Diving into some numbers to see how Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer might be used in Raiders’ offense
The Las Vegas Raiders had one of the most surprising picks during the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft by selecting Georiga tight end Brock Bowers.
It’s not that Bowers isn’t an elite talent or not worth the 13th overall pick, but the Raiders already had a young promising tight end in 2023 second-round pick Michael Mayer. Naturally, questions arise about how Bowers and Mayer can co-exist in the same offense.
So, using numbers from Pro Football Focus, let’s dive into how new offensive coordinator Luke Getsy has incorporated tight ends in his scheme in the past. The numbers below come from Getsy’s time as the Green Bay Packers passing game coordinator (2020-2021) and as the Chicago Bears offensive coordinator (2022-2023).
Packers
In 2020, Getsy’s passing was dominated by one tight end, Robert Tonyan.
Tonyan led the position group in every statistical category by a wide margin, most significantly in targets. He saw 58 passes come his way while two Packers tight ends — Jace Sternberger and Marcedes Lewis — were tied for the second-most with 15 each.
So, there isn’t much to glean on from the play-caller’s ability to incorporate two tight ends in the passing game here seeing as one guy dominated over 60 percent of the targets in the position group.
However, the running game is a different story as Getsy leaned on Lewis more than anyone else as Lewis recorded 231 run-blocking snaps and earned a 74.1 PFF grade in that department. Tonyan was still involved in the running game but only took 212 reps which accounted for 33.2 percent of his snaps. Comparatively, the former’s rate was 54.7 percent, and he was asked to pass-block frequently as well.
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The following year, Green Bay’s tight ends shared the wealth more when it came to targets as Josiah Deguara led the way with 32, Lewis was second with 28 and Tonyan had 26. Also, all three had between 18 to 25 catches and 204 to 245 yards. However, what throws those end-of-season numbers off is that Tonyan tore an ACL halfway through the campaign.
Through the first eight weeks of the year, Tonyan dominated the target share by accounting for over 63 percent of the passes thrown to the team’s tight ends. Getsy did spread the wealth more once the starter went down as Deguara had about a 50 percent target share within the position group for the rest of the year and Lewis accounted for about 30 percent.
What’s interesting though is Getsy used Deguara and Lewis similarly in the passing game, keeping their targets to primarily short routes. The position group as a whole only saw nine targets 10 yards or more past the line of scrimmage once Tonyan went down.
Unsurprisingly, Lewis continued to be the team’s primary run-blocking tight end, recording about 150 more snaps as a run-blocker than anyone else.
Bears
When Getsy took over as the Bears offensive coordinator, he became even more reliant on one tight end. Cole Kmet was entering his third season with the club after being a second-round pick and ended up drawing 69 targets in 2022. Chicago didn’t have another player at the position even crack double-digits.
The running game followed a similar trend as Kmet logged 457 run-blocking snaps while Trevon Wesco had the second-most at 126. So, Getsy was pretty reliant on one tight end during his first season as an offensive coordinator.
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Granted, that could speak more to the Bears’ lack of depth at the position as Wesco hasn’t done much in his NFL career, and Ryan Griffin — the team’s third tight end — was at the end of his career. For good measure, Griffin hasn’t signed with another club since suiting up for the Bears two years ago.
Speaking of 2023, Tonyan and Lewis reunited with Getsy in Chicago last fall. However, it was still the Kmet show as he accounted for 88 targets while Tonyan had the second-most with just 17, one per game. The former second-round pick was even the team’s primary blocking tight end, out-pacing Lewis with 362 run-blocking snaps to 224.
Conclusion
Especially in the passing game, incorporating two talented tight ends into his offense will be unchartered territory for Getsy. That makes it difficult to project what the Raiders’ offense will look like at this stage. However, the play-caller has never had this much talent in the position group, so it’s time to embrace the unknown.