NFL Draft: 5 Best TE-Team Fits
The Terrance Ferguson agenda is stronger than ever, Oronde Gadsden II lands in paradise, and Orchard Park has a new snowplow
My heart is very, very full after a special draft for the TE position that drives home everything this Substack is trying to emphasize about the shifting winds of offensive football. 16 TEs were drafted in total, with 6 on the first two days and 2 in the top 15 overall. It was a lauded class with guys at every level, and GMs did not get cold feet about that contention. There will be landing spots left off this list for the sake of brevity that I like a lot including Warren to Indy, Harold Fannin to Cleveland, and Gunnar Helm to Tennessee. Those spots should be conducive to success and I’m excited to see how they are utilized. The following pairings though, are matches made in heaven.
1: Terrance Ferguson, Los Angeles Rams
You couldn’t dream up a better place for Terrance Ferguson to reach his sky-high potential if you tried. I’ve said this before but Ferguson has crushed the pre-draft process, from a great Senior Bowl to a better combine, he’s done everything he can to maximize his stock and early in the 2nd round, he cashed in. Many saw him as a 3rd or even 4th round guy but it was never going to happen. In LA, Ferguson finds himself in a well-designed passing game that will utilize his skillset as a matchup issue in the middle of the field. In their 11-personnel world, he’s far too skilled and athletic of a route-runner for LBs to deal with, the Rams WRs will give him a real opportunity to pick at overmatched defenders. I also suspect that McVay will lean more into 2-TE as he did at the end of the season which should be conducive to receiving volume. Ferguson makes 12 far more dangerous than guys like Tyler Higbee or Davis Allen at the 2nd TE spot with his ability to run routes and make plays. In either case, he is well taken care of in the system. The element that will make or break him as an every-down player, the blocking, is why I’m most excited about LA. He has the strength and size needed, but it was important that he go to a place that would drill the details in the run game and fix some of his minor, but impactful technique issues. McVay will do that, and it looks like the NFL is going to be blessed with another Sam LaPorta.
2: Colston Loveland, Chicago Bears
I won’t go too much into detail on this one since I talked about it at length after night one, but everything I described there has me feelin’ nicey.
3: Oronde Gadsden II, Los Angeles Chargers
Wow, what a dream. This is, bar none, the premiere landing spot for a bullish projection on Gadsden’s future. I detailed in my pre-draft class ranking what his development framework needed to be and compared it to Josh Oliver and he landed with the man responsible, Greg Roman. Gadsden needs a heavy, run-first offense that prefers a 2nd TE to a 3rd WR and he needs someone who will properly teach him to block in that role. While becoming Josh Oliver in-line is a stretch, he can definitely be an Isaiah Likely type rotational player that, in Harbaugh/Roman land (a beautiful place), will get a lot more run than he’d get elsewhere. I’m typically low on flex-only TEs due to the diminished redundancy with receivers, even if they can run routes as naturally and explosively as Gadsden do relative to most TEs, but I suspend that if Greg Roman is involved due to his (sadly) uncommon personnel usage preferences. Long-term, this is the best nursery for him to put on weight and maybe learn to play real TE in a full-time capacity down the road, where his upside would be huge. This is what I was envisioning when I broke my rules and put him in the top 10 and I’m now quite glad that I did.
4: Jackson Hawes, Buffalo Bills
The Bills love extra beef on the line of scrimmage so much that they’re frequently willing to sacrifice an eligible receiver to do it with their 6 OL jumbo packages. Now, they can do that and make no such sacrifice. The Bills’ selection of Hawes, a violent blocker, embodies everything about their identity shift from static spread attack under Daboll to the road-grading power-run factory they are now. Buffalo just got a shipment of dangerous machinery.
5: Mason Taylor, New York Jets
Anytime your OC is one of the league’s most vaunted TE coaches, you’re in a good home. Tanner Engstrand did an incredible job developing Sam LaPorta, so Taylor is in great hands. While an offense with Justin Fields won’t necessarily be conducive to a ton of volume, an offense that built around the run will be very conducive to development. Taylor’s reliability in-line and ability to stretch the 2nd level on PA makes him a needed addition to this Jets offense. With an OL built to run outside zone, it’s going to be nice to see Taylor get more opportunities to block it. He was excellent at LSU, but was, unfortunately, the only part of that offense built to run OZ. This is no longer the case.