What excites me about this draft is the chance that things will line up for us at the position. Because for some reason that never happens with TE. Could this finally be the year?
Warren is not going to last long on this year's board. Which is too bad because his combination of skills would be insanely magnified by a QB like Stafford who is among the best at manipulating coverages with his eyes. In this offense he's basically a Higs upgrade.
Loveland I go back and forth on. There is a reason you don't take big wideouts and play them in that TE role. I mean you can find big wideouts with 4.7 range speed well into a lot of drafts. Skow ran in the 4.6 range. But the TE position has a mystique to it for the dudes who have enough size to them to body DBs over the middle, and those guys are different than the big wideout types. I like the idea of what McVay can do with him. I figure McVay loves him. If we get him he will be rotated in as the second TE, or he'll spell Higs on third and long type situations. And he is good enough in combination with Higs to enable 12 sets. Feels like he'll be off before 20 though.
Arroyo is another guy McVay is going to love. Fluid in space, instinctive, suddenness to his movement in the pattern. Again his knee scares me, I think if it wasn't for that he's a slam dunk first round TE. Basically turn on his film and he's that guy we never are in position to draft. He's a bit small, but that doesn't matter to Coach for his pass game threat weapon in the slot. This dude fits precisely what McVay wants. He should be there at 26. He plugs in day one the same way Loveland would. But just like with Loveland does he allow Higs to leave in FA? Not really. This is a pass game weapon and the Rams would have to be good with his medicals.
Taylor & Ferguson to me are very similar in that they both have the protoypical size and athleticism you want from a TE. Usually we don't get to take guys like these in our late 2nd round draft opening pick. Both are high upside. Taylor had a very strong Senior Bowl week. Both in interviews seem like great kids, so I think they're both fits for the Rams if they are ok with some projection. Rams should be able to get one of them after a slight move down, though it is possible TE gets a bit of a run on it in the 20s so maybe one of them is in play if the Rams love that player.
Fannin is the film stud. He didn't have a great Senior Bowl week, though he reportedly finished strong. Teams had that staff moving him around quite a bit, including some backfield usage, and I think his head was spinning. He's more instinctive in the pattern than technician. Bit small compared to these other TEs, but I'd say he's precisely up McVay's alley in how he uses that pass game slot threat. I have thought for a while that McVay is high on him. I do think he made a mistake running at the combine, not that his time was too terribly bad for a TE but when comparing vs this class of TEs he really needed a good time and didn't get it. A 4.6 would have put him up there with Taylor & Ferguson, to my eye at least.
One last thing that I really don't have any idea of with these kids is how they project for option route usage. That's a big part of what McVay does. It requires great instincts and a studious approach. And it may drive that decision on who they target.
After Fannin I think there is quite a bit of dropoff in pass game potency and projection. The Nebraska kid is intriguing for example, but has the knee issue as well and now you're into guys who are similar to what we normally see brought in here. This is why I am hoping they address it early. They could hit on TE in this draft into rounds 3/4 probably, but I don't like their TE track record of evaluation so maybe change it up and go get one early.
