Penn State’s Tyler Warren has been indispensable for the Nittany Lions this season as a do-it-all threat.
Jim Harbaugh and Joe Hortiz had a lot of work laid out ahead of them when they both took their respective jobs with the Los Angeles Chargers. The roster had a good number of holes and the cap situation wasn’t all that pretty, either.
One of the positions that Harbaugh and Hortiz tried to solve by going financially minimal — at least just for this season — was the tight end room. After Gerald Everett and Donald Parham both left in free agency, they brought in both Will Dissly and Hayden Hurst, both of whom have been starters for their previous teams.
Dissly was added to help with the run game while Hurst was seen as more a receiving threat. The thing is, Dissly is currently second on the team in receptions with 33 and that’s already just one off his previous career high...with eight games remaining.
Still, it’s evident that Dissly is not the sort of receiving option that elite NFL teams have at tight end and that’s why I would expect the Chargers to try and land on in next year’s draft.
In a new 2025 mock draft by The 33rd Team, NFL draft analyst Kyle Crabbs has the Chargers selecting Penn State tight end Tyler Warren with the 23rd-overall pick.
The 6’6, 257-pound Warren has been a massive part of the Nittany Lions’ success this season and the big pass catcher is seemingly playing his way into the first round of the draft each and every week.
Here’s what Crabbs had to say about the selection:
“Los Angeles wants to line up and play bully ball. The team has no shortage of physicality between their trench play and their running backs, but the ceiling of the tight end room feels like another added layer. Especially when the player in question is as versatile as Penn State’s Tyler Warren. Warren is a do-it-all talent at the position and gets schemed touches on a weekly basis — a testament to his raw athleticism. For the Chargers, he could be a reliable target for QB Justin Herbert while compounding the challenges of preparing for the smash-mouth run game that Harbaugh and company have brought to Los Angeles.”
Right away, Warren’s size and makeup are what stand out to me. You can’t coach that sort of thing. But beyond that, the guy is incredibly athletic and such a threat with the ball in his hands that he’s seemingly this year’s Brock Bowers. Yes, that’s a lofty standard, but how many other tight ends in recent history are toting the rock like Warren? He’s taken 13 handoffs and turned it into 94 yards and three touchdowns for Penn State. That’s to go along with his career highs in receptions (59) and receiving yards (681) with two more games left to go in the regular season.
In the team’s latest win over Washington, Warren scored...