Transcription
This is Vanderbilt tight end Eli Sters.
You say tight end, but is he actually a tight end or is he a slot receiver? This is kind of the Maris Coloulston profile here. 45 1/2 inch vertical. He's got outrageous size. I think he's got really underwhelming blocking skills here, but it's hard to find guys with his size and his vertical ability. So, we have to figure out this one. I think piece by piece.
This is going to be a heck of a conversation. Uh just under 6'4, 239 lbs. a blistering four five 140 159 10 yard split and a cool 99th percentile jumps in both categories. Uh he'll be 23 years old despite five years of college football. He was actually a quarterback his first two years at Texas A&M then flipped to tight end after transferring to New Mexico State. Then the final two seasons he spent at Vanderbilt and I didn't know this Hayden he transferred with Diego Pavia. So the two of them were linked up through this entire time. He's an easy mover. He's an uber athlete. So, the big question is where does he fit among the 11 players on an NFL field?
Well, I think you have to answer that by first looking at the blocking snaps. And I just think straight up it's like the worst blocking I've seen from a tight end. It's it's like that low. Like this is below Dalton Concaid and Pitts and you know, Sadiq that we mentioned. It's that low, which makes sense because he's brand new to the position and he is so lean. Like he's pretty tall. Uh, and he's what just 240 pounds flat. So, I think that it's really, really hard to trust him, not just in line, like just to be the second guy next to the wide tight end. And that's where it's like, okay, if I don't trust him in any of that stuff, then he's more or less going to be a slot wide receiver for me. And then you have to grade him. Is he better than the slot wide receivers, like wide receivers that I have on the roster? and can you kind of manipulate his body, maybe drop his weight or add more weight to kind of figure out what position he's going to go on. But I would like for him to pick one or the other. And if I drafted him, I would try to drop his weight and make him a receiver.
To dive into his snaps. Even at Vanderbilt, the Commodores didn't believe in him as a run blocker or even a full-time player. I mean, they had roughly 307 designed runs with the first team offense last year. Eli Sters was on the field to block for just 127 of those. He did miss one entire game. That puts him at like a 41% snap rate on running downs. People out there are going to say, "Well, all we care about is him catching the football and, you know, running passing routes and all that stuff." You need to be on the field basically at all times is what we've seen to be a consistent threat and a consistent element of an NFL team. And again, he wasn't really that for Vanderbilt. Look at the total snaps. Diego Pavia played 776 snaps last year for Vandy. Ster is just 462 again including a one game missed. So even in his final season of college he had a 59% snap rate.
But he's intriguing. He's exciting. I mean the way he moves on the field is so much fun. I mean it I'm not going to call it electric but he is smooth. He's athletic. He plucks the ball out of the air. I did see kind of progression in his game from the start of the season to the later half of the season. And I think that is something that we have to bring up here because we always discuss rookie tight ends, secondyear tight ends, that it's one of the most difficult positions to even uh progress once you hit the league. He's only played the position for three years and he's still in the first chapter of that. So he's even more behind the curve versus these other guys that have been practicing and playing at that spot for years and years and years longer.
Yeah. And I think that versus like Sadiq out in the route, he's just got a little bit better of feel for kind of settling in zone. I wonder if like just playing quarterback kind of has helped him out there a little bit. He's also got just the most ridiculous catch radius. And I think like that's the the thing that no matter what going to translate is just just big seam routes, big back shoulders, like that type of stuff, Eli Ster is going to come down with all the time. You see the 45 inch vertical on tape. Uh I think the four five 140 I'm not sure if I saw him run quite as fast as that, but for a tight end, he's definitely moving out there versus a wide receiver. I don't think that he's fast. So I think that's kind of the debate here. Um, and he can kind of rumble in zone coverage, like catch the ball. always like hard for like that first safety or linebacker to bring him down. So, he's got that little fall forward at the at the sticks uh on these little hitch routes. So, he's got all that type of stuff. I think all that stuff's going to translate very productive like you said, 64 yards per game. So, it just like really comes down to like how are we grading him? Like, are we grading him versus other tight ends out in the route or are we grading him towards wide receivers that he would be competing with out in the route? And I think that's where this becomes a lot harder of a calculus.
