ALL TWENTY-TUESDAY: TIGHT END O.J HOWARD

“O.J. Howard is the best tight end prospect since Rob Gronkowski.”

“Alabama’s O.J. Howard might just be the safest prospect in this entire draft class.”

“If I’m not getting Myles Garrett, the one guy I want is O.J. Howard.”

When it was all said and done, the “can’t-miss” prospect that everyone but the Buccaneers, in fact, missed on was Alabama’s O.J. Howard. Howard falling as far as he did could almost be considered a travesty. There were teams that could have used him in the Top 10; there were teams that could’ve used him in the Top 5.

Don’t worry, this film breakdown isn’t going to try to answer the question of, “why did Howard fall all the way to the Bucs?” The reason I’m not asking or answering that question is because no matter what I show you, it won’t add up. There’s no reason to ask that particular question of why, because it just isn’t relevant – in the end, it was simply teams pick for their needs more than the talent on their boards.

Instead, what I’m going to do is tell you why he’s poised to be one of the best draft prospects in this class in terms of talent and scheme fit. Today we’re going to look at what it really means to be a three-down tight end, the incredible success rate on the plays Lane Kiffin did dial up for Howard (even though there were far too few of them), and how Howard and Cameron Brate can both have their own success within Tampa Bay’s game plan.

New Look Style; Old School Game

In a generation of new tight ends that specialize as pure pass catchers or pure run blockers, O.J. Howard is the best of both worlds.

Let’s face it, what makes money in football? Scoring points. If you’re a 6-foot-4, 6-foot-5 kid playing tight end, and you have a chance to be a touchdown scorer on your team, whether that be from the red zone or from anywhere, you’re going to want to do that a heck of a lot more than just being a blocker.

Blocking doesn’t get glory, blocking gets bruises. Not many people can take pride in bruises when they have the potential to get glory; Howard does. The play above is one of my favorite plays from Howard, because it shows the passion he has a blocker. When he’s asked to block, he doesn’t just want to seal you off. If he can, he’s going to bury you – and, boy, he can.

But just like there’s a versatility when being a receiver, there’s also a versatility in Howard’s blocking game. Over the years, during his time in the SEC, Howard had his opportunity to block some of the best pass rushers and run stoppers in college football, some of whom are either already playing or are about to play in the NFL.

In the play above, the man Howard is chip blocking is none other than the No. 1 overall prospect in this year’s draft, Myles Garrett. Watch how Garrett not only comes at Howard straight on, but he also times the snap count and get an extra burst of explosion towards Howard’s body. But, if you’ll notice, it didn’t matter. Howard, though he was only chipping Garrett and moving on to a route, stood him up so well that the left tackle didn’t even really have to do anything.

That’s the No. 1 overall pick coming at Howard with an extra step of momentum in his favor that just got stonewalled by a tight end, folks.

But, the versatility doesn’t stop there. In the play above, with Howard having his hand on the line of scrimmage, he’s asked to slow down a 6-foot-1, 313-pound defensive tackle, Elijah Qualls, playing on the edge, whose job was nothing more than to run at Howard at full speed, knock him over and get to the quarterback.

But, as you can see, it didn’t workout like that. Despite having naturally lower leverage and move of a push going towards the pocket, Howard was able to get out of his stance, stay low at 6-foot-5 and drive Qualls momentum up, not through as to neutralize how far he could push back. That’s not only showing the strength and balance to play as a blocker, but also the technique in what to do what neutralizing leverage.

Finally, let’s look at how he blocks in space.

Since featuring Howard getting the best of some of the best draft prospects in the class seem to be the theme, here’s a clip of him making the No. 6 overall pick this year, LSU safety Jamal Adams, look helpless in space on run defense.

Howard is not only technical when engaging attackers, neutralizing them very quickly, he’s also technical in how he approaches some of them in space. Howard consistently squares his hips and his shoulder into his target, traps them in his long frame, and angles them away form where they’re trying to go.

You can “win” a blocking assignment in a few different ways. Most of the time it’s just locking up a defender so he can’t make a tackle. But, for left tackle and tight ends, it’s important to not only lock up rushers and linebackers, but also angle them as to seal the edge and create the running lane for the ball carrier. Howard does both, and if you’ll go back to some of Alabama’s biggest runs over the last two years, many of them come between lanes created by Howard’s imposing blocks.

