Rob Gronkowski isn't just one of the best tight ends in the game, he's arguably the best offensive weapon, period. Through two games, he is 11th in the league in yards from scrimmage and tied with Travis Benjamin for first with four touchdowns. He is on a historical pace. With two touchdown catches this Sunday against the Jaguars, he will have had 60 receiving touchdowns in 68 career games, making him the second-fastest player to the benchmark behind Hall of Famer Lance Alworth, who did it in 64.
2015 is the Year of the Tight End, and Rob Gronkowski is leading the way
Tight ends are making a bigger offense impact in the NFL than ever before, led by the happy-go-lucky Patriot who is on pace to Gronk the record books.
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We may be seeing peak Gronk. Since entering the league 2010, he has never started a season so well. At this rate, he’ll finish with 1,656 yards receiving and 32 touchdowns receptions. The former would be the 11th most ever by any player, the former would break the current single-season record by nine.
Gronkowski isn’t the only player putting up career numbers. Tight ends have caught 36 touchdown passes through two weeks, the most ever at the position in NFL history. With 13 more in Week 3, the group will surpass the 2012 and 2013 seasons for the most ever through three weeks.
Travis Kelce has been the next biggest star at the position. He has had a Gronkian start to the season with 164 yards and two touchdowns on 10 receptions. He should arguably have more. Kelce has been targeted 11 times, which is tied for 14th among tight ends and gives him a cool 91 percent catch rate.
There's also Tyler Eifert, who is fulfilling his first round pedigree with 13 receptions already -- one-third of his rookie total. There's also Jordan Cameron, who is earning his two-year deal from the Dolphins at nearly 20 yards per reception. There's Jason Witten, who has battled injuries to nearly every body part imaginable (not to mention the position's stiff aging curve) to lead all tight ends with 15 receptions.
And that's not mentioning the other leader of the tight end revolution. Jimmy Graham has been conspicuously quiet in the Seahawks' offense, a fact that he is reportedly unhappy about. He is arguably an even more versatile weapon than Gronkowski, and should his numbers uptick towards his production with the Saints, it would solidify what may already be fact: 2015 is the year of the tight end.
The involvement of tight ends in NFL offenses has been growing for the last few seasons, seemingly since the Patriots used Gronkowski in tandem with Aaron Hernandez to great effect in 2011, though luminaries such as Graham, Antonio Gates and Tony Gonzalez deserve their due. In six seasons from 2009 to 2014, an average of 21 tight ends had at least 500 yards receiving each season, none fewer than 17 with a peak of 24 in 2012. Over the six seasons prior that average was just under 12.
Whether the boom will last remains to be seen. Grantland’s Bill Barnwell studied the trend a few years ago and found two big reasons why it may peter out: 1) tight end bodies don’t seem to last long and 2) NFL defenses will adapt with new schemes and versatile players, just as they have always done. He cautioned teams not to be too reactionary.
In the long run, teams end up really missing the point. When they identify a new system that has worked in the league, they go rushing to acquire personnel and implement it with strategies that don't always work for their teams. Do you remember 2008, when every team in football was running the Wildcat and picking up an exotic two yards per game? Do you remember when the Dolphins chose Pat White in the second round of the draft? Now White's a retired baseball player, and the Dolphins only ran the Wildcat three times last year.
Barnwell wrote that before the 2012, however, and since then tight ends have only continued to become more important. Defenses may inevitably find a way to curtail big, speedy, seam-smashing monsters like Gronk -- it’s true that every offensive revolution in the NFL seems to meet a counterpoint -- but for now the big fellas are having their day. It has been long time coming.
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