Film room: How high is too high for Penn State TE Tyler Warren?
Film room: How high is too high for Penn State TE Tyler Warren?
As Penn State continues to build the whole plane out of their star tight end, just how high can his 2025 NFL Draft stock soar?
Grades are starting to be finalized on our way to a 2025 NFL Draft big board, so let’s discuss one of the more fun prospects in the class in Penn State Football tight end and converted quarterback Tyler Warren.
State College, Pennsylvania has produced numerous tight ends over the last half-decade. Pat Freiermuth was selected in the second round in 2021 by the Pittsburgh Steelers, Brenton Strange in the second round in 2023 by the Jacksonville Jaguars, then Theo Johnson heard his name called in the fourth round a year ago. If you want to go back a few years before even Freiermuth, Mike Gesicki went in the second round to the Miami Dolphins in 2018.
Warren looks to not only be the next Nittany Lion tight end in the NFL but the best one.
The Nittany Lions struggle to create explosive plays. They lack the playmakers in the wide receiver room to consistently do it. However, they have found an antidote for a lack of firepower through the air, and it is to build their entire foundation out of getting the ball into the hands of their tight end.
Listed at 6-foot-6 and 260 pounds, Warren is a mammoth of a human being, but that does not discredit his high athletic upside and production he’s put on display this season for the 7-1 Nittany Lions. Thus far in his 2024 campaign, the fifth-year Senior has racked up a career-high 606 yards and four touchdowns on 51 catches. Amazingly, he has added another 87 yards and another score as a ball carrier.
A fun player used in a variety of ways, it’s time to dig a bit deeper. Looking at his exceptionally fun tape, let’s seek out the answer to the question:
How high is too high for Tyler Warren?
He’s not flawless…
Tyler Warren is a bad blocker. Let’s call it what it is.
Despite his massive stature, Warren falls off blocks far too easily, struggles to latch when he is frame-to-frame with the man across from him and is not hard to shed from a defender’s perspective. It’s the main concern on his tape.
The effort is there, but the technique and level of physicality are not, which is weird considering how physical he is with the ball in his hands. This is not to say that Warren cannot get there. He is a freak athlete with a massive frame who has only been playing the position for four years.
For the most part, however, any NFL team that drafts him early is not drafting him because of what he can do as a blocker. They’ll be drafting him for the points he’ll be able to put on the scoreboard.
There is not a football that Tyler Warren won’t catch
Through eight games this season and 62 targets, Tyler Warren has experienced just one drop. You read that correctly: Warren has dropped just one football all season. Warren has been Drew Allar’s best friend as he remains their best receiving option in a lackluster group of pass catchers.
And it’s not just catching the easy ones, which he is doing with exceptionally soft hands, but he’s adding flare to his tape by making spectacular plays. His tape is littered with unreal catches in traffic for the Nittany Lions offense.
Given his 6-foot-6 frame, 50/50 balls are more like 65/35 balls as Warren sits at 66 percent in contested catch situations. The tantalizing talent is an absolute ball magnet, no matter the context.
Warren is incredibly difficult to cover, and that will not change at the NFL level because of the flurry of ways he is used at the college level and can be used as a professional.
So let’s talk about that next.
Blue chip versatility
It is rare to see a player, and a tight end at that, have an entire offense built around their ability.
However, in Penn State’s two biggest games of the season, this was quite evidently the case. Warren was the catalyst for offensive success in both the USC and Ohio State games this season (yet they couldn’t find a way to get him a singular touch after he got them to 1st and goal at the three-yard line last weekend).
Warren has proven to be Penn State’s short-yardage battering ram and wildcat offense, is toting the rock at a rate of 8.7 yards per carry as a ball carrier (he has 10 carries! As a tight end!), and even scored on a trick play against USC where he is the individual snapping the football.
It’s rare to see teams throwing slip screens, shovel passes, and manufacturing the number of touches for a 260-pound athlete the way the Nittany Lions are trying to get the ball into the hands of their best playmaker.
