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      As Underclassmen Flood the N.F.L. Draft, Landing Places Dry Up

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      Since the league began allowing underclassmen to enter the draft in 1990, the number who do so has ballooned more than threefold. There are fewer options for those who go undrafted.Clifton Duck may watch a bit of the N.F.L. draft this weekend, as he has in previous years. But he may not. “It’s everyone’s dream to go to the draft on TV,” he said. “But it’s a long, uncontrolled process, and you can’t determine what happens.”For Duck, the dream of playing in the N.F.L. has so far eluded him. Despite his size at 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, Duck had been named an all-conference defensive back at Appalachian State each of his three seasons. But when the team’s coach left to take over the Louisville program, taking a number of the staff with him, Duck figured he’d enter the 2019 draft.Duck didn’t seek a lot of advice about his pro potential, essentially betting on himself to impress N.F.L. personnel. “Whatever team or camp I went to, I knew I was going to produce,” he said.Duck, like an increasing number of underclassmen who leave college early, wasn’t drafted. He signed a free-agent contract with the Chicago Bears in May 2019 and had a solid camp, including an interception and 62-yard runback in a preseason game against the Giants. Still, he was cut.He returned home to his parents’ house in Charlotte, N.C., and since then, Duck has been taking online classes at Appalachian State to complete his communications degree (he’s one semester short), working out, coaching at his old high school and working the night shift at CarMax. The 2020 Canadian Football League season was canceled, but he was contacted by a local scout for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, so he is now preparing for their July training camp. If that goes well, who knows? For Duck, the N.F.L. dream still lives.Clifton Duck made a highlight play during the preseason for the Bears but was still cut. “You just go back to square one and keep putting in the work,” he said.Steven Ryan/Getty Images“You just go back to square one and keep putting in the work.”In the 31 years since the N.F.L. began allowing underclassmen to declare for the draft, the number who do so every year has ballooned more than threefold, while the available jobs have not.In 1990, 28 underclassmen declared for the draft, and some cashed in: Five were among the first 10 picks. Ten, however, were not drafted.Starting in 2014, the total number of underclassmen who declared early and had not graduated began nearing or exceeding 100. More underclassmen are being drafted, but those going undrafted jumped, too, topping 20 most years. This year, 98 underclassmen who have not graduated declared for the draft.More Underclassmen Taking N.F.L. LeapThe number of underclassmen declaring for the N.F.L. draft has roughly doubled over the past decade. At least 20 of them have gone undrafted in all but one of the past nine years.

      Note: Ninety-eight underclassmen have declared for the 2021 N.F.L. draft.Source: N.F.L.The New York TimesWhile the N.C.A.A. addressed the swell of early entrants for the N.B.A. draft with a 2018 rule change that allows players to return to college before a deadline if they haven’t signed with an agent, college football is considering no such change.Unlike in basketball, where undrafted players can hope to catch on with the G-League or pro teams in Europe and China, or baseball, which boasts 120 minor league clubs, in football the options are slim.“There’s no alternative. There’s no option where I can go play in Lithuania,” Alabama Coach Nick Saban told The Athletic in 2018.There are only 53 active players per N.F.L. team. There will be 259 slots in this year’s draft, including compensatory picks, and 98 underclassmen have been added to the pool by declaring early. An N.C.A.A. study of the 2019 draft showed that just 6.8 percent of eligible Football Bowl Subdivision players were taken.“The N.F.L. is a private entity with a business model that’s been successful,” said UConn Coach Randy Edsall, who has also worked for N.F.L. teams. “If a young man is going to come out early, he better make sure he’s done his due diligence. If you declare, then understand what the ramifications are. You have to live with that decision.”The N.F.L. declined to comment for this article but referred to the “College Player Development” section of its website, where the mission of the league’s College Advisory Committee is outlined. “The board evaluates up to five underclassmen from each school, though evaluations for additional players are considered on a case-by-case basis,” the website said. “Limiting the number of players the committee evaluates allows the scouts to focus on those players with a realistic chance and provide more accurate projections.”Many players don’t seek the committee’s advice, or ignore it. Axios reported that during the 2016 and 2017 drafts, 80 underclassmen who were advised by the committee to stay in school declared early anyway.Williams awaited interviews during the N.F.L. Scouting Combine in 2019, but went undrafted. “I felt I’d just leave and take my chances,” he said of his decision to leave Washington State early.Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesAs the number of early entrants has grown, so has discussion of changes — but there’s been little sign of consensus. The N.C.A.A. did not respond to requests for comment.Saban and the former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, who now coaches the Jacksonville Jaguars, have discussed some of these proposals with N.F.L. representatives, but brokering a solution between two bureaucracies like the N.C.A.A. and the N.F.L. will likely be a glacial process.One popular proposal is for the N.F.L. to adopt a system similar to the N.B.A.’s model. Underclassmen who don’t sign with an agent can attend a pre-draft combine — this year in June — and receive feedback, maintaining college eligibility if they withdraw from the N.B.A. draft by July. But in football underclassmen must declare for the N.F.L. draft in January, before the scouting combine, which is traditionally held in the spring.Rick Neuheisel, a CBS Sports commentator and former college coach, argued that even after the draft any player who isn’t chosen should be able to return to school.“Why do we make them walk the plank?” he asked.Other suggestions include expanding N.F.L. practice squads, creating a developmental league like basketball’s G-League or handing out Advisory Committee assessments earlier.But the solutions are complicated too. Colleges would have prepared in spring practice for a roster that doesn’t include the early entrants, and a new recruiting class addressing the anticipated roster gaps would have been signed in February; college roster management would be scrambled.It’s too late for any of those proposals to be of use to James Williams. He gained 3,090 all-purpose yards in three years as a running back at Washington State, and declared following his junior year in 2018. Williams’s position coach had departed before that season, and Williams didn’t connect as well with the replacement; a freshman back began eating into Williams’s playing time. He and his girlfriend had a baby that December.Williams worked out on Tuesday to stay in shape to play the upcoming season with the C.F.L.’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Pete Caster for The New York TimesThe College Advisory Committee counseled him to stay in school, telling him that he lacked the size and speed for the pros, but he figured Washington State’s pass-oriented scheme and competition at his position would be obstacles.“If I went back, how much better would I have been?” he asked. “I felt I’d just leave and take my chances.”On the draft’s third day, when the final three rounds were being selected, there was a party for him at a Los Angeles-area restaurant.“But as they got to the last 20 picks, I started panicking,” he said.Williams wasn’t drafted. What followed was a free-agent contract with Kansas City and tryouts with Washington, Green Bay, Indianapolis, New England and Detroit, where he played in one exhibition game.But he didn’t stick. So Williams signed a contract with the C.F.L.’s Blue Bombers. Meantime, he’s living with his fiancée’s parents in Lewiston, Idaho, training high schoolers and working as a personal trainer; he is a semester short of a degree in humanities.“My life’s been dedicated to football for 21 years, but I don’t want to just rely on football,” Williams said. “If it doesn’t work out, that’s a message to find something else I’m passionate about.”Williams with his family after a long day of work as a personal trainer.Pete Caster for The New York Times More

