Are Rams getting enough from their tight ends this season?

Is free agent Colby Parkinson meeting expectations with Rams?

By average annual salary, Colby Parkinson is the 17th-highest paid tight end in the NFL at $7.5 million per season. Parkinson’s three-year, $22.5 million contract puts him in the same tier as fellow Rams tight end Tyler Higbee and just a million or two behind the likes of Dawson Knox and Hunter Henry. With Higbee still out due to ACL surgery, are Parkinson and L.A.’s other tight ends doing enough as Sean McVay ramps up 12 personnel due to injuries at wide receiver?

Of the three on the roster, Parkinson is doing by far the most. Once again, it seems like Les Snead’s front office has missed the boat on almost any tight end acquisition and evaluation since drafting Higbee in 2016.

Number three tight end Davis Allen, a fifth round pick out of Clemson in 2023, has only played in six snaps but he still has more drops this season than Demarcus Robinson. Allen has been targeted one time and it went down as a drop.

Hunter Long, acquired from the Dolphins in the Jalen Ramsey trade, has played in 39 snaps but has yet to be targeted in the first three games. He’s been getting high marks for his blocking, although 39 snaps is an extremely small sample size and that’s total snaps, not even just the fraction of those that necessitated Long to block.

And then there’s Parkinson, the former Seahawks fourth round draft pick who has played 169 snaps this season, fourth-most on the offense behind only Matthew Stafford, Kevin Dotson, and Robinson. At 90% of the snaps, Parkinson’s been as vital to the offense as Kyren Williams, and though you may not notice his presence very often he’s potentially been just as valuable as Higbee.

Parkinson has caught eight of 12 targets for 80 yards and no touchdowns. His 2.7 catches per game is almost the same as 3.1 that Higbee had in 2023. Higbee averaged 33 yards per game and scored two touchdowns last season, so Parkinson’s been an adequate replacement to Higbee as a receiver.

The fact that he’s six years younger than Higbee is one great reason to have signed him. After 2024, Parkinson might outright replace Higbee on the 53-man roster. Parkinson has been blamed for two drops, but Higbee had seven last season.

So are the Rams getting enough from their three tight ends?

It seems like Parkinson has done enough to justify the faith that L.A. put in him as a free agent acquisition to fill-in or replace Higbee. Playing 100% of the snaps in Week 3 was a testament to McVay’s faith in him and that’s not something that he does for many tight ends.

Long is the quiet member of the group, but if he’s a Johnny Mundt type grinder as TE2 or TE3, he’s doing enough.

As to Allen, his lack of playing time since being drafted brings back a lot of memories of tight ends added since Higbee: Gerald Everett, Bryce Hopkins, Jacob Harris, and now Allen. Everett is a serviceable player who continues to find work, but Hopkins and Harris were fourth round picks who didn’t end up having NFL careers at all. Yes, they’ve found employment, but not playing time. Hopkins is not currently on a team.

Whether Allen can pull himself out of this one (he’s had a better career than Hopkins and Harris already) remains to be seen, but the Rams went to work to push him pretty far down the depth chart by acquiring Parkinson and favoring Long. When Higbee does return, where will that leave McVay and his four tight ends?

So I think the Rams are getting as much out of their tight ends as they paid for. Parkinson’s $7.5 million AAV is normal for a tight end of his caliber believe it or not, while they haven’t gone above and beyond in their other low-risk acquisitions so fans can’t necessarily expect to find a star out of Long or Allen. The Rams didn’t know they’d have to plan for life without Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua this early in the season, so Parkinson might need to do even more this week against the Bears.