Two tight ends dominated the NFL scouting combine in historical fashion last week, and now it’s time to crack open the college tape and project these players to the NFL. Those two players, Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq and Vanderbilt’s Eli Stowers, blew scouts away with their speed and explosiveness, but do these traits show up on the field?
Today, I’m going to compare these players side by side and talk about their key strengths and weaknesses, specifically with fantasy football scoring and dynasty value in mind. Let’s get into it.
Run After Catch
Both players are rock-solid prospects in this area, but they win in different ways. In Sadiq’s case, he runs like a deer (in a straight line) and can fight for tough yards behind his unbelievable leg drive. He’ll also throw in the occasional hurdle for good measure.
However, Sadiq’s lateral agility leaves a lot to be desired, and he takes a while to gear down when he needs to change direction. To this point, I really didn’t like Oregon’s bubble screen package for Sadiq, as it rarely allowed him to run into space. Picking his way through traffic simply isn’t his forte. While he’ll have a size advantage over most would-be tacklers, his balance is a bit of a weakness and makes it a little too easy to tackle him low.
For this reason, I don’t project Sadiq to *create* yards after the catch the same way a Brock Bowers or Tucker Kraft does, but he might just become the best tight end in the entire NFL in terms of getting what’s schemed up for him with ruthless efficiency.
In a league that’s getting increasingly good at releasing tight ends late out of the backfield and throwing them the ball with green grass in front of them, I can’t think of a better player to fill that role than Sadiq. With sub-4.4 speed and the sheer musculature in his lower half, no defensive back will want to tackle him.
In Stowers’ case, he has significantly more lateral wiggle than Sadiq, frequently making the first man miss. And while he’s not quite as fast as Sadiq, he can eat up ground in a hurry. Overall, Stowers projects as a significantly above-average run after catch producer at the tight end position. However, he is missing a bit of the physicality to really be one of the elite YAC guys at the tight end position.
Route Running
As with run after catch, both players excel in opposite areas. In Stowers’ case, he is your typical “can run routes like a receiver” guy. He lined up outside or in the slot extremely often, and in fact, in their marquee matchups he almost exclusively lined up outside, to the point I considered it a bit of a red flag.
Stowers has flashed a legitimate release package, has crisper footwork on his breaks than Sadiq, and is more naturally agile in his routes. He even flashes advanced nuances, such as using head fakes to get the corner to commit the wrong way. As you might expect, Stowers can get up the seam in a hurry when he really opens up.
Against zone coverage, however, Stowers’ leverage isn’t as reliable as Sadiq’s. As tight end is usually a position where reliability is king, boxing out and holding on to the ball through contact are crucial skills, ones where Stowers has a lot of room for improvement.
In Sadiq’s case, Oregon lined him up outside a lot more than I would have liked. Against corners, he’s frankly easy to cover. Sadiq struggles a ton when he has to throttle down mid-route; he’s not the most agile, and his footwork on route breaks is raw with a lot of wasted motion. Finally, he let contact disrupt him a lot more than you’d expect for how strong he is.
So is Sadiq overhyped? Not even a little bit. While I really don’t like Sadiq when he’s running wide receiver routes, I love him when he’s running tight end routes.
Sadiq gets down the seam faster than any tight end currently in the NFL. Not even safeties can carry him vertically. He’s also impossible for linebackers to cover when he runs wheel routes and angle routes out of the backfield, and they have no chance whatsoever on crossers. Whichever NFL coach ends up with Sadiq needs to win the chess match to get him lined up against heavier defenders, and then he can abuse that mismatch until he’s a future All-Pro.
Against zone coverage, Sadiq shows promising instincts. He seems to know when to stick and box out, and while his reliability wasn’t perfect when holding on through contact, he has good fundamentals. Namely, he catches with his arms extended away from his frame, and he’s so well-built it’s very hard to play the ball through his frame.
I mentioned previously that Sadiq’s weakness is running wide receiver routes. Perhaps the scariest thing about Sadiq is that by the end of the year, he actually did start routing up defenders, wasted motion notwithstanding. Against Minnesota and USC, he flashed the ability to work a vertical route tree for chunk plays and touchdowns. Because of his athletic ability, size, acrobatic catch radius, and the threat of his vertical game, the bar is lower for Sadiq to win on breaking routes. If he ever gets there, watch out.
Hands
Eli Stowers gives and takes with his hands. He has multiple very impressive catches on his tape where he snags low throws through contact. I also think he tracks the ball well vertically and can make adjustments while working the seam. He’s also a fundamentally sound hands catcher.
Unfortunately, Stowers dropped the ball more than you’d like to see, with a reported drop rate in excess of 10%. There are likewise times you’d like to see him bring a tough ball in away from his frame, but he just doesn’t quite manage to reel it in.
