A rookie Tight End, taken high in the draft after being viewed as a “generational” prospect at his position is the talk of football after a historic rookie season. He spent his college career as the number 1 target of an SEC contender and the best defenses in the college game had no answer for him.. With a rare level of explosiveness and fluidity, freak athletic profile, and load-bearing talent as a pass-catcher, this “Tight End” was different. Sure he’s not a typical TE, but he’s an “offensive weapon,” a movable piece. His rookie season proved everyone right, as he eclipsed 1,000 yards, generational air for a rookie Tight End, and positioned him as the focal point of his team’s passing attack going forward. It’s 2022, and I’m talking about Kyle Pitts.
None of it was real for the simple reason that Kyle Pitts never had the right skillset for an every-down role. Pitts is at his best as a route-runner when close to or attached to the formation.
There are two main roles that Tight Ends can play in an offense, the Y and the F. The Y is the real Tight End. This guy plays in-line mainly. The F is a flex player. In 11 personnel, the F is a 3rd receiver, in 21, he’s a FB or 2nd HB, and in 12, he’s a 2nd TE. Because he is ultimately the 4th passing threat in 11 personnel, the Y is often going to get the juiciest matchups. Often Pitts was able to play the F serviceably, eating targets in the middle for Atlanta, but he was at his best when he could get Y matchups. While he showed the occasional bit of promise as a true WR, his volume that year was the combination of a complete lack of viable alternatives for QB Matt Ryan (Ridley got suspended after 5 games, and their next leading receivers were Russell Gage and Cordarelle Patterson, who isn’t even a receiver), and artificial matchups that ran dry when the league figured him out. He never developed enough as a route runner or in-line blocker to be more. The only thing Pitts proved in year one was that, as the only guy and with certain matchups, he could scratch his way to 1000 yards. Because of his draft hype, everyone jumped right in (ask Fantasy players).
There were a couple of problems with this long-term. For starters, they couldn’t have Kyle Pitts as their only pass-catcher and best WR. He was an okay field-stretching slot in his rookie year because of his burst and catch radius, but he never really had the feel for space or short-area quickness to do that at the level they needed. He isn’t Travis Kelce, Amon Ra St. Brown, or Drake London. He put up some numbers doing this, but it wasn’t ideal for his athletic profile. If he were to be split out, his movement style and size theoretically demanded it be on the outside, but he didn’t have the coordination, body control, and speed to do that. He’s just *too* big. The Falcons knew all of that even when they thought he was good, which was why they drafted Drake London in the top 10 immediately after.
The other is that he can’t *actually* play the Y, and if you can’t play a full-time role on the perimeter, that’s the only other place for you. On standard downs, your Y needs to be able to block Defensive Ends at the point of attack and serve as the 6th lineman in the run game. If it were simple to create receiving matchups, OCs would just put a WR there and game the system. Everyone, however, would know that to be a gimmick and stop respecting it. TEs who can’t block are no different, the league will figure it out in short order. Pitts has a WR frame despite having TE height. As Cameron Jordan prophetically and colorfully put it early on "He's a little light in the ass to be a Tight End…As long as he's detached from the line and not attached to the line, cuz then I have to detach him from his body."
Big Cam was right, and Pitts wasn’t a good enough WR to sustain that role, especially with the proverbial overachieving little brother London doing everything he did well at a much higher level. Despite being a talented athlete and freakshow college player, there was just no every-down role for Kyle Pitts in the long term. He’s now likely to be relegated to a mostly rotational role as the next Mike Gesicki.
Brock Bowers: Sustainable… or Fun While It Lasted?
