The future of the tight end group
May 24, 2022
by Steve Thomas
In just a couple years, Washington went from having a bunch of questionable tight ends to a team with a good problem on their hands: too many talented players at the position. At one point, the team had Jordan Reed, who had Pro Bowl talent but was always injured, and Vernon Davis at the tail end of his career. That worked for a year or two, but it wasn’t a recipe for long term success. Davis’ on-field performance eventually went downhill, and he finished the 2019 season on injured reserve. Reed couldn’t stay healthy and ended up with a series of concussions, and spent most of the 2019 season in the league’s concussion protocol. New Washington head coach Ron Rivera arrived in January, 2020, and whether due to Rivera’s urging or not – we don’t know for sure – Davis retired immediately, and Reed moved on, then retired at the last April.
Without a good option on the roster, Rivera brought in Logan Thomas, who is a converted quarterback. Thomas may be Rivera’s best free agent success story during his short tenure in Washington, far exceeding most fans’ expectations in the 2020 season. In 2021, though, Thomas missed all but six games due to injury, including a torn ALC suffered on December 8. Rookie John Bates and a slew of others filled in and were mostly average to decent performance, but it was obvious that Thomas was sorely missed.
Enter the 2022 draft. Rivera selected one of the better pass-catching tight ends in the draft, Cole Turner, in round 5. Therefore, Washington’s tight end groups now consists of Thomas, who will be 9 months removed from his ACL injury when the 2022 season begins, Turner, Bates, Sammis Reyes, and two undrafted free agents, Curtis Hodges and Armani Rogers. And now, rumor has it that wide receiver Antonio Gandy-Golden will transition to tight end in what appears to he an attempt to salvage an errant draft pick.
We’ll do a complete Position Group Breakdown later in the offseason, but for now, I’d like to point out the obvious: Washington has too many active roster-worthy tight ends. Exactly what are they going to do about this logjam, particularly if Thomas is healthy at the start of the season? Basically, Washington has 4 players who probably deserve a roster spot, including one, Reyes, who never played football before last year but found himself on the roster and got on the field a bit, mostly on special teams. Reyes is a fan favorite as a result of his elite athleticism, which is clearly the quality Washington’s front office and coaching staff likes most about him.
At most, the team will only keep four tight ends on the active roster during the season, and perhaps just three depending on how the other offensive position groups shake out. Thomas, Bates, and Turner are obvious roster locks, the latter two by virtue of their status as recent draft picks. The team invested a roster spot in Reyes last year because of his athletic promise, so it seems unlikely that they’d be willing to give up on so quickly. Gandy-Golden seems to be the least likely. Going forward, I doubt that the team is going to end up keeping all five.
So what happens now? Well, on a long-term basis, the surprising answer may be that Thomas may end up being the odd man out. Maybe not this year, but in a year or two, perhaps, should one of Bates, Turner, or Reyes develop into a plus-level starter. The team may very well be rooting for Thomas to have to go to the PUP list, as that would protect all three of their younger players for the first part of the season. At the end of the day, he’s an injured player who’s about to turn 31. The real long-term hope here, barring unexpected performances from either Hodges and/or Rogers, is that all three of Bates, Turner, and Reyes pan out in a year or two. I don’t have much hope for Gandy-Golden, but he’ll get his opportunity to prove himself.
Watch out – Washington may actually be managing their roster like a real professional football team. At least for the tight ends. They have a starter in the now, and several young players to lead the team into the future.
Thomas will hold onto the job for this season, but by 2023, he represents a salary cap savings of more than $5M, and $6.5M in 2024. Washington won’t want that on their books – Rivera has cult several players solely for salary cap reasons. I don’t think it matters very much whether Thomas stays healthy. Clearly, the play here is for Turner to become the dangerous receiving threat, Bates as the more tradition inline blocking tight end and occasional short yardage threat, with Reyes as a total wild card. Despite the fascination for him – he has a great story – the truth is that it’s probably unlikely that he ever develops into a plus-level player even despite his athleticism. But we’ll see.
So, for this year, I expect Thomas to be put on the PUP list for week one, which will keep him out through week 8, will all three of Bates, Turner, and Reyes on the active roster. Then they’ll figure out what to do if all three are healthy when Thomas is ready to return. Regardless, congratulations to Washington’s leadership for engineering a good problem to have and a bright future at this position.