I’m old enough to remember when the greatest tight end in college football history was a lock to be one of the first 6 or 7 picks off the board in the 2024 NFL Draft.

That “greatest tight end in college football history” was Brock Bowers. Like, the guy who made us rethink us what was possible of the tight end position with a college career that concluded with 2 total losses. One was the 2021 SEC Championship when he had 10 catches for 139 yards and the other was the 2023 SEC Championship when he was weeks removed from ankle surgery and limited to 5 catches for 53 yards.

I get it. Stats don’t equal NFL production. “Tight end wins” are even less of a thing than “quarterback wins” when it comes to evaluating next-level talent.

But for the life of me, I can’t fathom why Bowers is falling in these pre-Combine NFL Mock Drafts. In some of these recent mocks, here’s where the Georgia legend came off the board:

  • CBS Sports (Tom Fornelli) — No. 10, New York Jets
  • ESPN (Matt Miller) — No. 14, New Orleans Saints
  • NFL.com (Daniel Jeremiah) — No. 15, Indianapolis Colts
  • CBS Sports (Garrett Podell) — No. 15, Indianapolis Colts
  • The Ringer (Danny Kelly) — No. 16, Seattle Seahawks
  • PFF (Trevor Sikkema) — No. 18, Cincinnati Bengals

To be clear, that’s not everyone in the industry who has Bowers slotted in the 10-20 range. There are folks like Mel Kiper Jr. and Nick Baumgardner who still have Bowers as a top-5 pick.

But why the discourse at all? Why isn’t it a forgone conclusion that Bowers is a top 6-7 pick like it was before the season started?

There are some bad answers to that question. One is “well, he’s banged up right now.” He’s also a 21-year-old who returned 26 days after that aforementioned ankle surgery, which blew initial projections out of the water. If anything, that just shows how durable he was as an every-down tight end who only had that 1 multi-game injury in a 3-year career.

Another bad answer? “You can’t take a high pick on a tight end because of Kyle Pitts.”

Buddy. Where do I start?

Let’s start with the fact that Pitts went to a team coached by Arthur Smith, who seemed more annoyed than intrigued with the Falcons using a top-10 pick on offensive skill-players in 3 consecutive drafts. That was partially why he only lasted 3 seasons in Atlanta. You can be absurdly talented and still go to the wrong situation. Pitts had neither a coach who knew what to do with him, nor did he have a quarterback who could get the ball to him.

When Pitts was selected with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, he was the highest-drafted tight end in the common draft era (since 1967). He was a plug-and-play guy who exploded in Florida’s top-ranked passing game during a COVID-shortened 2020 season wherein he was limited to 8 games. The 20-year-old was supposed to be a matchup nightmare, but by no means a finished product as a blocker, which could’ve made him a more valuable player with those other areas in flux.

You can’t say that about Bowers. At all.

Bowers entered college with blocking as his strength. His passion for dirty work likened him to George Kittle among the Georgia coaching staff. Mind you, that comp came before he ever played a game. That was well before he was the best offensive player on a national championship-winning team as a true freshman tight end. His production as a sure-handed, versatile receiver was what turned him into a 3-year sensation who won the Mackey Award as the nation’s top tight end in his final 2 seasons. He became the first ever player to do that since the award began in 2000.

(If we’re being honest, he should’ve won the award all 3 years. No disrespect to 2021 Mackey Award winner Trey McBride at Colorado State, but did I mention that Bowers was the best offensive player on a national championship-winning team as a true freshman? I did? OK, it was worth mentioning again.)

Bowers is a different player than Pitts. He’s a more complete player than Pitts, even if the latter has more twitchy traits. To say that Pitts’ lack of NFL stardom through 3 years should deter teams from selecting Bowers is foolish. Using Pitts’ underwhelming start as a justification for knocking Bowers makes even less sense when you consider he’s 1 of 2 tight ends who was selected in the first round during the 2020s. Utah’s Dalton Kincaid was the other one, and all he did was break the Bills’ rookie record for catches (73) while racking up 673 receiving yards.

Some questioned why the Lions took Iowa tight end Sam LaPorta with the No. 34 overall pick of the 2023 NFL Draft. Then he became a second-team All-Pro as a rookie and instantly made us wonder why he wasn’t valued as a first-round pick after a prolific career at Iowa. Even after just 1 year, there’s no sort of re-Draft scenario in which LaPorta falls out of the top 6-7 picks.

If the argument for not taking Bowers in the top 6-7 is that Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews and the aforementioned Kittle were all mid-round guys, answer me this. Are you assuming those guys just show up every year? And did any of them come in as battle-tested as Bowers? No chance.

The realistic expectation is that Bowers quickly enters that short list of elite tight ends in the NFL. I don’t care what he looks like at the Underwear Olympics. Watch him play actual game/practice reps and you’ll see a man possessed at the tight end position like few who have ever played this sport.

If those mock Drafts do prove to be prophetic and he does slip out of the top 10, this will be a classic example of overthinking a player. Bowers shouldn’t be overthought. There should be a consensus thought about him over the next couple of months.

Letting Bowers fall out of the top 10 would yield some horrendously bad answers.