Why I love the decision to draft tight end Ben Sinnott

Adam Peters made the right call

I could probably write one of these for most of this year’s draft picks, but I won’t. I did write glowing reviews for Brandon Coleman and Luke McCaffrey, but I intend for this paean to be in a league of its own, because I’m just that excited about the prospect.

I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again: I watch very little college football during the fall. I may watch a Maryland game or two before they inevitably toss away the season by losing to nearly everyone with a pulse in BIG10 play, but my focus is almost completely on the NFL from summer through the Super Bowl. I’m certainly not catching random Big 12 match-ups in October.

So, as soon as Washington’s season ends, which has generally been before the playoffs for years now, I turn my attention to learning about college prospects, watching tape of a subset of players, and digging in, relatively free of the noise.

As a “naïve” observer of college football, I sometimes think I come to the pre-draft discussion with a bit of an advantage – though, surely, also a number of blind spots. I’m rarely taken in by hype, and give very little credence to the “consensus” authorities, though – increasingly – there are some prominent voices I’ve come to trust.

I say all that to set the context for what follows.

For whatever reason, since I came to Hogs Haven originally, I’ve had a fascination about tight ends. For me, they’re the strange birds of the NFL. Their developmental trajectory is different than almost every other position. Teams don’t seem to be particularly successful at identifying the best ones in the draft. And yet, it has come to be one of the more important positions in the league for teams with great ones. It’s just the sort of puzzle I like to put my mind to.

So I started profiling tight ends I liked in the lead up to the 2021 draft. That year, I settled on Kylen Granson, who was taken in the 4th round by the Colts, and Tre McKitty, who was taken by the Rams in the third. Granson, who I had pegged as a late rounder, has been a solid TE2-type player for Indy. McKitty, who impressed draftniks with his athleticism at the Senior Bowl, has 117 yards to his name over three seasons. Not necessarily the best start.

The following season, I cheated a little bit. I so desperately wanted the team to consider a top end tight end, I went straight to head of class and profiled Trey McBride from Colorado State. McBride was considered to be the best in the class, drafted in the second round by the Cardinals. And, so far, he has been.

But before the 2023 draft, I wanted to up the degree of difficulty a bit. Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer was the most highly touted tight end in the class, and Utah’s Dalton Kincaid, who was eventually taken in the first round by the Bills, wasn’t far behind. But that didn’t matter to me, I felt like Iowa tight end Sam LaPorta was the best value tight end in that draft.

I would avoid a Michael Mayer or a Dalton Kincaid, who are going to be too costly for Washington to reasonably draft, and instead focus on a player like LaPorta who already has a well-developed blocking skillset and is also a plus wide receiver.

And boy did that one hit. LaPorta was taken in the second round by the Lions, and was the best rookie tight end in the league last year by a nice margin, as well as a critical piece of Detroit’s high powered offense.

My appetite had been whetted. With a new front office in DC, was it possible that tight end might actually be on the menu in this year’s draft? I went searching for the right fit, and found him very early on. Everyone loved Georgia’s Brock Bowers, and it was pretty clear he was eventually going to be a first round pick – which he was (Raiders). Taking tight ends in the first round is a direct violation of the first draft commandment, and not something I was hoping Peters and company would do, so I skipped him for consideration.

Eventually though, in mid-January, I found my target. It was probably the earliest I had written up a player, but I wasn’t going to be able to contain myself for another month, the point at which the offseason truly began. I fell in love with Kansas State’s Ben Sinnott as soon as I started watching his play clips.

At that point, and up to the day of the draft, in the minds of many in the “consensus,” Sinnott was well behind players like Ja’Tavion Sanders and Erick All. But I didn’t think so. I thought he’d be a near-ideal fit for Washington:

Washington’s new general manager, Adam Peters, was a college tight end before eventually transitioning to defensive lineman at UCLA. There’s strong speculation that he had a key hand in taking George Kittle in 5th round of the 2017 draft – despite having a third round grade on him.

“I remember scouting George Kittle at Iowa when I was with the Broncos, at the time,” 49ers VP of player personnel Adam Peters recently told 49ers.com. “He was a really unique athlete but wasn’t a really highly thought of prospect by most people. When we got to the 49ers, our coaching staff did a great job of identifying exactly what George could do, and exactly what George could be in our offense.”

Sinnott, in some respects, is a similar sort of player. Not flashy. No particular attributes that jump off the page, but he’s an integrated package that could develop into a key contributor in the right offense. He reminds some observers of 49ers’ fullback Kyle Juszczyk.

To my eyes, he looks like this year’s Sam LaPorta, the Lions’ rookie tight end who took the league by storm, and who has thrived in Ben Johnson’s offense. Washington has to deepen its tight end room this off-season, and Sinnott would be my top tight end target in the 2024 draft, in terms of likely value. I’d be happy to see Washington use a Day 2 pick on him.

So, when Washington actually used a Day 2 pick on him, I was over the freaking moon. Not because I necessarily think he’s the best player they drafted – a reasonable case can be made that the three players taken before him are first round talents – but because this front office saw in him what I did: That he has the capacity for greatness here.

So now, let’s talk about that.

In his four years at Kansas State, Sinnott never put up gaudy numbers, though his 2023 stats were very solid, catching 49 balls for 676 yards and 6 TDs (better numbers than Sanders and All, it should be said). It was enough to earn him Honorable Mention All-American recognition as well as First Team All Big 12 honors. But maybe it wasn’t sexy enough.

With measurables that comp pretty closely to former first round pick TJ Hockenson and LaPorta, it was (and still is) baffling to me that people weren’t drawing the parallels.

When most fans think about tight ends, they usually want to envision the splashy plays: Oversized slot receivers grabbing a ball over the middle and taking it to the house, ideally having smashed some diminutive defensive back into oblivion on the way there. And, don’t get me wrong, I love that too. But that’s generally not how young tight ends get their break in the pros.

Coaches have a decision with their inexperienced TEs:

Do we risk our pass protection, and our quarterback, by testing a tight end who’s not quite ready? Or do we ease that tight end into the lineup, and hope that slowing down the process produces results down the road?

Generally speaking, coaches choose option two. So when you see a college player who is a talented pass catcher, and can do this, you pay attention:

Peters and Newmark clearly see the potential there, and it’s been fascinating to see post-draft evaluations of the selection all over the map, from “A+” to “D-.”

I couldn’t be more pumped to see what Sinnott does this year, and I could hardly imagine a better tight end mentor for him to sit behind than Zach Ertz during his rookie year. This kid is going to be special, and I cannot wait for it.