Football is a violent sport for violent people.
It’s not a secret that NFL football is violent. It may not be as violent as it was in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but there are nasty injuries, some of which are life-threatening, every season. For players to thrive in a sport like football, they have to be violent too.
Of course, there are exceptions. Most quarterbacks aren’t violent. Most wide receivers aren’t either.
What about tight ends?
I guess it depends on which tight end you’re talking about.
Mike Gesicki, I’m sure, would absolutely break me in half were I to try to get past him if we were to match up one-on-one. I couldn’t trust him to block Trey Hendrickson, though.
Hendrickson might do to Gesicki what Gesicki would do to me, and that’s okay. That isn’t what the Bengals signed Gesicki, who is a hop, skip and jump away from a slot wide receiver, to do. They signed him to move the chains, not block for running backs as they try to.
Rookie tight end Erick All is a different story, though.
According to Dan Hoard, Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher remarked on All’s willingness to be a “violent” blocker, to which the rookie offensive coordinator had one of those quotes you put in a frame in the back of your locker.
“I’ll say this,” he said. “Maybe it goes beyond willing and turns into eager — an eagerness to be violent. That’s probably a better descriptor.”
Tight end is a tough position to excel at. You need to be able to run routes, have good hands, and run with the ball like a wide receiver, but you need to run block like an offensive lineman or full back.
There are generally two different types of tight ends at the NFL level. There are the Gesicki’s and the Drew Sample’s. While Gesicki can technically block, the Bengals would be fools to have him go one-on-one with any defensive lineman. He’s a great receiver, though.
Sample is the opposite. He can catch, but it’s not his thing (though it is FANTASTIC when we get a Drew Sample highlight catch or touchdown). His thing is busting heads. The coaches don’t trust him as much as one of their offensive tackles, but they trust him enough to keep him on the 53-man roster, despite limited receiving upside.
There aren’t many tight ends who can do both and do both well. One that comes to mind is George Kittle.
Kittle is a great down-field receiver who can run any route and should not be covered by a linebacker man-to-man, but he’s also a willing and violent blocker, who seems to just get a kick out of a laying some wood on an unsuspecting linebacker or safety.
We, of course, can’t really compare the two. All has only taken 106 snaps in his young career, and Kittle is a two-time First-Team All-Pro, a two-time Second-Team All-Pro, and a five-time Pro Bowler. However, the two Iowa products have some similarities.
Hopefully, All’s career follows Kittle’s arc.
And hopefully, being violent doesn’t land him in the blue tent too often.