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      2021 N.F.L. Draft: What to Look for on Day 2 and Day 3

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      A complete guide to the remainder of the N.F.L. draft, with rounds two through seven.The first round of the N.F.L. draft commands much of the attention, and rightly so.But the second and third rounds can be just as important because teams often find valuable players who were not among the first 32 picks.And don’t ignore the later rounds, either. Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady, owner of seven Super Bowl rings, was drafted by New England in the sixth round in 2000. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who signed a four-year, $160-million contract this off-season, was drafted in the fourth round in 2016.Below is a complete guide to understanding the rest of the 2021 N.F.L. draft.How do I watch it?The second and third rounds start Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern time. The final four rounds will start Saturday at noon. ABC, ESPN and NFL Network will continue to broadcast the event.Who has the most picks?The Philadelphia Eagles entered Thursday holding 11 draft picks, the most in the league, with but traded a third-round pick to end up with 10 total selections — nine on Friday and Saturday. Jacksonville, Miami and Kansas City will be very active early on Day 2, as each has two second-round picks.The Seattle Seahawks have a league-low three picks remaining — one in the second round, one in the fourth, and one in the seventh.What positions will be up for grabs after the first round?Expect to see a lot of running backs and defensive players taken, because there are plenty of options.With the Pittsburgh Steelers selecting Najee Harris and Jacksonville picking Travis Etienne, some of the best running backs remaining include North Carolina’s Javonte Williams, Ohio State’s Trey Sermon and Oklahoma’s Rhamondre Stevenson.Teams started taking defensive players toward the middle of the first round, but some talented prospects still remain on the board. They include Texas Christian safety Trevon Moehrig, Alabama defensive tackle Christian Barmore and Florida State cornerback Asante Samuel Jr.Regardless of position, some of the best available players include Notre Dame linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Mississippi receiver Elijah Moore and Oklahoma State offensive tackle Tevin Jenkins.Which teams will own the rest of the draft?Kansas City, along with the Houston Texans, the Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams, did not pick in the first round. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.While the first round was full of potential talent, some general managers use those draft picks as currency to acquire proven stars.Look no further than the Rams, who for five consecutive years have not participated in Day 1 draft festivities because they traded out of the first round. After trading quarterback Jared Goff and two future first-round draft picks to the Detroit Lions for Matthew Stafford this off-season, the Rams are not slated to make a first-round selection until 2024.And in 2019, General Manager Les Snead used two first-round picks in a deal with Jacksonville to acquire cornerback Jalen Ramsey, arguably the best player at his position. In 2020, the Seahawks followed a similar model by sending two first-round picks to the Jets for the star safety Jamal Adams.When asked about the steep price of trading two future first-round picks to Miami for this year’s third overall selection, which the 49ers used on quarterback Trey Lance of North Dakota State, San Francisco 49ers Coach Kyle Shanahan referenced the Rams and the Seahawks, fellow members of the N.F.C. West.“I think those decisions were awesome for their teams, and I hate playing against them because of it,” he said. More

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      Round 1 NFL Draft Order and Picks: Here Are the Results

