Is Brock Bowers worth a top ten for the 2024 NFL Draft?

[shopson67]

People mention Pitts but here is the list of recent Florida 1st rounders:

Anthony Richardson
Kyle Pitts
Kaiir Elam
Kadarius Toney
CJ Henderson

Florida isnt developing guys all that well.

ARich was looking pretty good prior to injury, a surprise to me. Pitts is on the Falcons' failures IMO, not his own. Elam was a poor fit, a press corner taken by an off/zone defensive team. Toney, yes of course. Haven't paid any attention to CJ.

 

[shopson67]

just this week I've learned here you never pick a WR first overall, never draft an OT with the top three picks, and I assume now a TE.

THAT Jimmy Johnson guy was an idiot for selecting ( LOL) DT Russell Maryland first overall. What was he thinking? It was as if he was addressing his teams need. Thankfully for Jimmy, the internet wasn't what it is today. what an idiot.

LOL. Orlando Pace was a terrible pick too apparently.

 

[shopson67]

There’s so many heralded TEs in the draft that just don’t live up to their draft spot.

TEs not drafted in the first round: Kelce, Graham, Gronk, Antonio Gates, Aaron Hernandez, Sam La Porta.

I know I’m missing some first round pick TEs, but the relatively recent ones I remember are Pitts, OJ Howard, Greg Olsen, and Tony González. I know I’m missing some busts and maybe a good player or two from the modern era, but it looks like TE is hard to hit on in the first round. Then the position is probably the hardest to learn outside of QB and you realize that for half of that rookie contract he’s most likely going to be struggling while learning and a top ten pick just doesn’t make much sense on a TE.

Dalton Kincaid and his 73 catches say hi.

LaPorta was pick #34. 3rd pick of the second round, fits your argument by semantics only. Gronk missed his last year in college due to injury and was still a 2nd round pick. Both could've easily been 1st round picks.

 

[Clayton]

ARich was looking pretty good prior to injury, a surprise to me. Pitts is on the Falcons' failures IMO, not his own. Elam was a poor fit, a press corner taken by an off/zone defensive team. Toney, yes of course. Haven't paid any attention to CJ.

CJ Henderson totally busted. I think he has been a healthy scratch for Carolina and might be out of the league soon.

 

[belcherboy]

I think he is worthy of being in the conversation in the top ten. A good TE can be the most important asset to an offense. I think I read that the TE is often the top target in many NFL teams. He's kind of like your emergency fund. You need those solid hands, and good blocking skills to keep the offense moving.

He's the best TE prospect I've seen in quite a while. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of them, but that guy carried UGA a few games. Literally, this coming from die hard Georgia fans that I work with, they said they would have lost a couple of games this year if he hadn't made a few spectatular catches. They even blame the Bama loss on him not being available.

 

[shopson67]

I think he is worthy of being in the conversation in the top ten. A good TE can be the most important asset to an offense. I think I read that the TE is often the top target in many NFL teams. He's kind of like your emergency fund. You need those solid hands, and good blocking skills to keep the offense moving.

He's the best TE prospect I've seen in quite a while. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of them, but that guy carried UGA a few games. Literally, this coming from die hard Georgia fans that I work with, they said they would have lost a couple of games this year if he hadn't made a few spectatular catches. They even blame the Bama loss on him not being available.

He was good from day 1 too, with a very strong season as a true freshman (56-882-13).

 

[Clayton]

I think he is worthy of being in the conversation in the top ten. A good TE can be the most important asset to an offense. I think I read that the TE is often the top target in many NFL teams. He's kind of like your emergency fund. You need those solid hands, and good blocking skills to keep the offense moving.

He's the best TE prospect I've seen in quite a while. I'm sure I'm forgetting some of them, but that guy carried UGA a few games. Literally, this coming from die hard Georgia fans that I work with, they said they would have lost a couple of games this year if he hadn't made a few spectatular catches. They even blame the Bama loss on him not being available.

I think 'carried' is a bit hyperbolic on a team like Georgia with so many outstanding players. Its just that Georgia is probably used to being the best team in the league and Bowers was their best offensive player. I'd say they were a top 3 team with Bowers and a top 5 team without Bowers.

The thing I see with Bowers is that he should be able to run block safeties just fine and outrun linebackers. Having both would mean he could stay on the field all of the time and thats step 1 in avoiding the TE bust career.

I do wonder if many teams put value into TE with how the league has evolved. There are a lot of 4-2 split safety base defenses running around. To me it seems that if you have 2 WRs threats then it challenges those split safety defenses enough to where the flat is almost always open and at that point it barely matters who the TE/RB is catching the ball in the flat because they should be relatively open. An exaggerated example of this is the recent Bengals/Chiefs game where the Bengals arguably still have the best WR corp in the league but in the first half the Bengals marched down the field multiple times with 6 passes to Drew Sample and Tanner Hudson at TE because Chiefs basically had 1 LB (Bolton) who had to cover the TE and watch out for the QB scramble while everyone else was on a WR. Jake Browning also had 7 runs. The Bengals scored 17 in a half and forced the Chiefs out of their shell and forced Browning to make plays and he couldn't but had that been Burrow in there the Bengals wouldn't have needed a stud TE to win that game.

I bring this up because I think we should see 8-10 WRs going top 40 in the draft but maybe they get pushed up the board a bit. That probably means whoever actually drafts Bowers will be a really good fit for him. Like Bijan to the Falcons last year.

 

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