Quarterbacks are measured by their arms and minds.
Legs are to running backs what hands are to receivers, size is to linemen, tenacity is to middle linebackers.
But a tight end? No one is really sure how to evaluate a tight end, the official tweener position of the NFL. They are asked to run, if not necessarily sprint. They need girth, but not too much.
Some teams want their tight ends to block. Some want their tight ends to receive. And some teams change their minds.
Take the Broncos. They stuck with Shannon Sharpe through the crossing of the century until he became the NFL’s all-time leading receiver among tight ends even though he possessed all the blocking skills of a matador.
Yet a few months ago, the Broncos released sticky- fingered Jeb Putzier in large part because he didn’t hold up well at the line of scrimmage.
“Other positions, there are definite ranking numbers,” said Joe Klopfenstein, the former University of Colorado player who is expected to be selected in the second round of the NFL draft on Saturday. “But as a tight end, I’ve heard from so many teams that have me in a lot of different spots because they’re looking for different stuff out of the position. So you really don’t know.”
Nobody does, not even the most astute football minds.
“There are probably more tight ends in this draft than there have been in a long time,” said Gil Brandt, whose draft expertise going back to the 1960s with the Dallas Cowboys is legendary.
“I would say it’s a rather down year for tight ends,” said Jeffrey Foster, president of National Football Scouting, a service that feeds information to 17 NFL teams, including the Broncos.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that only at tight end can a basketball player with no college football experience dominate (Antonio Gates), while a once-in-a-decade prospect from a major football program (Kellen Winslow Jr.) becomes an immediate bust.
Not that everything about the tight end position is debatable. There seems to be a unanimous view that Maryland’s Vernon Davis is the best of this year’s draft crop of tight ends.
Not only can he bench press 460 pounds, Davis’ 40-yard dash time at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis was nearly half a second faster than that of the second-best prospect, Marcedes Lewis of UCLA.
After Davis, though, the first round may drag by without another tight end’s name called.
There is another group of five prospects who figure to be taken in the second and third rounds: Lewis, Klopfenstein, Leonard Pope, Anthony Fasano and Dominique Byrd.
Most draft projections have the Broncos selecting from those five. Lewis and Klopfenstein are considered the better receivers; Pope and Fasano would be the superior run blockers. Byrd is considered an oft-injured, highly skilled wild card.
“We all saw Vernon at the combine, and he’s pretty much a freak,” said Klopfenstein, whose skills as a long- snapper won’t hurt his value. “After that, it depends on what a team is looking for.”
More tight ends are expected to be drafted Sunday in rounds four through seven, including Texas’ David Thomas, an H-back in the Sharpe mold, and Klopfenstein’s CU teammate Quinn Sypniewski, a powerful blocker who came on as a receiver as a sixth- year senior.
In the days of John Elway, the Broncos used their tight end as their primary receiving target. More recently, the Broncos decided the solid-blocking Stephen Alexander would return as their starting tight end while Putzier – who had 16 more catches – was set free to follow former assistant coach Gary Kubiak to Houston.
Whoever the Broncos select Saturday will spend his rookie season paying attention to how Alexander goes about his business.
“It’s a unique position, especially when you consider how offenses have evolved over time,” Foster said. “There is a pretty solid group of tight ends in that middle ground. But when you look at the upper-echelon group, there’s not a lot of guys you would look at and say these are game-breaker type guys who are going to play for us right away.”
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-820-5440 or mklis@denverpost.com.
