When the Philadelphia Eagles took tight end Dallas Goedert in the second round of the 2018 NFL Draft, Zach Ertz was coming off a third straight season with at least 70 receptions and 800 receiving yards. Ertz had firmly established himself as one of the league’s best tight ends, and a rookie like Goedert wasn’t just going to step into that situation and usurp him. Even so, the second-fiddle role Goedert has played early in his NFL career has made it easy to overlook his solid play.
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I recently highlighted 32 players — one on each NFL team — who stood out as underrated. Goedert was my choice for Philadelphia, and the more I dove into his play, the more I realized how short the list of tight ends I would take ahead of him in the league is right now. His receiving numbers aren’t gaudy, particularly when you compare them with Ertz's since 2018, but his grading profile pops for a young player at a position where players generally take a year to find their footing once hitting the NFL. A big part of that is what Goedert has been able to do as a blocker early in his career.
Goedert is one of the most versatile tight ends in the NFL
In our scouting report on Goedert coming out of South Dakota State, a concern was that he was overpowered at times at a run-blocker, but lead draft analyst Mike Renner said Goedert “has the tools to where he could be a plus run-blocker in the future. It just might take him a while.”
It really didn’t take much time for him to adjust to that aspect of the game at the NFL level. In fact, only Maxx Williams (83.9) has a higher two-year run-blocking grade than Goedert (81.4) since he was drafted in 2018. Goedert even sits one spot ahead of George Kittle in the PFF run-blocking grade department (79.8).
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