Flock Talk: Everybody Wants to Rule the Middle

Football has "rediscovered" the tight end; Oregon can point to a pipeline that has been hiding in plain sight.

I don’t know that there has ever been a better time to be a tight end.

That might sound strange in an era still defined by quarterbacks, elite receivers, spread spacing and defensive backs who look like they were built in a lab. But that is really the point. Football keeps expanding, stretching and searching for answers, and the answer increasingly looks like a 6-foot-4, 245-pound player who can line up attached to the formation, flex into the slot, motion across the formation, insert as a lead blocker, run away from linebackers and bully defensive backs.

For a long time, the tight end was treated almost like a supporting character. He was either the sixth offensive lineman with better hands or the possession receiver who lived between the numbers. Now, he is becoming one of the great stress points in the sport. The NFL has always been a copycat league, but the latest trend is not simply about finding the next Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Sam LaPorta, Brock Bowers or Trey McBride. It is about finding the next offensive answer.

That answer is versatility.

The NFL’s movement back toward heavier personnel has been hard to miss. NFL.com noted that offenses used sub packages with fewer than three wide receivers on 41.7 percent of plays in 2025, after that number had been below 38 percent in every season since Next Gen Stats began tracking in 2016. Even more telling, the league hit at least 42 percent heavy sub-package usage eight times in the final nine weeks of the 2025 regular season after never doing so in a regular-season week from 2016 through 2024.

That is not a small shift. That is a philosophical turn.

The spread game is not dead. It never really dies. It just gets repackaged. But defenses spent years building themselves to live in nickel, run with receivers, disguise coverages and survive in space. The counter is not always to spread them out even more. Sometimes, the counter is to make them bigger, then throw anyway. NFL.com framed the chess match well: when heavier personnel forces defenses into base packages, the defense may gain size against the run, but it loses some flexibility and athleticism in coverage.

That is where the tight end becomes a problem.

If he is only a blocker, the defense can treat him like a blocker. If he is only a receiver, the offense may have to protect him from certain run-game responsibilities. But if he is both, or at least credible enough at both, the defense has to declare something. Stay light and risk being run over. Get big and risk being exposed in space. Keep a linebacker on the field and ask him to cover a route runner. Bring in a defensive back and ask him to hold up at the point of attack.

That is why the college game is adapting.

The best college offenses still want speed. They still want explosive receivers. They still want quarterbacks who can create and backs who can force missed tackles. But more and more, they also want tight ends who give them answers before the ball is ever snapped. The NFL is telling college programs what it values, and college programs are responding. Recent drafts have made that clear. Dalton Kincaid went in the first round in 2023, Brock Bowers went No. 13 overall in 2024, Colston Loveland went No. 10 and Tyler Warren went No. 14 in 2025, and Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq went No. 16 overall to the Jets in 2026.

And this is where Oregon’s history at the position becomes more interesting than it sometimes gets credit for.

The Ducks have not always been viewed as “Tight End U” in the most traditional sense. Oregon’s modern reputation was built around tempo, space, quarterbacks, running backs, offensive linemen, edge rushers and speed. But if you trace the tight end position in Eugene, there is a pretty remarkable through-line. Oregon has been putting tight ends into professional football for a long time, and the position has often reflected whatever version of football was coming next.

Jeff Thomason is a good place to start because he feels like the bridge to everything that came later. Thomason was not a modern flex tight end in the way we talk about the position today, but he was an NFL player for a long time, a pro’s pro, and part of Super Bowl teams. The Eagles’ own look back at Thomason noted that he had been to two Super Bowls with the Packers before returning for another run with Philadelphia.

From there, the names keep coming. Josh Wilcox. Blake Spence. Justin Peelle. George Wrighster. Tim Day. Dante Rosario. Ed Dickson. David Paulson. Pharaoh Brown. Johnny Mundt. Evan Baylis. Jacob Breeland. Hunter Kampmoyer. Terrance Ferguson. Kenyon Sadiq.

Some became draft picks. Some became long-term NFL role players. Some made it through the harder road of undrafted free agency. Some were better college players than pro players, and some were better pros than their college box scores ever suggested. But collectively, they tell the same story: Oregon has consistently recruited, developed and deployed tight ends who had a path to the next level.

That matters even more now because the next level is changing in their direction.

Terrance Ferguson is the cleanest recent example of Oregon’s development meeting NFL demand. He left Oregon as the program’s all-time leader among tight ends in receptions and receiving touchdowns, and he went No. 46 overall to the Los Angeles Rams in the 2025 NFL Draft. Oregon noted at the time that Ferguson was the highest-drafted Ducks tight end since Russ Francis in 1975.

Then Sadiq pushed the conversation even further.

Sadiq did not just become another Oregon tight end to reach the NFL. He became the second tight end in program history to be taken in the first round, joining Francis, and he did it after a season that looked like a snapshot of where the position is headed. He set Oregon’s single-season record for tight end receptions with 51, caught eight touchdowns, led all FBS tight ends in receiving touchdowns and became the first Duck to be named a finalist for the Mackey Award.

That is not incidental. That is the evolution of the position arriving in Eugene.

The thing about Oregon’s tight end history is that it has always had different flavors. Thomason represented toughness and longevity. Wilcox and Spence represented the older Pac-10 version of the position, where toughness still mattered but production was starting to show up. Peelle, Wrighster, Rosario and Dickson all gave Oregon legitimate receiving threats at the position. Paulson was dependable and technically sound. Pharaoh Brown had the physical gifts. Mundt carved out an NFL career through toughness, blocking and special teams value. Baylis, Breeland and Kampmoyer all showed how even different kinds of Oregon tight ends could get professional looks. Ferguson became the record-setter. Sadiq became the first-round athletic mismatch.

The record book backs up the eye test. Ferguson finished with 134 career receptions, Ed Dickson had 124, Josh Wilcox had 103, Dante Rosario had 94, Blake Spence had 91, Sadiq had 80, Jacob Breeland had 74, Pharaoh Brown had 70 and David Paulson had 67. On the yardage side, Dickson, Ferguson, Wilcox, Spence, Breeland, Paulson, Brown, Tim Day and Rosario all topped 1,000 career receiving yards as Oregon tight ends.

That is a lot of production from a position that is often remembered more in pieces than as a full lineage.

And maybe that is the bigger point. Tight ends are not always easy to appreciate in real time. A receiver’s production is obvious. A running back’s touches are easy to count. A quarterback lives under permanent inspection. But a tight end’s value can be hidden in formation stress, motion adjustments, protection responsibilities, run-game angles, red-zone leverage and third-down trust. He can change the math of the play without touching the ball.

That is why the NFL wants them. That is why college football is adjusting. And that is why Oregon’s history at the position should carry real weight in recruiting.

For a tight end prospect, Oregon can sell something that is more than a depth chart. It can sell history. It can sell production. It can sell development. It can sell multiple pathways. Want to become a receiving weapon? There is a blueprint. Want to become a complete player? There is a blueprint. Want proof the NFL will take Oregon tight ends seriously? Ferguson and Sadiq just provided it in back-to-back drafts.

Football has spent years trying to get smaller, faster and more spread out. Now the sport is remembering that the most dangerous player on the field might be the one who lets you do everything. The tight end is no longer just a safety valve. He is a formation changer, a matchup creator and, increasingly, a premium NFL investment.

Oregon did not stumble into that trend.

The Ducks have been building toward it for decades.