Since the beginning of the Aaron Rodgers era, the Green Bay offense has been consistently flush with elite talent: from Jordy Nelson to Randall Cobb to Eddie Lacy - and now with Rodgers, Aaron Jones and Davante Adams operating behind one of the best o-lines in football.
However, it’s been nearly a decade since the Packers had an elite tight end.
How did this drought begin? When former star Jermichael Finley suffered a career-ending injury in mid-2013, the position quickly became been a revolving door. With just modest output from third-round pick Richard Rodgers over 2014 and 2015, the Packers proceeded to swing and miss on a long list of veterans, including: Jared Cook, Martellus Bennett, Lance Kendricks and Jimmy Graham.
These errant personnel decisions have led to a fragmented state of the position entering the 2021 season.
Behind the de facto starter, Robert Tonyan, the Packers have veteran Marcedes Lewis, who will remain a block-first utility, plus Josiah Deguara and Dominique Dafney, who assume an H-back role that's heavily emphasized in Matt LaFleur's offense. 2019 third-rounder Jace Sternberger, a major disappointment through two seasons, rounds out the group.
In 2020, Tonyan proved to be reliable in both blocking and receiving despite lacking the speed or physicality that most teams covet in an every-down tight end. In very limited playing time as a rookie, Deguara showed flashes of potential out of the backfield, giving him an early edge over Dafney at H-back.
To say the Packers are depleted of talent at tight end would be inaccurate. Instead, rather than having a single, franchise tight end, the current depth is a mix of different skill sets. With the heavy usage of backs in LaFleur's passing game, this offense may not require a Finley-like talent that can be regularly split out wide or required to stretch the field up the seam.
However, with Lewis likely to retire after this season and the Packers tight on cap space in the coming years, GM Brian Gutekunst and the coaching staff will surely be using 2021 to identify the one or two players that represent the future at the position.
Specifically, we'll begin to learn how much of Tonyan's 2020 production was a byproduct of LaFleur's creative play design as well as understand whether Sternberger can live up to his projection as a physical, jump-ball threat.
While Green Bay's tight end group may lack the high-profile names they have at other positions, there's still reason to believe that the future of the position may already be on the roster.
Comments