right type of tight end can be a real weapon,” general manager Joe Douglas said, further hinting last week that Bowers is a “Swiss Army knife.”
No doubt Douglas’ opponents felt the same way about most of the 13 first-round tight ends drafted since 2008.
The underperforming team had 10 Pro Bowl seasons and a combined 1,000-yard season (Pitts), led by two seasons each from Engram, Hockenson and Jermaine Gresham.
“[Bowers] “He’s one of the 10 best players in the draft,” said NFL Network draft analyst and former NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah. “The challenge is… when you look around the league, you see most of the top tight ends are up on Day 2 or later. Teams are now saying, ‘Okay, we can find another tight end.’ There is. Maybe we won’t be able to get top players. ” ”
However, there are exceptions to every rule.
Running backs are the most devalued position in the first round, but two of them were top-12 picks in 2023.
Is Bowers an exception?
“Some of them don’t have great lower body strength,” Dominic says. “They are former basketball players…” [who] He gets tackled so easily that he doesn’t make great runs after the catch.
“Brock Bowers is. I think that’s what really sets him apart and elevates him to a different level than other first-rounders who haven’t played as much. Functional strength is probably what people think about this That’s what’s most lacking in such a demanding goal, and Bowers is uniquely difficult to tackle.
