There are a lot of New York Jets 2024 mock NFL drafts out there, and the majority of them have the team taking an offensive tackle to protect Aaron Rodgers. However, as the draft gets closer, there is growing momentum for Gang Green to take Georgia tight end Brock Bowers at No. 10. That hype hit new heights on Tuesday when NFL Network Peter Schrager mocked Bowers to the Jets with a glowing review of the player to go along with his pick.
“This is a special prospect. In fact, I've been told by multiple general managers that I'm not high enough on Bowers and that his ability after the catch sets him apart from just about every tight end prospect since Kyle Pitts,” Schrager writes in his latest mock draft. “Excellent player, a winner and another weapon for Aaron Rodgers to exploit — this pairing does indeed make a ton of sense.”
There is a lot to dissect here, Jets fans.
First, it’s worth noting that Schrager notes that his 2024 NFL mock draft “isn't what I would do — it's what I'm hearing from my sources around the league.”
The reason this is noteworthy is that this is lying season in the NFL. Sure, Schrager has good enough sources and relationships that he is likely getting a lot of good intel, but there are surely at least a few GMs who are bending or exaggerating the truth for their own benefit. If “multiple general managers that I'm not high enough on Bowers,” you have to ask, how many of these GMs would love for the Jets to take a tight end at No. 10 so a high-end tackle drops to them later?
Also, is comparing Bowers to Kyle Pitts a compliment?
NFL draft pundits fell all over themselves in 2021 to tell fans that Pitts was an unrivaled game-changer, and after the Atlanta Falcons took him at No. 4, that just hasn’t been the case.
Sure, he had 1,026 yards as a rookie and made the Pro Bowl as the second TE, but he only had one touchdown that season. In the last two campaigns combined, he has 81 catches for 1,023 yards and five TDs.
Pitts is a good tight end who the Falcons will hopefully use better now that the Arthur Smith era is over. Still, he has not lived up to his top-10 pick billing, and the likelihood that Brock Bowers does either if the Jets draft him at 10 is unlikely.
Top 10 TEs in the NFL Draft, including a huge Jets bust
Drafting tight ends and safeties in the top 10 of the NFL draft almost never works out. We’ll save the defensive side for another day, but let’s look at the last 30 years of top 10 TEs.
We already talked about Kyle Pitts, a good, not great, tight end. The top-10 TE before him was TJ Hockenson, who the Detroit Lions took No. 8 in 2019. Hockenson is another very good TE who is a two-time Pro Bowler. However, the Lions traded him in 2022 in lieu of paying him a big contract, and the team got better as a whole without him.
After those two in recent years, there are only five other TEs who went in the top 10 going back to 1994. Those players are Eric Ebron, who the Lions drafted at No. 10 in 2014, Vernon Davis to the San Francisco 49ers at No. 6 in 2006, Kellen Winslow to the Cleveland Browns at No. 6 in 2004, Rickey Dudley to the Oakland Raiders at No. 9 in 1996, and as Jets fans know all too well, Kyle Brady to New York at No. 9 in 1995 (instead of Warren Sapp).
Outside of Brady, none of these players were busts and even the Jets pick played 13 NFL seasons, even if it wasn’t at an incredibly high level. However, they only have four Pro Bowl nods between them all and only one 1,00-plus-yard season, which Winslow put up in 2007.
And looking at the best tight ends in history, yes, Tony Gonzalez was picked No. 13 in 1997, but Antonio Gates was undrafted, Rob Gronkowski was picked No. 42 in the second, Travis Kelce was No. 63 in the third, and Shannon Sharpe was No. 192 in the seventh. Even this year’s breakout tight end, Sam LaPorta, was picked No. 34 in the second, and the second TE off the board after Dalton Kincaid at No. 25 in the first.
This is why the Jets should be wary of taking Brock Bowers, even if Peter Schrager thinks they will in his 2024 NFL mock draft.
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