Brock Bowers Scouting Report and Fantasy Football Outlook

Brock Bowers Scouting Report

Underdog ADP: 79.2 overall (TE9), rookie TE1
TE Rookie Super Model: 83rd percentile

Brock Bowers is a former four-star recruit out of Napa, California. The No. 3 TE recruit in his class, nobody originally expected Bowers to become this big of a deal heading into the 2024 NFL Draft. And yet, here we are!

There simply wasn’t a more productive TE in college football over the past three seasons. Here's how Bowers ranked among 87 qualifying Power 5 TEs from 2021 to 2023:

Pro Football Focus (PFF) receiving grade: 94.1 (No. 1)
Passer rating when targeted: 148.9 (No. 1)
Receiving yards: 2,541 (No. 1)
Receiving TDs: 26 (No. 1)
Yards per route run (YPRR): 2.64 (No. 1)
Yards per reception (YPR): 14.5 (No. 7)
Targets per route run (TPRR): 23.3% (No. 10)

Oct 7, 2023; Athens, Georgia, USA; Georgia Bulldogs tight end Brock Bowers (19) can t hold a pass behind Kentucky Wildcats defensive back Alex Afari Jr. (3) at Sanford Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

And it’s not like Bowers simply saved his best performances for the weakest links on the Georgia schedule. Just look at his production in SEC Championship games as well as in the College Football Playoffs:

2021 SEC Championship vs. Alabama: 10-139-1
2021 CFP vs. Michigan: 5-55-1
2021 National Championship vs. Alabama: 4-36-1
2022 SEC Championship vs. LSU: 6-81-1
2022 CFP vs. Ohio state: 4-64-0
2022 National Championship vs. TCU: 7-152-2
2023 SEC Championship vs. Alabama: 5-53-0

Nobody is debating Bowers’s standing as the clear No. 1 TE in this rookie class. The bigger questions are whether he's deserving of an early first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft and where he should be drafted in dynasty rookie drafts and in best ball.

Without further adieu, let’s break down the good and bad in Bowers's profile and figure out just how excited you should be to select him in 2024 fantasy football drafts.

Pros and Cons of Brock Bowers

Pros

Rare college production for a TE

Receiving yards per team pass attempt (RYPTPA) is one of the strongest metrics that correlates to future NFL production. It's also a major part of Dwain McFarland's Fantasy Life rookie TE super model.

Here are the top career marks in RYPTA since 2018:

Brock Bowers (1.6)
Michael Mayer (1.6)
Adam Trautman (1.3)
Isaiah Likely (1.3)
Hunter Bryant (1.3)
Trey McBride (1.2)

Bowers’s career passer rating when targeted (141.9) also ranks second over that same span, so it’s not surprising to see Kyle Pitts as the only TE with a higher overall model score.

There really wasn’t anything that Bowers couldn’t do at a high level against SEC competition. As NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein puts it:

“Bowers was a high-volume target at Georgia and led the team in receiving yards in all three of his college seasons. He plays with relentless pacing as a route runner, allowing him to beat man coverage. Also, he’s highly effective at exploiting zone pockets for first downs and chunk plays. Bowers’ secret sauce might be his ability to rip through tacklers and pile on yardage after the catch.”

Speaking of…

Special with the football in his hands

Bowers’s career average yards after the catch per reception (YAC/R) beats out essentially every top-50 TE in recent history other than David Njoku. No player at the TE position has racked up more total yards after the catch in a single season than what Bowers managed in 2021 (522).

Whether he’s running through multiple would-be tackles, showing off some wiggle in the open field, or even turning on the jets to turn a ho-hum jet sweep into a monster gain, Bowers consistently proved to be borderline impossible for one defender to get to the ground throughout his time in Athens.

Georgia Bulldogs tight end Brock Bowers (19) runs after a catch during the third quarter as Auburn Tigers take on Georgia Bulldogs at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala., on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023. Photo Credit: Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

Consider the fact that Bowers’s career average of 8.5 YAC/R is higher than literally every draft-eligible WR in this 2024 class. And even if we removed his YAC/R on screen plays, Bowers would still rank third in that metric (7.6).