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      1. Jacksonville Jaguars — Trevor Lawrence (quarterback, Clemson)2. New York Jets — Zach Wilson (quarterback, Brigham Young)3. San Francisco 49ers — Trey Lance (quarterback, North Dakota State)4. Atlanta Falcons — Kyle Pitts (tight end, Florida)5. Cincinnati Bengals — Ja’Marr Chase (wide receiver, Louisiana State)6. Miami Dolphins — Jaylen Waddle (wide receiver, Alabama)7. Detroit Lions — Penei Sewell (offensive tackle, Oregon)8. Carolina Panthers — Jaycee Horn (cornerback, South Carolina)9. Denver Broncos — Patrick Surtain II (cornerback, Alabama)10. Philadelphia Eagles (from Dallas Cowboys) — DeVonta Smith (wide receiver, Alabama)11. Chicago Bears (from New York Giants) — Justin Fields (quarterback, Ohio State)12. Dallas Cowboys (from Eagles) — Micah Parsons (linebacker, Penn State)13. Los Angeles Chargers — Rashawn Slater (offensive tackle, Northwestern)14. New York Jets (from Minnesota Vikings) — Alijah Vera-Tucker (guard, Southern California)15. New England Patriots — Mac Jones (quarterback, Alabama)16. Arizona Cardinals — Zaven Collins (linebacker, Tulsa)17. Las Vegas Raiders — Alex Leatherwood (offensive tackle, Alabama)18. Miami Dolphins — Jaelan Phillips (edge rusher, Miami of Florida)19. Washington Football Team — Jamin Davis (linebacker, Kentucky)20. New York Giants (from Bears) — Kadarius Toney (wide receiver, Florida)21. Indianapolis Colts22. Tennessee Titans23. Minnesota Vikings (from Jets)24. Pittsburgh Steelers25. Jacksonville Jaguars26. Cleveland Browns27. Baltimore Ravens28. New Orleans Saints29. Green Bay Packers30. Buffalo Bills31. Baltimore Ravens32. Tampa Bay Buccaneers More

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      A Brief History of the Jets’ Quarterback Failures

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      The Jets Try to Find a Quarterback … AgainBen ShpigelReporting on the N.F.L. Draft ��Larry C. Morris/The New York TimesTo succeed Namath, the Jets drafted Richard Todd, the first of six QBs they’ve since taken in the first round. Number of Pro Bowls among them? Two, by Ken O’Brien, who was taken three spots ahead of Dan Marino. Dan Marino! More

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      Philadelphia Eagles G.M. Howie Roseman On Team’s Next Steps

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      Philadelphia’s general manager has come under fire in recent years for Carson Wentz’s contract, the team’s post-Super Bowl slide and reports of dysfunction in the front office.Nick Foles. The Philly Special. The Lombardi Trophy parading down Broad Street.The giddy memories from the Philadelphia Eagles’ first Super Bowl victory after the 2017 season have faded dramatically for the team’s famously vocal fans, who have fallen into despair over the rapid descent since.After squeaking into the N.F.L. playoffs in 2018 and 2019, the Eagles, through a combination of injuries and bad play, went into free fall last season, finishing with a 4-11-1 record. The architects of the championship run were rewarded: Quarterback Carson Wentz signed a second contract reportedly worth $128 million over four years (with about two-thirds of it guaranteed), while Coach Doug Pederson and General Manager Howie Roseman got contract extensions. But Pederson was fired after last season and the oft-injured Wentz, once thought to be the franchise’s future, was traded to the Colts in March.Roseman, who has been general manager for every season but one since 2010, now must find a way out of the morass for the Eagles in a year when the salary cap was cut 8 percent leaguewide. The Eagles’ current contracts also put them near the bottom of the league in money available for new player signings. Roseman, in two interviews, spoke with The New York Times about the franchise’s uphill climb ahead of the 2021 draft that starts Thursday, where the Eagles hold 11 total picks.The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.There are still restrictions on meeting potential draft picks. For example, you met Carson Wentz four times before you picked him. This year, you would have had no face-to-face meetings. How have you adapted?Roseman: I think that that’s where the value of our scouting is even more important than ever, because these guys have really studied these players and talked to their sources since they came into college. Now it’s different because of the pandemic. But they have these backgrounds on these guys starting the year before they come out and they are underclassmen. And so you’re really relying on them and who are the leaders of the team. The background and character is such a big part of what we do in a normal year, but even more integral when you’re talking about this kind of process.You helped rebuild the Eagles after their last downturn in 2015 and 2016. How is the process different this time?We’ve been in situations before where we might not have as many assets as we do the next two years. We’re excited about that. We climbed the mountain once, we’ll climb it again.Why did you move on from Carson Wentz after making so much effort to draft him and sign him to a contract extension?When we looked at the whole picture going forward and being able to not only get the draft picks, but also get close to $50 million in cap relief, we felt like it was a win-win for us, the player and the Colts. And those are the best trades.What should Eagles fans take away from the trade that sent Wentz to Indianapolis (for a third-round pick this year and a conditional second-round pick next year)?Because we have so many picks over the next two years, it gives us the flexibility to not only move up and down the draft board, to target some guys, but also if there is an opportunity in the trade market at a particular position, to go get that guy, especially when we look at the cap and how the cap got reduced because of the pandemic.Was it anything specific about Wentz that led you to move on?I don’t know that we can point to one factor. I think that it was a variety of factors that led us to this, including his desire for a fresh start.Does this mean Jalen Hurts is your new franchise quarterback?This is one of those games that when you take just a small period of time, you can’t evaluate any player just on potential. So for any young player, including Jalen, he has to stack days on days to continue improving and work at his craft.Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts celebrated a touchdown during a game against the Washington Football Team last January.Chris Szagola/Associated PressWhat’s been the hardest aspect of the salary cap being cut by 8 percent, particularly when you have so little cap space on your roster?This is the first year that I can remember that we were really forced to be more conservative in terms of opportunities. We are balancing that with the knowledge that we have a lot of draft picks going forward that will allow us to get a lot of young players onto the roster.What do you think when you hear criticism that you’re not doing enough or the players aren’t doing enough or the coaches aren’t doing enough?We’re not looking at this like, you know, let’s see how long that we can struggle. We’re looking to turn this around as quickly as possible, and we feel like we’ve done that. You talked about the transition from Coach [Andy] Reid and Coach [Chip] Kelly came in, and we won 20 games the next two years. Coach Pederson came, we won seven and then we won 35 the next three years. And so that’s our goal, and accumulating assets is a way to make us better quicker — it’s not to sit here and just see how long it takes to get back on top.Some reports have described dysfunctional communication in the team’s front office last year. Are those descriptions fair?Last year with the pandemic was a unique year in terms of communication for everyone. But at the same time, if we didn’t have a team that worked together, then we wouldn’t have had the success that we had in the past when we dealt with adversity, whether it was coming back in 2016, getting a whole new group and winning a championship in our second year, or in 2018 and 2019, with the starts we had, finishing strong one year and making a strong run in the playoffs and the other year winning the division. More