Overall, I don’t think Stowers has bad hands, despite what the drop rate might say. Becoming more consistent and reliable will be a big decider regarding whether he’s just another “move” tight end or his team’s featured receiving weapon.
In Sadiq’s case, the drop rate varies a lot depending on who is reporting it, but I really like his fundamentals. In cases where he is expecting contact, Sadiq does a really good job of catching with his arms extended, which takes away precious time that a defensive back might need to break up the pass.
He does have one trump card in his bag, namely his elite body control and acrobatics. Sadiq has several spectacular catches on his tape where he dives and contorts his body to bring in balls that are way off his frame. This maximizes his catch radius and turns him into a truly elite weapon on shot plays and deep passes.
Blocking
Here is where everything changes for these prospects’ projections. I am extremely impressed with Kenyon Sadiq’s blocking, and it unlocks everything about his game. Eli Stowers’ blocking instead pigeonholes him into a less premium role.
Despite being a slightly smaller player, listed at 6’3” and 240 lbs, Sadiq is as strong as an ox. Make no mistake, you can line this guy up on the line of scrimmage and ask him to either seal a gap against a defensive end, get some push against a linebacker, or forklift a safety. Pound for pound, Sadiq is the physically strongest blocker in the class.
Besides pure strength, I like Sadiq’s technique and mentality. His grip strength is fantastic, meaning defenders have a hard time disengaging and rallying to the football. He’s also very assignment-sound. You can consistently ask him to execute a double team on the defensive end before climbing and sealing off a linebacker. He likewise shows a sense of urgency to keep his gap clean, even if he’s beginning to lose the rep.
My biggest complaint about Sadiq’s blocking is that shiftier defenders can get around him if he’s trying to block them in space. With how much usage he gets out of the backfield, this can sometimes be limiting.
Because of his blocking, Sadiq could become one of the most impactful mismatch weapons in the entire NFL very early in his career. If you can take away only one thing from this whole article, it’s the following: It is nearly impossible to account for Sadiq in the run game with a player who has any shot of staying with him in coverage.
There might be three players in the entire NFL who can blanket him and also not get demolished in the run game. I mentioned previously that Sadiq could abuse linebackers in coverage. Well, any offensive coordinator worth his salt should be able to dictate that matchup.
Now let’s talk about Stowers. Frankly, the blocking isn’t good, and there isn’t a lot of it on tape. In many of Vanderbilt’s biggest games, he pretty much exclusively lined up as a wide receiver. Sure, he can bully a defensive back here or there, but the ability to sustain blocks against bigger defenders just isn’t there. And Vandy trusted him to block so little that I can only assume they didn’t believe in him to do it.
Conclusion
Although Eli Stowers is a great route runner by tight end standards, and he’s a starting “F” tight end all day long, I don’t project him to become an elite dynasty asset. I just don’t see a path to becoming a full-time player unless he either becomes a historically great receiving tight end or the competition in the pass-catching corps is sorely lacking.
That being said, he’s likely to have splash games as early as his rookie season and could be a capable starter in your lineups very early. Depending on the draft capital and landing spot, a late first-round rookie pick seems fair, and an early second-round pick is a steal. Buyer beware, pure “F” tight ends tend not to develop into elite players, as they struggle to produce consistently. They’re usually in their offensive coordinator’s spice rack, but they aren’t an entire dish.
In Kenyon Sadiq’s case, he needs to avoid landing with an offensive coordinator who thinks about his athletic potential the wrong way. An NFL coach might see a hyper-athletic, slightly smaller tight end and think, “Whoa, that guy is a really nifty wide receiver”. This would be an enormous mistake. Kenyon Sadiq is not a glorified wide receiver, and you won’t get the best out of him by making him run receiver routes.
Instead, a baseline competent offensive coordinator should be able to see that Kenyon Sadiq is potentially the best mismatch weapon to come along at tight end in several years. He is the ultimate “pick your poison” for defensive coordinators.
No, Sadiq is not the best pure receiver to come out at tight end in the last few years, and frankly, maybe not even in this current draft class. However, you simply cannot account for him in the run game with any of the players on your roster who can run with him downfield. And you cannot cover him with any of the players on your roster who wouldn’t get forklifted by him in the run game.
If a coach leans into that, they’re playing a winning chess match against NFL defenses. While he still needs to go out and prove it in the NFL, Sadiq has everything he needs to be a one-of-a-kind difference maker for an NFL offense. In TE-premium leagues, I would add him to the current presumed top five in dynasty rookie drafts, and consider him as early as a bold 1.02 pick.