The 21-year-old talent was an annual nightmare for college defenses to deal with at all three levels of the field. But of course, like any other player, Bowers isn’t a picture-perfect prospect.

Cons

Tweener profile makes landing spot important

Bowers would be a massive slot WR, but he’s undersized at TE as long as we continue to call him that. After all, have you seen him standing next to Gronk?!

At 6’3 and 243 lbs., both his height and weight are sub-20th percentile. Bowers's 32.75” arm length and 9.75" hand size are both also sub-40th percentile. Suffice it to say that Bowers is not a hulking presence on the football field even though he often plays like a man twice his size.

While Bowers is technically a TE, his skill set and receiving ability are more akin to a big slot receiver. As Yahoo’s Nate Tice notes: Only 44.7% of Bowers’ snaps were from what PFF categorizes as TE alignment. That would rank 168th out of 191 qualifying college TEs and well below what guys like Kyle Pitts (62.9%), Dalton Kincaid (64.5%), and Sam LaPorta (67%) posted.

There's an argument to be made that Bowers should just call himself a WR. After all, Jimmy Graham and Mike Gesicki both failed to win their contractual battles after they'd already spent multiple NFL seasons labeled as TEs, so perhaps Bowers could nip any future contract disputes in the bud and declare himself a TE now. The 2024 franchise tag number for WRs ($21.8 million) is massive compared to TEs ($12.7 million), so why shouldn't Bowers at least try to make some extra cash by changing a technicality?

Overall though, Bowers remaining a TE in fantasy gives him that positional scarcity. His biggest obstacle to being an immediate force in fantasy will be questionable opportunity to earn a full-time role as a rookie. For every Sam LaPorta, there are a lot more Michael Mayers who simply don’t get the chance to handle an every-down role in Year 1.

Fantasy Football Outlook for Brock Bowers

The Athletic’s Dane Brugler concluded his profile on Bowers with the following sentiment:

“Overall, Bowers is an explosive pass catcher who creates mismatches all over the field with speed, ball skills and competitive edge. He has NFL star potential in the mold of George Kittle, if he lands with a play caller prepared to feature his unique and versatile talent.“

Few fantasy GMs doubt that Bowers will eventually produce some big-time numbers at the NFL level, and he’s fully deserving of being a top-seven option in superflex rookie drafts behind the big-three QBs and alongside the top-three WRs.

Sep 30, 2023; Auburn, Alabama, USA; Georgia Bulldogs tight end Brock Bowers (19) breaks tackles as he carries a touchdown reception against the Auburn Tigers during the fourth quarter at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

That said: His standing as the TE9 (pick 78.8) over at Underdog Fantasy seems awfully optimistic. As much as everyone loves to point to LaPorta’s fantastic season as evidence that young TEs are now more than capable of immediately producing big-time numbers, it wasn’t exactly a phenomenon that persisted with the rest of his fellow rookies.

Here are the top five seasons from a rookie TE over the past decade of action in terms of PPR points per game (PPG) with a minimum of eight games played:

2023 Sam LaPorta (14.1 PPR PPG, TE3)
2017 Evan Engram (11.6, TE4)
2021 Kyle Pitts (10.4, TE11)
2021 Pat Freiermuth (9.5, TE16)
2023 Dalton Kincaid (9.4, TE14)

As of now, I have Bowers as my TE12 in the Fantasy Life Rankings for 2024, which is below the other rankers. I believe that veteran TEs like Dallas Goedert, Jake Ferguson, and David Njoku belong ahead of Bowers.

We're hoping that Bowers will slot into a significant role as a rookie, but those veteran TEs already project for full-time roles in likely productive passing attacks, and they're pretty damn good football players in their own rights.

Brock Bowers Scouting Report and Fantasy Football Outlook