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      Here Are The Needs for the Biggest Movers in the NFL Draft

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      San Francisco traded for the No. 3 pick to select a quarterback, and Baltimore traded into the first round, sending Orlando Brown to Kansas City, to reload for the future.The top of the N.F.L. draft quaked late last month when the Miami Dolphins, the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles swung what amounted to a three-team trade. The bottom of it shuddered on Friday when the Baltimore Ravens acquired another first-round pick.In March, the Dolphins sent the No. 3 pick in the draft to San Francisco for the No. 12 pick this year, first- and third-round picks in 2022 and a first-round pick in 2023. Then they shipped the No. 12 pick and a fourth-rounder this year and a first-rounder in 2022 to the Eagles, who gave Miami the No. 6 pick and a fifth-round selection.Those teams have not tipped off their draft targets — though 49ers Coach Kyle Shanahan faces questions nearly every day about his team’s quarterback position — but here are their needs ahead of Thursday night’s first round:No. 3 Pick: San Francisco 49ers (From Miami)Both Justin Fields and Mac Jones have been speculated as targets for the San Francisco 49ers with the No. 3 pick in the 2021 N.F.L. draft.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesMichael Reaves/Getty ImagesWith Jacksonville set to pick Trevor Lawrence at No. 1 and the Jets most likely taking Zach Wilson at No. 2, this is where the draft begins and where all the speculation finally, mercifully, ceases. After trading with the Dolphins to move up nine spots last month, the 49ers are taking a quarterback to sit behind, or supplant, Jimmy Garoppolo this year. Their choice will reveal much about Kyle Shanahan’s vision.Does he value an accurate, mechanically sound pocket passer who can execute a scheme designed to yield completions and yards after receptions? If so, come on down, Mac Jones of Alabama.But after watching Patrick Mahomes toast the 49ers in the Super Bowl to cap the 2019 season and seeing Josh Allen shred them in Week 13 last season, Shanahan could be craving a mobile quarterback. He has Justin Fields of Ohio State and Trey Lance of North Dakota State to choose between. That decision will fling the rest of the top 10 into chaos.No. 6 Pick: Miami Dolphins (From Philadelphia)L.S.U. receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who opted out of the 2020 college football season, could be available when the Dolphins select sixth.David J. Phillip/Associated PressThe Dolphins want to put quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in a better position for success in his second N.F.L. season. Their trades with Philadelphia and San Francisco guarantee that they can do so with the sixth overall pick, where at least one receiver among Ja’Marr Chase of Louisiana State and Jaylen Waddle and DeVonta Smith of Alabama, or the unicorn tight end Kyle Pitts of Florida, will be available. Offensive tackle Penei Sewell of Oregon could also be available.Miami is picking here because a video surfaced minutes before the 2016 draft of the offensive tackle prospect Laremy Tunsil wearing a gas mask and appearing to smoke marijuana through a bong. To explain: Because of the video, Tunsil was selected at No. 13, lower than expected, by Miami. After developing him into one of the league’s best tackles, the Dolphins, as they stripped their roster for a rebuild, were able to trade a package that included him to the Houston Texans in 2019 for a package that included three draft picks, including the third pick in this year’s draft.No. 12 Pick: Philadelphia Eagles (From Miami, via San Francisco)Either the Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith, left, or Jaylen Waddle, right, of Alabama, would be a welcome addition to the Eagles, who are looking to upgrade the receiver position.Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesBy trading back from the sixth pick and obtaining a 2022 first-round pick in the process, the Eagles signaled that they would replenish their aging roster under their new coach, Nick Sirianni. The move collects a raft of picks for 2022, when, hopefully, the college football schedule returns to normal and teams can better evaluate prospects.Maybe most important to Eagles fans, it confirmed that Philadelphia was not interested in selecting a quarterback high or displacing Jalen Hurts — at least not this year. With two first-round picks in 2022, and possibly a third if Carson Wentz reaches playing time benchmarks in Indianapolis, the Eagles are positioned to acquire a quarterback next off-season if Hurts flops.As for this year, the Eagles need receivers and upgrades at a lot of other positions. If Jaylen Waddle or DeVonta Smith from Alabama is available, General Manager Howie Roseman may be tempted. If neither is, and if he doesn’t like the talent at another need position (like, say, cornerback), he might just trade out again.No. 31 Pick: Baltimore Ravens (From Kansas City)Baltimore traded away the Pro Bowl offensive lineman Orlando Brown to gain a first-round pick in this year’s draft and stockpiled future selections.Brett Carlsen/Associated PressThe Ravens on Friday traded a player at a premium position, the Pro Bowl left tackle Orlando Brown, to Kansas City for this pick and others. It might have seemed peculiar, helping the best team in the conference get better at protecting Patrick Mahomes’s blind side, but Ravens General Manager Eric DeCosta values draft choices. For unloading Brown, he got three others spread across the next two years.Baltimore, which also picks at No. 27, now has options, either to trade up, to bolster its receiving corps or to improve a pass rush that lost the free-agent defensive end Matt Judon to New England in the off-season.Full 2021 N.F.L. Draft Order1. Jacksonville Jaguars2. New York Jets3. San Francisco 49ers4. Atlanta Falcons5. Cincinnati Bengals6. Miami Dolphins7. Detroit Lions8. Carolina Panthers9. Denver Broncos10. Dallas Cowboys11. New York Giants12. Philadelphia Eagles13. Los Angeles Chargers14. Minnesota Vikings15. New England Patriots16. Arizona Cardinals17. Las Vegas Raiders18. Miami Dolphins19. Washington Football Team20. Chicago Bears21. Indianapolis Colts22. Tennessee Titans23. New York Jets24. Pittsburgh Steelers25. Jacksonville Jaguars26. Cleveland Browns27. Baltimore Ravens28. New Orleans Saints29. Green Bay Packers30. Buffalo Bills31. Baltimore Ravens32. Tampa Bay Buccaneers More

