Top 10 tight-ends in the 2021 NFL Draft

#7 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Tre McKitty (Georgia)

6' 5”, 245 pounds; SR

Tre McKitty

A top-500 overall recruit, Tre McKitty spent the first three years of his collegiate career at Florida State, where – like so many other plays – he never got to live up to his potential, catching 50 passes for 520 yards and two touchdowns in 35 games.

He decided to transfer to Georgia for his senior season, but unfortunately picked a school that never actually seems to throw to their tight-ends to great effect, which left him with only six catches for 108 yards and one score in seven games. However, with the work he put in during Senior Bowl week, he has reminded people of the talent within him.

McKitty was more of a big slot receiver for Florida State and then spent 71 percent of snaps in-line last season for the Bulldogs, but only put those six catches on film. So you have to go back to the 2018 and ’19 tapes with the Seminoles to analyze him as a receiver, but even more so it was about what he did down in Mobile against top-tier competition.

He looked natural moving in space and catching the ball, creating separation late on several occasions, securing passes through contact and making a couple one-handed grabs downfield. He drops his hips and snaps his head around on stick and short out routes.

McKitty can reduce the near shoulder to avoid getting hung up with contact and then uses his frame well himself at the top of the route, to not allow defenders to create an angle to the pass. He showed some wiggle at the Senior Bowl and half (so three) of those passes he caught last season for UGA were big ones down the seams.

He catches the ball away from body and he has those massive 11 ½-inch hands, to really swallow it with those big paws and with a strong catch-radius, he has a couple of inches on where defenders can get, when they are in his hip-pocket. He displays quick, fluid turns upfield after catching the ball in the flats and rumbling ahead, to go with some suddenness to get around defenders, who get too aggressive in their pursuit angles.

While the production was obviously very underwhelming last season, you see McKitty create leverage on defenders in man-coverage breaking in or out, as well as well have space sitting down versus zone.

While McKitty didn’t get many chances to show his skills as a pass-catcher, he damn sure was able to get accustomed to some of the physicality he will face at the next level when going up against SEC defenders as a blocker. Florida State used him as an H-back or offset wing and had him take on different assignments from that spot.

He has improved in that area and the way he initiates contact, especially from in-line sets, during his one year in Georgia. McKitty did a great job of riding blocks on wide zone runs, continuing to bring his back foot across and making defenders work to get to the edge. He creates big cutback lanes on sift blocks and he can effectively cut off or seal edge defenders on the backside of run plays.

He has no issues working up to the second level or leading acting as a lead-blocker and he does a great job of walling defenders off, in order to get the ball to the edge or get out in front himself on toss plays. McKitty only ran 82 total routes last season, in part because they wanted to keep him in protection, not because he wouldn’t be an asset as a receiver, but for the reason that they needed time to set up more downfield concepts.

In that regard, he is very good in countering the hands of defenders rushing off the edge, displays active footwork and forces guys to go through him.

While it has improved significantly, McKitty’s hands still tend to get too high and wide as a blocker and he dips his head into contact a lot of times. You see him allow defenders to slant into the C-gap on the backside, because he will step laterally and just try to just mash the guy into the pile, rather than establishing inside position first.

However, what is much more prevalent, I can’t remember a time, where I evaluated a player largely on what I saw at an all-star game. There is something to be said about never establishing himself as a main contributor through the air or even the clear-cut TE1 at times.

McKitty isn’t super explosive off the line or a dynamic separator out of his breaks. Even during Senior Bowl week, it took a while for him to actually break free. But above all, it’s just a tough task to clearly say what he can and can not do in the passing game, because there is so little tape on it with the frame he presents now.

This was one of the most fascinating evaluations of this entire draft, simply because the sample size is so limited as this two-faceted player. In the end, though, I believe having played these two very different roles and putting his name on the map fairly late in the process will help him.

We have seen as a big-bodied receiving option in the slot at Florida State and then as a high-quality blocker in the box in Georgia. What we haven’t seen yet is him putting it all together. But from what he showed during Senior Bowl week and how weak this tight-end class is, he could go as a TE2 in the fifth round or so.