Howard’s play style combines the new-look tight ends as a receiver with the old school feel as a blocker. He’s the best of both worlds.

Pick Your Poison

Let’s talk about something Kiffin and Alabama didn’t do enough of with O.J. Howard, and that is throwing the ball to him deep down the field.

Howard not getting the ball much at all during the regular season in both of his last two years was surprising, but what wasn’t surprising was that, with a month to prepare, the best games of Howard’s career came when the offensive coordinators at Alabama realized that he was the best option they had.

The play above wasn’t blown coverage. It was, “Oh my goodness, I did not think he could run this fast so I tried to turn my body faster than it could possibly turn” coverage.

What I want to focus on is Howard’s release. Look how fast Howard gets out of his stance with his hand in the ground, and into a full stride down the field. That’s what threw the defensive back off. You may think that the linebacker could have done a better job chipping Howard as he ran by (as is the design of the play if that is to happen), but Howard was already at full speed so fast that the linebacker could barely even touch him, let alone re-route him.

Howard’s release off the line of scrimmage is elite, and release is something that wins a lot in football. Whether it’s a defensive end getting off the ball and around the edge, a receiver chopping his feet, or Howard here off the line off scrimmage, elite release and burst correlates to success so often in football.

Though Howard could be and should be used more down the field than we saw him used at Alabama, that doesn’t mean the Bucs shouldn’t also use him in ways like shown above.

In the play above, Howard is a step back behind the line of scrimmage. If you’ll go back to the very first GIF of him blocking the Clemson defender to the ground, he was also lined up in this position. At the snap in that clip, Howard ran behind the line of scrimmage in a split-zone blocking concept to take out the linebacker. But, in the clip above, he released to his right, instead of across the line of scrimmage and was able to get separation there to take the ball up-field.

When you combine everything that Howard is as a player, it’s plays like the one above that make him so coveted by offensive coordinators. Teams cannot anticipate what Howard is going to do because he can do so many of them and do them, not only well, but very fast. That means if you guess where he’s going and you guess wrong, you’re toast. Howard also does a good job of not giving away where he’s about to go because he doesn’t have to cheat like that to get to his spot; he’s athletic enough to get there on his own and keep the element deception.

To top it all off, let’s bring the triple threat of Howard lining up a step off the line of scrimmage full circle.

In the first GIF of him blocking, he came behind the line of scrimmage to take someone out. In the second GIF, he immediately released to the outside and caught a pass. And, finally, in the play directly above, he went behind the line of scrimmage, faked a block, caught the pass, turned the corner and ran much faster than any man with that size should.

I’m going to be honest with you all. Brate, who led the NFL in touchdown catches for a tight end last year and could have very well been a Pro Bowl tight end, cannot do that. In fact, he cannot do a good amount of what we showed in this film review – and that’s not to knock what Brate *can* do at all!

It would not surprise me one bit if it’s Howard who is lining up on the first offensive series of the year as the team’s starting tight end and not Brate. Furthermore, I would not be shocked if sooner rather than later, it was Howard who took on the feature role with Brate as the complement.

The play above is a play I recorded from this year’s Senior Bowl, and when I saw it, I immediately thought of what the Buccaneers offense could be like in a two-tight end system – little did I know that one of the players featured in this perfect example would be drafted by that very team.

Howard and Brate can co-exist, and they can co-exist very well, I think. Though Brate isn’t a bruising blocker, he can hold his own, and isn’t a big liability with his hand on the line. That would open the door for all kinds of plays like the one above that feature double-routes at varying depth down the field. Chances are teams won’t be able to cover them both, and if they do, that most likely means that DeSean Jackson or Mike Evans will have won their one-on-one match ups.

Howard’s attitude and approach to the game of football – and life – are as rare as the talent he has. He’s not just a willing blocker, he’s a dominant blocker; he’s not just a good receiver, he’s a mismatch nightmare; he wasn’t just a good value pick, he could end up going down as the best pick of this entire draft class.

The last part is in the Buccaneers hands. The sky is the limit for them – and for Howard.