After Pitts, we have to approach Brock Bowers, another celebrated young TE with a non-traditional body/role and volume-buoyed production (only 2.29 yards per route run overall) with a healthy skepticism. The NFL is a hard league, and if you can’t fit into a role credibly, the mirage will eventually be shattered (again, Kyle Pitts). Like any TE, Bowers had two career options if he wanted to command a long-term, every-down job entering the league. Either he would find a way to be solid enough in-line to be trusted there on standard downs (a heavy lift for someone so undersized), or he would be able to thread the needle, pass the Wide Receiver Test, and command a WR load/pass muster without the “for a Tight End” grading curve as a pass-catcher like Travis Kelce or Mark Andrews (for most of his career) have.
With all of those reasons for skepticism in mind, let’s critically examine Bowers’ game top to bottom and figure out what he can be.
The Evaluation
Brock Bowers the Receiver
Like any good TE or slot must, Bowers has a natural and rapidly developing feel for space. You have to have a precise sense of your landmarks as, in the middle of the field, your routes take place in windows. The Tight End is the QB’s best friend in the underneath windows and Bowers is coming along well from an already good starting point, much better than Kyle Pitts did.
Bowers also has the controlled feet and agility that Pitts lacked. He’s good with the Cooper Kupp foot-fire and quick into his breaks which makes him a weapon on these slot choice routes regardless of whether his matchup is a Nickel, Safety, or Linebacker.
In addition to the necessary athletic juice and explosiveness, Bowers has the route-running chops to separate in any matchup, including against Corners. He’s dangerous on sharp in-breakers like digs, slants, and glances. Here he does a nice job avoiding the reroute in his early stem before leaning in and snapping off his route to distance from the CB, executing what is known as a “stair-step” into his break. He avoids drifting too deep into the safety and makes the catch right in the window.
His catch radius, big body, and strength make him a monster at the catch point in tight windows. He has strong hands and you can trust him to win with the ball pinned on him.
He has the speed to stretch defenses out, an attribute I think will get even better in the coming years if developed properly.
Bowers’ best attribute though, and one that is not only better than most Tight Ends but slots as well, is his ability after the catch. He has the combo of burst, quickness, and long speed that make him a threat to erase angles and turn 8-yard gains into chunks. Remember that he was the guy housing slants and jet sweeps at Georgia. Per PFF, Bowers produced more YAC this season (576) alone than Kyle Pitts has (532) in the last 3 seasons combined.
Block Bowers?
So obviously, Brock Bowers is a pretty good pass catcher for the TE position. That’s great, but it’s not enough for him to guarantee an every-down role. What, if any are the possible limitations to his usage?
Reminder that there are two main families of blocks that Tight Ends (and beyond) are asked to make.
You have primary blocks, where the TE is in-line and handling an on-ball DL or edge OLB (primary defender) like Tucker Kraft is here, and secondary blocks, an easier block of an off-ball defender like WR Jayden Reed has here. In a 3-wide set, whether that’s in 11 personnel or 12, the primary block is generally asked of the Y and the secondary of the F, who as I said earlier, can be a WR or TE depending on the personnel grouping (in this case Reed). Things get a bit muddier with 2 TE attached but that’s a bit more complicated/not important for this exercise.
Brock Bowers is awfully small for a Tight End. He’s 6’3 and *probably* plays at about 230 or so pounds. His Combine weight of 243 still sat only in the 12th percentile among TEs per MockDraftable despite it likely being artificially high for the measurement (he did not work out at this weight). For reference, another TE of the same height, Sam LaPorta, weighed in and fully tested at 245. As a result, he struggles as a primary blocker and gives up too much reach and mass to most on-ball edge defenders. As you see above, he gets pressed and dumped pretty easily.
His compact frame prevents him at times from getting his hands placed and engaged against longer edges with more reach. This makes him easily 2-gapped, so if he’s placed in-line often enough by himself for DCs to key in on it, they could theoretically exploit him to steal extra gaps and keep more guys out of the box.
What he does have going for him though is a strong lower-half, dogged willingness, and an anchor that is stronger than his weight would suggest. It’s possible in time and with great coaching that he can be a passable primary blocker in specific matchups/situations against teams with small edges, but it’s tough to project him developing into that the way Sam LaPorta and Trey McBride have due to the weight issue. That’s not to say it won’t happen, he’s shown flashes of functionality, but it can’t be counted on.