What you're talking about is can he beat the slot test? You know, can he be better than your team's slot wide receiver as a pass catcher? Because right now, he definitely can't be better than your team's second tight end as a blocker. And we've also seen the slot wide receiver go through a different type of prototype in the league. You know, well, one, more teams are playing 12 personnel and 13 personnel more than, I don't know, in the last seven years, eight years across the league. And once they do go into three wide receiver sets, sometimes your alpha is the slot to get him, you know, easier releases. We see this with CD Lamp, for example. It used to be the shorter, shiftier, jitterbug type pass catchers. And now, if you do have a primary slot pass catcher, he's almost a power slot. He's a big big body. He he wins um through trash and can go up and climb the ladder and also be a plus blocker. Pukanakua is a great example of this. Cooper Cup previously with the LA Rams. So like on that entire spectrum, it can be difficult to place him because I went and watched I think it was his game versus Missouri and it was some true one man-to-man coverage stuff and there were some real NFL drag route patterns. And even then, he wasn't necessarily running away from, you know, defensive backs that were against him. And that gives me pause of, well, if he's not running away from college level defensive backs on these drag routes he's going to have to live on in the NFL as a primary slot player, is he going to be able to do that in the NFL? Because on top of that, when even he can create that sliver of separation by like pushing off and stuff, there were too many occurrences when he got his hands on the ball or got between his numbers that the ball still felt incompleted.
Yep. I have the exact notes in my cons column here. I I did not see him run 451 on tape. I thought there was just too many reps where the guy trailing him catches up to him too quickly. And then the contested catches, seven of 17, that's below average. Um, and I think there's a little bit of technique issue. Like obviously he's brand new to to, you know, catching passes to the position there. Um, but that's why like I want him to drop weight because I want him to compete with actual speed against like on those routes that you're talking about there. So, I think like why not two instead of 239 like let's make him 220 225 pounds and like let's see if that speed can get actually like 442 speed where now we actually have a mismatch here. I think that's like a big time projection that you'd have to do. Um I I thought that he was like mobile and agile versus tight ends but like in and out of the break at the top of things like he is this is not a wide receiver level talent right now. I thought there was a couple reps um against Tennessee dig routes where it's like it's like a non-starter where like a eventual prospect is completely shutting him down. I had this exact same shallow crossing route against off coverage where it doesn't seem like he's exploding by. Only nine force missed tackles, too. There's some wide receivers in the 20s and 30s in this draft class. So, I think that's the hard part. Like right now, I don't think he would pass my clear-cut. He's a better receiver than my slot receiver. I think eventually he can beat and that's why I still come down like a round three grade on him. I'm intrigued, but I do I do fear that we're well beyond that in consensus rankings and then the actual cost of this. Um, so I'm intrigued, but I'm not sold.
If we can just bluntly say it, this is the type of prospect and player that those of us who sit on a desk and watch tape can easily fall in love with. And then when you see him in preseason action or make one splash play in the NFL field, we all say, "Wow, why isn't this guy playing more?" And it's because, you know, of maybe the other 37 snaps in the NFL game and trying to crack down on a linebacker or hold up and pin in a defensive end and all that type of stuff. It is, it is not fun. I think I slightly disagree with you where there were a couple snaps where I did see him snap at the top of his route and create that separation. Yeah. And then there was a corner route where he goes up and climbs a ladder at the exact same time. Like you package that all together and you get your hopes up. Um, and there were plenty of other, I thought, contested grabs. Not contested, I should say off-frame grabs, but the contested stuff. Oh, yeah. Again, through contact and dealing with contact.
Again, there's a reason why like these 250 260 lb why tight ends uh can maybe manage that um a bit better. Mike Cassiki is someone I threw out there.
Dude, we are on the same page. I wrote down as a tight end, smaller Mike Gassiki. I have wide receiver comps, too, but it's a it's way smaller than Gassiki. That's the problem.
Now, the thing with Cassiki is he is so linear. Like, he is so straight line. He turns like a boat almost.
But as we have seen in these last couple of years with Cincinnati and even during his time when he was with Miami, he is not a tight end. And the only time he's really a not even a focal point, but a secondary pass catching option with the Bengals is when T. Higgins misses. Like you can line up those numbers neck andneck. And when Tiggins is out, guess what? Jamar Chase plays as an outside wide receiver and then your slot pass catcher is is uh Mike Cassiki. And I guess that can be here, but at the same time, that's like finding with the right coaching staff, one that plays in shotgun all the time. And and how valuable is that?