Then we can talk about his alignment versatility as strictly a tight end. The 6-foot-6 and 260-pound tight end not only lines up in-line at a 36 percent clip, but as a big slot on 46 percent of snaps, and out wide as an X on 12 percent of his snaps. He is a true mismatch nightmare who is too explosive for linebackers to handle and has too much of a size advantage on defensive backs.
And even though he is not quite there as a blocker despite his massive frame, NFL teams will look at him, his inexperience at the position as a converted quarterback, and say “I can fix that.” He has way more in-line ability than shown at the college level.
The athletic ability shines through on tape
Appearing on The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman’s Freaks List in 2022 (not sure how he has been omitted over the last two years), Feldman wrote that Warren hit 35 inches on the vertical jump, power cleaned 365 pounds, bench pressed 350 pounds, and squatted 605 pounds.
Again, that was two years ago. Explosiveness is the name of the game for the 22-year-old tight end.
Whether that is linear or in the air, Warren can flat-out generate a ton of power from his lower half. This will show with actual data and numbers to put behind it, but Warren shows a prowess at extending in the air to high point and pluck footballs above the rim. His ability to accelerate from 0-to-100 is astounding for a man his size as well.
Even with a correctable false step off the line of scrimmage, Warren screams off the ball and into his routes. He eats up space in the blink of an eye between him and the man across from him. Where his explosiveness shines through the most, however, is when the football is in his hands.
Penn State looks to manufacture touches for Warren often. He’s their best offensive playmaker. Once the ball is in his hands he is looking to get upfield as quickly as possible. Even in wildcat looks, and he did it against Ohio State, Warren is not shy to get to the boundary, turn the corner, and turn on the jets.
Playing through contact? Not an issue for Warren.
He is more than happy to lower his shoulder and run through the face of the man across from him. He has forced 13 missed tackles on the season and has picked up an astounding 32 first downs for the Nittany Lions. Of his 87 rushing yards (which, come on as a tight end), 42 of them have come after contact.
This applies as he is working through his routes as well. While Warren can be a bit better at subtly using his hands to create pockets of separation at the top of his routes, he will run through any defensive back or linebacker looking to employ catch technique in off-man coverage.
Speaking of routes, Warren could be a bit of a smoother route runner. However, being a high-hipped 6-foot-6 it is a bit more understandable that he cannot sink his hips and snap off routes at 90 degrees or steeper without an added step out of his breaks. After the catch, there is a reason he opts to run through defenders as well instead of trying to make them miss in the open field.
This, however, does not discredit his ability to get to the edge and turn up-field, just do not expect Warren to stick his foot in the ground and make a man miss in the open field at a high level.
What does this mean for his 2025 NFL Draft stock?
Finalizing(ish) his grade with a large sample size against talented Power Four competition, Warren came out with a mid-second round grade. There are 150-plus players to still grade out before the draft and before I finalize my guide and big board, but Warren may finish as a top-15 player in this class.
It’s a down year across the board. Scouts are scrambling to even find 10 first round grades in the class. Outside of cornerback and edge rusher, every other premium position is lacking. Every offensive tackle in the class is being viewed as a guard at the next level, none of the quarterbacks are worth mortgaging a future over, and there are only three wide receivers we routinely see in the first round of mock drafts.
If there was ever a year for non-priority positions like running back or tight end to get elevated up the board it is this year. He’s an athletic freak as well and will only gain more fans when he goes to the NFL Scouting Combine and blows the doors off of Lucas Oil Stadium.
So when asking just how high is too high for Tyler Warren? Start finding good fits in the top 20 of the 2025 NFL Draft. There will be teams in that range with a need that Warren can fill. The Cincinnati Bengals, potentially the Los Angeles Chargers, New York Jets, and Los Angeles Rams all fit the bill as teams where Warren would fit in with few flaws.
Some team is going to risk it all on the already proven playmaker and high ceiling of the Penn State tight end.
