| BakoSaint |
07-23-2025 01:40 PM |
Re: Dallin Holker Announces Retirement
Although Holker was not a draft pick, this announcement plays into why I don't believe in ever spending a 1st round pick on a tight end. If I could have the athletic ability to play any position in the NFL, Tight End would be my last pick of position to play. It is just scary to have your main job be to run routes over the middle, use your size and height advantage to extend vertically to come down with the ball, then wait for big highlight reel hits to be delivered as the pass come in or before you can get your footing, and if you somehow get your footing, to play the battering ram in the middle of the field against defenders who outnumber and can outrun you, but know they might need a lot of momentum or multiple angles to bring you down. A Tight End might look good or great in college where they have enough size and speed advantage, but when they get to the NFL, even if they were the best in college, going rambo in the middle of the field against 11 NFL defenders is just batsh*t. Tight end is the position of people who kill their friends in rental cars, rape grandmas, stake their coaching reputation on starting Danny Wuerffel, coparent with Jeff Bezos, paddleboard across the arctic, embrace the label meathead. You have to be crazy, dumb, just not care, or somehow be indestructible teflon to escape every hit. You can't tell who that is from college, when the defenders are a lot less imposing, its like going from a gauntlet of padded plastic wrecking balls to a gauntlet of steel wrecking balls heated to glowing red. It doesn't matter if you are a 1st round pick or undrafted, you don't know if you can do it until you try, and most can't. For those who can't, the more they do it the more shadows they see in the corner of their eyes, and the more their play declines the longer they try, like many 1st round busts from Kellen Winslow Jr to Kyle Pitts to OJ Howard. Occasionally a 1st round pick will hit, at least early on (they might start seeing the shadows after their first injury), like Brock Bowers, but unlike other positions where the hit rate is higher for 1st round picks, for tight end it is just as often a mid rounder like Gronk, Graham, or Kittle, or an undrafted player like Gates, who hits. Every young tight end is a lottery ticket with lottery ticket odds, and how they look on college tape, workouts, and friendly practices does not matter at all. How they sleep after taking that big hit in a real pro game matters. I bet Holker didn't sleep well. Our best bet would be to keep giving opportunities to mid round picks and undrafted talents until one hits, and never waste a 1st round pick at this unpredictable position.
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