As a secondary blocker, Bowers is quite dominant. Again, his blocking technique is pretty good and he’s very strong, so in a power-slot role he can turbocharge the kind of blocking that guys like Amon Ra St. Brown or Cooper Kupp give you while also being able to fully attach to the formation with his hand in the dirt so long as he isn’t 1v1ing the end in a key spot.
The Role: How It Can Work on Every-Down
With all of that laid out, can Brock Bowers have a sustainable every-down role going forward that doesn’t limit the offense schematically?
If you don’t care about how it would shake out and just want the answer, it’s yes. If you do care, we’ll take a look at the boxes he needs to check and what a sustainable role on the field looks like.
Passing the Wide Receiver Test
As you now well know, WRs can do the job on these blocks, so that’s your competition as a pass-catcher to command the starting job as an F. In fact, 4 of the NFL’s top 15 (as of week 17) WRs in yards per route run play the F-role primarily or at least often in their offenses including the leader (Nacua, Jennings, St. Brown, and Shakir). As a result, Brock Bowers has to be somebody who can play in space and beat defensive backs in coverage at a WR level, which, as we talked about earlier, he is.
On standard downs, he should start for Vegas at the F, playing again most often in the slot in a Drake London-type role that allows him to create and exploit space in the second level and command volume in the middle of the field. He clearly has the juice for it
His size and speed could allow him to move outside more and more as he develops as well. He’s shown that he can survive top coverage defenders like Trent McDuffie in man coverage and has way more advanced, receiver-like technique against press than you’d expect. In the second clip you can see him swipe, swim, and clear the DB’s jam, get into his hip pocket, and go up to win the ball to his back shoulder. The numbers, by the way, are emphatic, he passes the WR test with flying colors. Per Field Vision Sports, who were awesome in helping me get this data and do incredible work you should check out, Bowers, when split out, generated the 26th most total EPA (expected points added), in the 94th percentile overall, among players on catchable targets while lined up at WR alone. Keep in mind, his QB situation was awful, his OC was fired, and as a TE, he gets fewer snaps out wide than true WRs. He was the only TE in the league to place in the 90th percentile or better from both out-wide *and* in the formation. From an efficiency perspective, he ranked 24th in EPA/route when split and was the only TE near the top who ran more than 350 routes. He registered a receiving grade of 82.6 when split out, per PFF, which would be excellent for any rookie WR and very good period. Comparing these figures to Travis Kelce in 2021, one of his prime seasons, the Chiefs legend placed in the 92nd percentile in total EPA generated out-wide. Kelce was more efficient, at 0.98 EPA/target to Bowers’ 0.83, but he had Patrick Mahomes throwing to him and Andy Reid running his offense, Bowers is also a ROOKIE. It’s competitive. These numbers can mislead, but when you pair them with his repertoire of routes, athleticism, youth/room for growth, and size, there are a lot of good WR types in this league I’d swap for Bowers as my F. He can and should spend a lot of time flexed out if he can’t hack it at the Y, he passes the test.
The Queen On the Board
Because Bowers is truly positionless in a good way (rather than in the bad Kyle Pitts way), he unlocks the ability to force defenses to defend everything all at once. When the offense substitutes, the D can substitute as well. When they see 2 TEs on the field, they’ll often match with an extra LB in place of a nickel (base). When they see 3 WR, they’ll often match with a nickel (nickel). Sometimes teams don’t do this and just play the same grouping as much as they can, but with a player like Bowers, the Raiders’ personnel groupings can bleed together, forcing defenses into mismatches whether they match bodies or not (but especially if they do). Instead of subbing Bowers out for a 3rd receiver, they can functionally get from 12 to 11 personnel by having Brock Bowers just go do WR stuff and vice versa.
