Green Bay Packers: 3 Early Round Tight End Draft Prospects
By Kenny Jilek
Everyone knows that the Green Bay Packers need pass-catchers, and everyone is looking to the wide receiver position to fix the issue, and rightfully so. However, tight end isn’t a position that can be glossed over in the upcoming draft.
Currently, the Packers have five returning tight ends on the roster that played a role last season, but Robert Tonyan is coming off of an ACL tear, and none of the other players at the position have shown much pass-catching prowess in the last few years. Green Bay doesn’t just need a tight end for this year, either. The future of the position is fairly uncertain as Marcedes Lewis goes year by year, and Tonyan is on a one-year deal.
So, with the Green Bay Packers need for a productive tight end both now and in the future, it’s likely they look to the NFL Draft to fill that need, and they could look early to one of these three guys to do so.
Draft Prospect #1 – Trey McBride
Trey McBride is a prospect with tremendous upside as a receiver. He has some great speed and could be a real downfield threat as a tight end. At Colorado State, they also liked to line him up in the slot and out wide to make matchup problems for the defense.
He could do some of that in the NFL as well, but in the NFL, his speed and skillset will probably be best utilized running down the middle of the defense because not a lot of linebackers will be able to run with him. He also has great hands and has never had much of an issue with drops.
At 6’4″ – 246 pounds, his frame is okay for blocking in the run game but not overpowering. When trying to block a defensive end who’s stronger, he has issues getting any push which causes issues. He also sometimes has issues taking good angles on those guys to cut them off and square them up so he wouldn’t have to work as hard. What he does do well is get up to the second level, and when he can release and block a linebacker, things usually go well.
McBride is a guy that the Green Bay Packers could look at in the second round, especially because he can be a downfield threat early on, and his lack of great blocking skills could be covered up by using Marcedes Lewis more in the run game while McBride develops that part of his game.