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      Kyle Pitts Is Set to Be the N.F.L.’s Next Revelation at Tight End

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      After he is drafted Thursday, Pitts is expected to join the N.F.L.’s top-shelf tight ends: Rob Gronkowski, George Kittle and Travis Kelce, big-bodied pass catchers who are coveted by contending teams.In the first quarter of a game against Kentucky last November, the University of Florida coaching staff called a favorite play for a favorite player.Kyle Pitts, the bruising and balletic tight end forecast to be among the earliest selections in N.F.L. draft this week, had returned to the field that day, three weeks after being concussed on an illegal hit in a game against Georgia. The Gators’ first drive of the Kentucky game had just begun gathering momentum, nudging to Florida’s 35-yard line, when Coach Dan Mullen dialed up a “snake” pattern — a route traditionally assigned to slight, fast-twitch receivers, not to players who check in at 6 foot 6 and 245 pounds, as Pitts does.“It’s an amazingly athletic route,” Tim Brewster, Florida’s tight ends coach, said. “Really good receivers can struggle with the route.”Pitts came off the left end of the line at full speed, tilted his shoulders toward the sideline and — so quickly that video of the play seems to skip a frame — veered back inside, leaving the cornerback who covered Pitts whirling his hips and grabbing at air. Quarterback Kyle Trask hit Pitts in stride, and he did the rest, opening up to a gliding sprint. The play went for a 65-yard touchdown, the first of three for Pitts that day.“The kid freakin’ ripped it,” Brewster said. “I mean, it was absolutely gorgeous.”Pitts’s game, a blend of rare physicality and even rarer grace, tends to inspire such double-barreled language. He is poised to join the ranks of the N.F.L.’s top-shelf tight ends, players like Rob Gronkowski, George Kittle and Travis Kelce, who have given recent Super Bowl contenders offensive options that are nearly impossible to cover.Pitts and those other big-bodied pass catchers epitomize what N.F.L. teams seek in “unicorns” — parlance borrowed from a similar positional evolution in the N.B.A. These players not only excel at a given job description but also pair attributes long considered disparate. Pitts gets open like a small man and brings the ball down like a big one, high-jumping along the sideline or shoving through pairs of defenders to wrangle passes. He makes possible a new version of the sport.“It really is mismatches,” Mike Renner, a draft analyst for Pro Football Focus, said of modern offensive philosophy. “Offensive coordinators are realizing it’s not necessarily their scheme; it’s about getting the right guy on the right defender. You’re seeing more and more of that — those guys that have multiple skill sets are the ones that are more coveted.”Running backs who might once have been considered too small to carry the every-down load, such as the New Orleans Saints’ Alvin Kamara, have stepped to the position’s vanguard, catching passes almost as often as they take handoffs. Receivers who don’t fit the traditional profile — the Seattle Seahawks’ D.K. Metcalf was once thought to be too bulky to run effective routes — have become game breakers.Tight ends George Kittle (left) and Travis Kelce have helped transform the position with their combination of size, speed and balletic catches.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesJamie Squire/Getty ImagesNowhere has the shift been more pronounced than at the tight end position, once the province of dutiful blockers and complementary receiving targets. Kittle is the muscle of the San Francisco 49ers’ ground game, cracking into linebackers to clear space for outside runs, and the focal point of its aerial attack, amassing a team-high 1,053 yards during the 2019 season, which ended with the 49ers in the Super Bowl.Kansas City’s Kelce is a less renowned blocker but a bigger vertical threat; until late in the 2020 season, he led all N.F.L. players, not just tight ends, in total receiving yards. In trying to re-establish their championship bona fides, the New England Patriots added a pair of tight ends this off-season, Jonnu Smith and Hunter Henry, giving the team a chance to recreate the offensive confusion that made the pairing of Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez so successful in the early 2010s.To defend against such threats, “what you need is for someone like me to go play linebacker,” said Tony Gonzalez, the Hall of Fame tight end who in the 1990s and 2000s prefigured this age of rangy receiving threats. “But we don’t want to play linebacker; we want to score touchdowns.”At Florida’s pro-day workout for N.F.L. scouts in March, Pitts flashed the attributes that make him what Renner terms “a true modern tight end weapon,” registering a wingspan of nearly 7 feet and a 33½-inch vertical leap and running his 40-yard dash in 4.44 seconds — faster