Let’s try that again: 2024 TE preview … The draft turned out to be, well interesting for the 2023 TE class. On the one hand, the expected ‘best year ever’ for the position never really materialized. Dalton Kincaid of Utah was selected with the 25th pick overall by Buffalo, but that was as many 10 picks lower than a lot of analysts thought he might go. Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer, who was also thought to be a possible top 15-20 candidate, wasn’t selected in the opening round; in fact he wasn’t even the second TE selected as he was actually taken one pick after Iowa’s Sam LaPorta early in the second round. However, if there was a good news story for the TEs, it was that a record 9 were selected within the first three rounds; that compared with an historical average of around 5. Overall, 16 TEs were taken at this year’s draft which was actually a couple less than the previous year when 18 were selected, but generally higher than most years.
And the position could very well be prominent again this coming April if for no other reason than the likely presence of Georgia’s Brock Bowers, who has quite simply been one of the best players in the country during the past couple of seasons. Indeed, Bowers is already a two-time consensus All-American who, of course, also already has a pair of national championship rings. He’ll also be a really interesting prospect at the 2024 draft as he isn’t all big at just 6-4, 230 and while he runs well for a TE, his great strength, like NFL stars George Kittle and Travis Kelce, is that instinctive ability to get open and make plays. And Bowers is just one of two outstanding athletic 3rd year junior TEs as Ja’Tavion Sanders of Texas also has legit first-round potential, although he doesn’t get the same national buzz as his more famous Georgia counterpart. For the most part, though, the 2024 draft looks likely more like an average year for TEs with at least a couple of other top 100 type prospects in Jaheim Bell of South Carolina and Ohio State’s Cade Stover, who appears to have found a home at the position after starting his career on the other side of the ball. Meanwhile, scouts will keep a close watch on the much-travelled Arik Gilbert who will play at Nebraska this fall. Gilbert, once one of the most celebrated recruits in the country, originally signed at LSU, but after a solid freshman year transferred to Florida (where he never played) and then to Georgia. along the way he sat out the 2021 season for personal reasons, but still brings a unique set of physical tools to the Huskers. For now, here is our preliminary, pre-season ranking for this year’s TE class.
