We’ll be live from Mobile, Alabama this week to cover the 2024 Senior Bowl. We’ll be getting you ready for the 2024 NFL Draft, diving deep into practices and streaming live in the evenings throughout the week. Here is my 2024 Senior Bowl Preview. Below we dive into a few notable names in upcoming dynasty rookie drafts.

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— Derek Brown (@DBro_FFB) January 25, 2024

• 2024 Dynasty Fantasy Football Draft Kit
• 2024 NFL Draft Guide
• NFL Draft Scouting Reports

2024 Senior Bowl Preview

*Note: Players with a * below are confirmed out for the game with injury.

2024 Senior Bowl Tight End Preview

• Jaheim Bell (Florida State)
• Ben Sinnott (Kansas State)
• Jared Wiley (TCU)
• Brevyn Spann-Ford (Minnesota)
• Theo Johnson (Penn State)
• A.J. Barner (Michigan)
• *Tanner McLachlan (Arizona)

*Note: Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy said on January 23 that Arizona’s Tanner McLachlan has been ruled out for the event after suffering an unspecified injury while training. “I obviously think it hurts him not being here because he’s not around NFL decision-makers for a week,” Nagy said. “Right now, he’s projected to be a late-round player so he certainly has a lot of room to move up in the draft. And if the injury holds him out of the process and he can’t do pro day or a workout before April, that hurts any player. Hopefully he can work through this thing and at least have a pro day.”

Pre-Senior Bowl TE Rankings:

1. AJ Barner
2. Ben Sinnott
3. Theo Johnson
4. Jaheim Bell
5. Jared Wiley
6. Brevyn Spann-Ford

Most to Prove: Ben Sinnott (Kansas State)

Can Sinnott prove he can hold up as an inline TE at the next level? Or at 245 pounds, will he prove to be seen as more of an H-back?

Sinnott is a high-effort combo TE with some ball skills and athletic fluidity. Sinnott got heavy snaps inline at KSU, but can also be comfortably be deployed in the slot, or offset. He’s an eager blocker who gets to work. This area of his game is already strong, and I think it will get stronger as his body matures and his technique improves. I saw a smattering of reps where Sinnott let his man run free because he lunged into the contact point, overcompensating for his lack of bulk by trying to bring more of a hammer into the collision.

But overall, Sinnott showed an aptitude for anchoring in pass-pro, picking off guys on the move, sometimes via cut blocks, and walling off his man in the run game with good ol’ fashioned grappling. Sinnott’s a solid route runner. He gets off the line quickly and shoots up the seam in the hurry. He doesn’t lose much momentum in transition on his route breaks, and shows particular utility on in-breaking stuff over the middle. Nearly half of his 2023 catches came between the hashes within 20 yards of the LOS.

Most to Gain: Johnny Wilson (Florida State)

Johnny Wilson has the most to gain this week at the tight end position – by shifting to tight end at Senior Bowl week! We saw Stanford’s Elijah Higgins do this last year for Day 3 on Thursday. It would be good for Wilson to similarly make this shift. As a big-slot move-TE, he could be the next Darren Waller. Things may not go as smoothly on the outside.

Wilson is an enormous target. He is taller and heavier than Mike Evans, Allen Lazard, and Equanimeous St. Brown. Wilson is one of the class’ best blockers – on reach and width alone, he’s exceedingly difficult to breach. Over the last two years, Wilson played nearly 90% of his snaps on the boundary. Hopefully the NFL will see him as a “big slot” hybrid. Wilson’s intimidating size can play against him on the boundary when, for instance, press corners can get under his pads and jar him towards the boundary off the line. It also very much plays against him along the route path when trying to create space, as those long legs labor to quickly change directions.

However, and it must be said — Wilson has skills you don’t see in players this big, including a dynamic release package that mostly freed him from press bullies. Wilson has strong north-south athleticism for a big man – you don’t have to squint to envision him being a nightmare down the seam, and when you play him off, you leave yourself susceptible to him screeching on the breaks and coming back to the ball, something he’s surprisingly good at for a tall oak.

Wilson was a productive collegiate receiver (2.52 YPRR) with obvious utility down the field, something his elevated yearly aDOT figures spoke to (14.4 career). But he continues to have issues with drops – his 12.8% career drop rate is a big red flag. I’m spooked by the profile if forced to play traditional WR at the next level. Wilson’s collegiate numbers were eerily similar to Hakeem Butler’s at Iowa State – Butler had a career 12.7% drop rate on 14.5 aDOT and 2.59 YPRR.

Mystery Man: Brevyn Spann-Ford (Minnesota)

In 2022, Spann-Ford had 42 catches and a 6.7% drop rate while posting an elite 90.0 PFF grade and 82.1 receiving grade. In 2023, Spann-Ford dropped nine balls – with a stupefying 26.5% drop rate – while catching only 25 balls. His overall PFF grade plummeted to 52.5, with an unsightly 45.9 receiving grade.

He’s a big, hulking inline tight end at 6’7/270. Spann-Ford is a true extension of the run game. He comes from an extremely run-heavy system at Minneota where his job, first and foremost, was to block. He’s really good at it, with mini-OT traits both latching and driving in the run game, and sitting back and anchoring in pass-pro.

In 2023, Spann-Ford unfortunately looked like a mini-OT out on his routes, too, lumbering around. He doesn’t have the same feel for the work that he does for blocking. On one rep I observed where Spann-Ford was asked to pick on a crossing concept, I saw charge at the crossing defender with his arms extended as though to block him. He indeed hit the defender, drawing an immediate flag, and jawing from the opponent. Spann-Ford didn’t gain a lick separation in 2023, a season in which his hands became a serious question mark. Can Spann-Ford bounce back in Mobile?