than some All-Pro wide receivers.Shortly thereafter, Pitts laid out professional aspirations that extend beyond going in the top five of this year’s draft, as many analysts predict he will: “Start at a high level and keep increasing every year and being able to do other things that other tight ends aren’t doing,” Pitts said. “I feel like I’ll be the best to ever do it.”When Pitts arrived in Gainesville in 2018 as a 17-year-old freshman, the challenge for Florida coaches lay in convincing him of all that his body could do. “It was just a learning process of him understanding how to play in his frame,” said Larry Scott, Pitts’s tight end coach for his first two years with the Gators and now the head coach at Howard University. Scott marveled at Pitts’s catch radius — his ability to adjust to passes close to his shoe tops or high above his helmet — and taught him when to outrun defenders and when to invite contact and create leverage.“Just because a guy’s on you doesn’t mean you’re not open,” Scott told Pitts. “You’re always open.”Pitts caught just three passes his freshman season, but he built a habit of studying the N.F.L. players who will soon become his peers. He watched film of Kittle and of Las Vegas Raiders tight end Darren Waller, eyeing nuances of footwork and positioning. He drilled line-of-scrimmage releases and blocking technique incessantly.Larry Scott, Florida’s tight ends coach for Pitts’s first two seasons, told his 6-foot-6, 245-pound charge, “Just because a guy’s on you doesn’t mean you’re not open. You’re always open.”Sam Craft/Associated PressAt Archbishop Wood High School outside Philadelphia, Pitts had played defense as well as tight end and receiver, once registering a pair of interceptions in a state championship game, and he grew adept at reading complex coverages and knowing how to settle into open zones.The practice-field and film-room work helped Pitts produce the finest season by a tight end in recent college football history in 2020. Lining up wherever he was needed in Florida’s formations, Pitts caught 43 passes for 770 yards and a dozen touchdowns — despite missing the better part of three regular-season games because of the concussion and a fourth with an unrelated injury, and also sitting out the Gators’ Cotton Bowl game to prepare for the draft.His 17.9 yards per reception eclipsed the 15.9-yard average of DeVonta Smith, the Alabama receiver who won the 2020 Heisman Trophy; Pitts finished 10th in the voting, higher than any other tight end in more than four decades.Even top draft prospects tend to get typecast, as talent evaluators look for skills that can reliably transfer to the next level. Coaches talk about Pitts, though, in the language not of production but of possibility.After Pitts’s pro-day workout, Mullen described a straightforward on-field calculus: If Pitts has a corner on him, he will come inside and play through contact. If he is matched up with a linebacker, he will flex out and win with speed and route running. “What are you going to do at that point?” Mullen asked.Unlike his predecessors, Pitts won’t take the league by surprise. In 2013, the Chiefs nabbed Kelce in the third round of the draft after he amassed fewer than 900 receiving yards over three seasons at the University of Cincinnati. Coming out of Iowa with just 22 catches his senior year, Kittle was not picked until the fifth round in 2017. But college offenses have become more elaborate in recent years to showcase talent like Pitts’s, on the rare occasions it comes along.“You saw him run routes like a wide receiver, you saw him block in line, you saw him run the seam, you saw him make contested catches,” Renner said. “You’ve seen everything that the guy is going to do in the N.F.L.”In the draft, N.F.L. teams divulge the skills they most value; one can trace the trends of the game in the ever-increasing glut of quarterbacks taken at the top of the first round and in the falling out of favor by running backs. If Pitts is the highest non-passer selected, he could be the first tight end chosen in the top five since Riley Odoms in 1972. (Atlanta, holding the fourth pick, may look to Pitts to replicate, and expand, Gonzalez’s role there.)“He’s pretty much an unsolvable problem,” Brewster said.Asked what Pitts might become in his N.F.L. prime, Brewster thought back to the game against Georgia, which was ranked fifth in the country at the time. Before getting hurt, Pitts was the locus of the action, throwing blocks at the burly Bulldogs front and catching two passes for 59 yards. The first was a vaulting, pirouetting snag over the sideline, the second a sheer outmuscling of his defender in the end zone. He did enough, over a quarter and a half of play, to dig No. 8 Florida out of an early two-score hole; the Gators would go on to an upset win, 44-28.“He was on a whole ’nother level,” Brewster said. “There was everybody on the field — you had Florida and you had Georgia. And above the field, you had Kyle Pitts.” More