And how valuable is that? I I I really want to like him. And like my high-end comparison, and I keep bringing up this name during the draft process because it's the name that immediately stuck out to me here with Eli Sour was Learius Green, who went through that kind of same transition early on out of San Diego State to the LA Chargers. Then the Steelers like paid him a boatload of money, tried to make him the focal point of their tight end room. He played about 80 85% of snaps this site being almost his exact same size, two inches short or two inches taller I should say. And then, you know, his career ended with like injuries and concussions immediately.
So, if he can grow into it, man, this would be such a fun player for fantasy football, such a fun player to watch in the NFL, but at the same time, we've seen a lot of these types kind of fizzle out a little bit.
So, to play like devil devil's advocate here, 64 yards per game as a tight end is a ton. And like that is, you know, SEC like he's playing some big boy big boy defenses and he's not, you know, like 6'2 230. He's at least got like the height profile where he's going to create some mismatches. So, I would not be surprised if his ceiling hits like if he drops some weight. It really does look like the Maris Coulson profile who was like for a while there like leading the NFL in like slot yardage. Now, that is the like ultimate ceiling here that I'm chasing. There's also like kind of back shoulder artist like Devin Funus who like did not have enough speed versus wide receivers but can get hot for a second that I think he can kind of fall into that category. He is also just a complete freak athlete. Like nobody jumps 45 and a half inches up in the air. So I do think there's like some like outlier appeal where like I'm rounding up my grades because there are some signs here like hey like this just he just might be so so different than everybody else that he's just going to figure this this whole thing out. He's not come from San Diego State. Like this is a big school. Um but I do think this really does look like the Mike Gassiki type of tight end.
Highest yards per route run of any tight end in this class at 2.55. And look, there have been even tight ends with less experience than he's had in college go on to have extremely productive NFL or NFL careers. Antonio Gates, Hall of Famer, you know, Jimmy Graham, fantastic.
The thing with those guys is they played above the rim. And when you were on their back or you know trying to work through their hands and their body on slant catches, they still strong mits and being able to ride that wave and come down with the football. And so far I have not really seen that consistency with Eli Sour, maybe just, you know, get stronger in that regard. And again, just three seasons of tight end at the college level and just two at the SEC level. And so again, I'm leaving the door open for all of that. But um it's just I don't want to be snake bitten again. I want to be the boy who cried wolf with all this stuff. And I actually feel like you and I have been very realistic in these types of tight ends across the league. Aronda Gadston though might kind of be like this and he fell in like the perfect situation for him last year.
And that was what fourth round. And I just my evaluation I think Gadson's got a little bit more like agility and fluidity as a receiver than I've seen with Eli Starders. But Eli Stard is like a tier above athletically. Yeah, that there are guys that kind of, you know, can play half the snaps and be like a real passing down asset out there. Um, so I'm coming back to it. Third round grade. He's not my tight end one. He's not my tight end two. There's a lot of fast guys like the Georgia guy just ran like crazy. We're going to bring up some other prospects who I think have a better well-rounded skill set. He's the outlier. I think if you have a comp pick, something like that, a round three pick and you want to throw your dart and hope for the best, absolutely go for it. will not poo poo that at all. If we're talking about the the 40th pick in the draft, I think we have to get back to the realism that we had in this combo.
Yeah. I think if we are setting a horizontal board and teams will do this, I wouldn't even put him in the category of tight end. It's almost like my head coach or play caller would have to pound the table for this type of a player and be like, I have a plan for him. This is it. And then we are going to try to progress and mature him at the position as we go along. or we're just going to make him a pure slot player and make him lose weight with this. But it has to a plan has to coincide with this tight end pick. He is not just a stick him hand in the dirt. We're going to play him in that regard.
He will be a wide receiver in my top 100 rankings.
There it is. All right. As you can tell, one, Hayden and I don't share notes ahead of this. It's why it's always fun when we they end up the same some overlap on top of them. Uh, and two, we have plenty more videos just like this one, even on the channel right now. So, uh go and watch another one. We'll see you over there.