Up next in the Room to Improve series for the 2024 NFL draft prospects is the reigning Mackey Award winner as the nation’s top tight end, Brock Bowers of the Georgia Bulldogs.
Bowers has quickly proven himself as an outstanding receiving threat in his first two seasons in Athens. What can he do to help augment his potential NFL draft stock in the upcoming college season?
I use this series to preemptively nitpick prospects and see where I want prospects to improve in the upcoming college season. It’s a series I did back in the day as part of the Draft Breakdown (RIP) team, and I’m reviving it here as the Room to Improve series for the 2024 NFL draft.
For Bowers, I watched Georgia’s games against Oregon, Samford, Kent State, Auburn, LSU and Ohio State from the 2022 national championship season.
Blocking
Bowers is much more of a supersized slot receiver labeled as a tight end than a traditional TE. Listed by Georgia at 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, he’s a receiving specialist in the vein of 2023 Bills first-rounder Dalton Kincaid or a smaller version of Falcons’ 2021 first-rounder, Kyle Pitts.
Neither Pitts nor Kincaid was noted for their blocking prowess. Yet at the same point in the process, I’d give the blocking edge to both of them over Bowers. He’s got to improve significantly at technique, tenacity and strength to become even average as a run blocker in the slot. No. 19 is often effective as a one-hit blocker in space, but sustaining and driving are just not clubs Bowers has in his bag right now.
It’s difficult to envision Bowers ever being successful as an inline blocking presence at the next level. He’s just not physically built like that, but Bowers can still improve his initial hand placement; he’s often both late and high with his hands.
Bowers also stays too narrow as a blocker, which makes his lack of bulk and power even more of an issue. His feet are often too close together, and Bowers also gets too upright when engaging targets in space. Those are technical issues that can be coached into improvement.
Again, teams aren’t going to draft Bowers for his blocking at tight end. But he can improve upon it nonetheless.
Initial release
This issue crops up when teams jam Bowers at the line, but also when he has to quickly break out into a route from an inline formation.
As noted in the blocking section, Bowers tends to be too upright when he first efforts to get into a route. He doesn’t make himself a small target for a slot defender to get his hands on and slow down momentum. It’s an even bigger problem for Bowers when he’s inline and trying to get past a DE or OLB chipping him.
One thing that showed up repeatedly on film with Bowers: he tries to make his first stride too long. Increased foot frequency and a shorter, more compact explosion from his initial stance can really help Bowers become even more dangerous as a route runner.
Clean up the drops
In the games I watched, I counted 3 drops from Bowers. One of them in particular stood out, from Georgia’s game against FCS-level Samford.
This is a catch I expect a first-round tight end to make. Is the throw perfect? No. Is it catchable? Absolutely.
Making a play like that is the difference between being Travis Kelce and Eric Ebron. Bowers is capable of finishing catches like this–he shows it often–but there are times when the difficult but makeable catches elude him.