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      Urban Meyer’s Renewal in Jacksonville

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      They filed into the first few rows of TIAA Bank Field, 120 staffers from the Jacksonville Jaguars’ business side, sitting there like so many college boosters and alumni Urban Meyer had addressed over the years. He gathered them there on a sunny afternoon in early March, nearly two months after being hired to revive one of the N.F.L.’s more forlorn franchises, to deliver a speech similar in spirit and substance to ones he’d given as the coach at college behemoths like Ohio State and Florida.After retiring from coaching in 2018, Meyer, 56, had a cushy television gig and a secure legacy as one of the best, and most polarizing, coaches in recent college football history. But he was still unfulfilled. He wanted to coach again, and despite the N.F.L.’s history of conquering celebrated college coaches trying to recreate their glory in the pros, Meyer determined his best fit was with the worst team of the last decade.Tabbed to try to reorient this wayward organization, Meyer conjured his past as an ace recruiter. Wearing white shorts and a gray Jaguars pullover, he urged the assembled employees to “own it,” a call to action he also used at the Jan. 15 news conference introducing him as Jacksonville’s new coach. He implored them to take pride in every facet of the organization, right down to the team logo.“This, right now, is not the most respected logo in the N.F.L. — it’s not,” Meyer said that day. “If in three years it still doesn’t mean much, then you’re probably looking for a new coach and we’ve not been very successful. That’s how personally I’m taking it.”Meyer’s rah-rah message underscored that his competitive drive to own anything and everything about a program, a compulsion that produced three national titles — two at Florida and one at Ohio State — remained fierce, even after a two-year layoff.That self-imposed time away from coaching came after a string of scandals and stress- and health-related issues helped cause him to resign or retire three times in his career. Meyer’s college teams were 187-32 (.854) while, at Florida, there were 31 arrests of players during his tenure, and, at Ohio State, he protected a longtime assistant with a history of domestic abuse.As he weighed whether to re-enter a culture that glorifies workaholics, Meyer did not choose any of the more visible (and venerable) franchises that also wanted him. Instead he pursued the top job in one of the N.F.L.’s smallest markets with a team that perennially has to quell speculation that it will move to London.Jacksonville is poised on Thursday to select Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, one of the best quarterback prospects in decades, with the first overall pick in the N.F.L. draft. After years of disarray, the Jaguars, as desperate for an identity as they are for victories, have arrived at the most critical juncture since their inception in 1995, an inflection point that the team owner Shahid Khan called “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in football.” The union between Meyer and Khan is meant to make good on it.“Now, we get a fresh start,” Khan said in an interview in mid-April. “Everybody gets that this isn’t rebuilding. I mean, we need to win now.”Jaguars fans at a Bold City Brigade tailgate during the 2019 season. The 2020 season, the worst in franchise history, yielded its most promising moment: the right to draft Trevor Lawrence. Dustin HegedusSince Khan’s first season as owner in 2012, no team has a worse record than the Jaguars (39-105), who until last year’s 1-15 debacle somehow never managed to be quite putrid enough to earn the No. 1 draft pick. They have outspent every other team in free agency over that period, but recorded only one winning season, in 2017, during which they lost the A.F.C. title game at New England. Since that apex, Jacksonville is 12-36.John Caputo, the president of Bold City Brigade, a Jaguars supporters club with chapters around the country and overseas, likes to say that fair-weather Jacksonville fans cannot exist. For years, they have endured taunts about their team, their city, their own perceived apathy, and still they fork over discretionary income to watch bad football in person.The darkness lifted in December when the worst season in franchise history yielded its most promising moment: The winless Jets beat the Los Angeles Rams in Week 15, vaulting one-win Jacksonville ahead on tiebreakers for the right to draft Lawrence. “The last month of the season was the most fun we’ve had since 2017 even though we were setting a franchise record for being terrible,” Caputo said. “Because of the Trevor watch.”As the Jets edged Los Angeles, Caputo sat, riveted, at a bar near his home in Jacksonville Beach. Patrons chanted, “J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets!” Afraid the Jets would lose if he left, Caputo stayed until the end.“For the last 10 years all we want is for the Jaguars to win, but they lose,” Caputo said in a video call. “And so now we’re actually cheering for them to lose, which was kind of liberating.”His friend Pat Donnell, the Brigade’s vice president, chimed in: “And they didn’t let us down.”In light of the team’s rebuilding fortune, fans are rallying to newfound ambitions. Since Meyer arrived, deposits for season tickets have poured in so fast — and from so many new customers — that the Jaguars hired 20 new sales representatives. Traffic on the team’s website and social media accounts has soared, with much of it coming from locations outside Florida, including the Midwest, where Meyer last coached.Coach Urban Meyer, far right, watched Trevor Lawrence, foreground, work out at Clemson’s pro day in February.David Platt/Clemson Athletics, via USA Today Sports, via ReutersA bonanza of fan-designed apparel has cropped up. “Urban Renewal” merchandise is for sale along with T-shirts blaring “Hope,” beneath Lawrence’s photo, a nod to the popular Shepard Fairey-designed poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.Scores