The first night of the 2019 NFL Draft is over, and the Iowa football team made history with two tight ends going in the first round.
As we expected, last night was a historical evening for the Iowa football program. Both of the Hawkeye’s starting tight ends, Noah Fant and TJ Hockenson, were drafted in the first round, making that the first ever occurrence in the history of the NFL Draft.
John Mackey Award-winning tight end TJ Hockenson was taken at 8th overall by the Detroit Lions and First Team All-Big Ten tight end Noah Fant was drafted 20th overall by the Denver Broncos.
Matt Patricia’s Lions picking Hockenson makes a ton of sense given his New England Patriots background. It gives the Lions a versatile weapon that will help pave the way for last year’s second-round pick Kerryon Johnson and it gives Matt Stafford a reliable target in the passing game at the tight end position. Since Stafford’s arrival in 2009, Detroit has attempted to give him a tight end twice with first-round picks (Brandon Pettigrew and Eric Ebron), but they struck out.
That will change with Hockenson, I guarantee it. Here’s FanSided’s breakdown of the former Iowa football player.
Noah Fant is heading to a somewhat similar situation in the Denver Broncos have attempted to fill their gaping hole at tight end with has-beens and mid-round draft picks for the last several years. They’ve even tapped into the Big Ten pipeline drafting a former Big Ten tight end three of the last four years with Jeff Heuerman (2015 – Ohio State), Jake Butt (2017 – Michigan), Troy Fumagalli (2018 – Wisconsin), yet that has been unsuccessful as well mostly due to injuries.
Now with a new head coach in Vic Fangio and a young and exciting offensive coordinator in Rick Scangarello, Fant is heading to a perfect situation. For those of you not familiar with Scangarello, he was an instrumental part in San Francisco’s offense last season that saw both Nick Mullens and CJ Beathard have success and saw former Iowa football player George Kittle emerge as an elite tight end.
Interestingly enough, Noah Fant, not TJ Hockenson, is very similar to his former Iowa football teammate. Both have great straight line speed and are willing and aggressive blockers, and if this last season is any indication, Fant should be very excited.
Kittle caught 88 passes for 1,377 yards while earning Pro Bowl and All-Pro honors. Those are lofty numbers but not unrealistic to expect big things from Fant in Denver’s offense featuring a quarterback (Joe Flacco) who loves to throw to his tight ends.
Furthermore, with the concern for Fant’s blocking ability, it’s worth noting that the Broncos hired Mike Munchak, a noted blocking guru who will likely help Fant make gains in that facet of his game.
Here’s FanSided’s breakdown of Noah Fant.
The bottom line is both of these players went to great situations with established quarterbacks, which puts them in a fantastic situation to succeed.
Now, we play the waiting game as day two of the 2019 NFL Draft kicks off this evening at 6 PM Central Standard Time. We’re likely to hear two more Iowa football players be selected with Amani Hooker and Anthony Nelson projected to go late second to early third.