Bowers differs from a power-slot or even a Mark Andrews in that he can handle a wider menu of blocks, which again as I pointed out with Andrews isn’t always true of flex TEs. You can’t ask him to be Tucker Kraft, but in multi-TE looks, he can provide a credible extra big to the formation which gives you the option to create authentic heavy looks. He’s tougher and more aggressive than most of his type. Hendrickson shoves him around a little bit, but he gets in the way, blocks tough, and is able to benefit from the condensed space to do the job. While he’ll likely never be a team’s primary Y, your run-game menu is expanded with him over even a Drake London, who is probably the best of the blocking WRs.
As a result, you can get him good looks on Play-Action from these condensed formations that defenses won’t give you with a WR.
If defenses want to match with heavy bodies and play base, you can spread him out and get him on linebackers.
If you answer 12 with nickel, you can tighten up and use him to outmuscle an undersized DB in the box. Either defenses are too small or too slow depending on where you put him. You can play 12 personnel like 12 or you can play 12 like 11. It can be difficult for defenses to effectively defend both without the benefit of substitution.
You can also get more out of 13 personnel. Normally a short-yardage package, you can run it like 12 with Bowers at WR. 13 isn’t typically too hard to defend in the passing game. Normally the menu is reduced as you only have 1 guy, the solo WR, who can stretch the field and work in space, but with Bowers you can expand and take advantage of defensive personnel packages that are not really built to cover.
3rd and Brock
In obvious passing situations, with no need to present a run threat, you can move Brock Bowers to the Y and get into true 11 personnel. He can do the things you need TEs to do on 3rd down (that stop you from just adding a 4th WR) like chip-releasing or staying in to pick up blitzers if need be.
In this situation, you can start to get him some of those juicy Y matchups on LBs (or in the first case, DIME backers) that other TEs feast on, which combined with the quickness, feel for space, and YAC that make him good to begin with, makes him extra dangerous on passing downs without any of the typical sacrifice.
Is It Real?
While I don’t have a ton of confidence in the Raiders, in general, to properly put him on display, there are many differences between Bowers and Pitts. Bowers is a better route runner, he’s better in space, he’s galaxies more dangerous after the catch, and he’s much stronger and more willing in the box. Pitts couldn’t play outside, he was okay but not great in the slot, and you definitely could not put him at the Y. Don’t bother trying to find another one, but it’s not hard to pencil Bowers, a *real* unicorn, into a fully positionless role where the only difference between 12 and 11 personnel on a given play is what you want him to do.
This is great illustrates what you said in "The True Value of a TE" series. Those 2 pieces should be linked somehow as a "Start Here " for everyone who discovers you. You sent me the link in Bluesky. Brock Bowers would become more valueable if he could take on the Y role blocking; but is a very good F 2nd TE with all these linked receptions, using his size on DBs.
I was re-watching 2013 Auburn vs Texas A&M thriller and FB/Blocking TE specialist Jay Proesch caught a play action pass rumbling for 45 yards. Not fast, not agile , but treated as 6OL is going to lead occasionally to these opportunities.
2013 Auburn is a favorite team of mine: Smashmouth Spread Option executed at the highest level. SEC champs, lost a thriller of a national championship vs Pro Style FL state heisman winning QB Jameis Winston. The actual TE, 6'6" 262 lb CJ uzomah was listed as a WR on 2013 pages but 2012 and 2014 is a TE and is NFL for 10 seasons was on Eagles last year. I imagine he's a Y? I didn't pay close attention to 2018-19 Bengals and 2021 when he's listed as starting. Im betting it's blocking in line that kept him employed for 10 seasons. Auburn was exceptionally run heavy for a Championship contender. At least 250 yards per game, sometimes lots more. Tre Mason 1800 yards, QB Nick Marshal 1000 yards, and rotational backs plus WR sweeps put them at 4500 rush yards (!!!!!)