of Jaguars fans contributed $9.04, a homage to Jacksonville’s area code, and bought Lawrence and his new wife, Marissa, a $299.95 toaster from their wedding registry. The fans’ gifts, combined with $20,000 Lawrence said he’d chip in and other donations, added up to more than $54,000 that will be given to charities. “Thanks again, we hope to be a part of your community soon,” Lawrence responded on Twitter.Lawrence’s pending arrival has reinvigorated a franchise that has tried and failed to find a quarterback to outshine Mark Brunell, who started eight playoff games for Jacksonville in the late 1990s. But Meyer’s hiring has given the Jaguars immediate credibility as a team that might also responsibly manage a talented star’s rise.Khan and Meyer had chatted at a few functions over the years, but it wasn’t until Khan bumped into Meyer at an invitation-only N.F.L. party before the Super Bowl in February 2020 in Miami Gardens, Fla., that they shared an extended conversation. As they discussed each other’s backgrounds, Khan found that Meyer’s leadership traits were similar to those he’d acquired immigrating to the United States from Pakistan at age 16 and becoming a global auto parts magnate: relentless ambition, a hands-on temperament, trust in his staff.Though Meyer fielded interest from other teams, he was drawn in by Khan’s offer to remake the franchise in his image. If he succeeds, Meyer can become only the fourth coach to win both a national college championship and a Super Bowl, after Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and Pete Carroll.“If you know Urban, I mean, he doesn’t do much on quick decisions or on a whim,” said Florida Coach Dan Mullen, a close friend and former assistant of Meyer’s. “Everything he does is extremely well thought out with a very detailed plan of why he would do it.”Prepping for coaching interviews, Meyer had canvassed his former players in the N.F.L. and contacted, among others, Johnson to learn how he rebuilt the Dallas Cowboys three decades ago after leaving the University of Miami.The conversations with Khan moved swiftly, and Meyer called his decision to accept the job — and the bounty of benefits that accompanied it, from the weather to the lack of state income tax to Jacksonville’s swell of Florida Gators fans — an easy one.“They got the first pick, a chance to start fresh, start with some salary-cap advantages,” Meyer said in an interview. “Really, if you look at the team, there’s some very good core players here.”Khan, after having experimented (and failed) with various front office power-sharing models, reworked the organizational hierarchy to give Meyer maximum leeway and a big role in the general manager search.“This, right now, is not the most respected logo in the N.F.L. — it’s not,” Meyer said in an address to team personnel, vowing to change that.Jacksonville JaguarsN.F.L. owners have long been fascinated with innovative or triumphant college coaches, and although some flourished at the pro level, many, including Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier, struggled to adapt. In the N.F.L., recruiting prowess is neutralized. Motivational tactics that might work with 19- and 20-year-olds might not work on grown men. Roster limitations and the salary cap, intended to foster parity, wrest control from control freaks. So can injuries and meddlesome owners.Spurrier was 56, same as Meyer now, when he — regrettably, he says — rushed into accepting a head coaching job in Washington, where he came to learn that the owner, Daniel Snyder, would be rather involved in personnel matters. In their first year together, in 2002, Snyder pushed Spurrier against his objections to play the rookie quarterback Patrick Ramsey, and the next year released the second-stringer Danny Wuerffel, who played for Spurrier at Florida. Unable to pick even his backup, Spurrier later told his wife, Jerri, that he’d be done after that season.“I was offered a bunch of money, and I did not use an agent, and I wasn’t probably as careful as getting things in writing as I should have,” Spurrier said. “I did a poor job also, and I’ll admit to that. But the situation ran me out.”Neither Spurrier nor Saban — nor any of their college brethren, really — inherited a situation quite as favorable as Meyer’s in Jacksonville, where he can develop a franchise quarterback while continuing to stockpile talent with four other 2021 draft selections in the top 65.Khan’s words might teem with optimism, but the Jaguars are still going to lose — more often, perhaps, than Meyer, whose worst season as a college head coach was 8-5, ever has. Meyer’s ability to cope with defeat may determine his longevity in the N.F.L.“That’s the first thing I talked to him about when he took the job,” Mullen said. “I mean, ‘How are you going to handle that?’ Ten-and-six is a great year, and I don’t know if he would ever view 10-6 as a great year.”Meyer had far more success than the last two N.F.L. hires plucked from the college ranks, Matt Rhule (hired by the Panthers) and Kliff Kingsbury (Cardinals), but he recognizes that he must adapt on a number of fronts.Already he seemed to misjudge the extent of the backlash generated by the hiring of a strength coach, Chris Doyle, who left Iowa’s staff after several current and former players said he had promoted a culture of bullying and racism. Within hours of the Fritz Pollard Alliance’s condemning the decision, calling it “simply unacceptable,” Doyle resigned.Recruiting players is one of Meyer’s strengths, but unlike in college, where he often had several face-to-face conversations with potential players, he didn’t speak with any prospective free agents until after they signed. The Jaguars signed more than a dozen free agents, including several veterans who played for Meyer and his coaches, like running back Carlos Hyde, who said it was a “no-brainer” to rejoin him.“We’ve been lucky,” Meyer said. “A lot of guys are here training. But we haven’t had a team meeting yet. In college, you probably would have had 50 by now.”But as he is fast learning, Meyer is not in college anymore. More