Top 10 tight-ends in the 2021 NFL Draft

#9 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Briley Moore (Kansas State)

6' 4", 250 pounds; RS SR

A former no-star recruit, Briley Moore spent the first four years of his collegiate career at Northern Iowa, where he saw limited action as a freshman and then over the next two seasons caught 77 passes for 1030 yards and four touchdowns.

He suffered a season-ending injury in the 2019 opener, but used his redshirt to add one more year at Kansas State as a grad transfer, where he caught 22 passes for 228 yards and three touchdowns in nine games, earning second-time All-Big-12 accolades.

Moore presents good thickness throughout his frame and built almost like a taller fullback. He gets after it in the run game and you see him pancake guys 20-30 pounds above his weight-class. The never-stopping leg-drive and the finishing mindset are absolutely beautiful to watch.

Whether it’s widening the edge on the front-side of zone un plays as a Y or wrapping around from backside as an H-back, he is going to move somebody backwards – if not into the team area. He displays great torque in his upper body, to create leverage advantages and actively re-fits those hands.

Moore also shows no strength issues dealing with defensive ends in pass-pro and the Wildcats coaches asked him to take on a bunch of those tough assignments without much help. When he’s lined up as the number three in trips, Moore can plow through some safeties and he seems comfortable putting hands on people in space overall, by pacing his steps and engaging with a wide base and good flexion in his knees.

Transitioning over to what he does as a pass-catcher, Moore does a nice job of selling second-level blocks on play-action and then getting behind those guys or sneaking into the flats.

After watching a bunch of slow tight-ends, that kind of all melted into one, it was refreshing to see Moore’s burst off the line, to actually threaten secondaries as a slot receiver, while having a good feel for reducing the surface area for defenders as he releases from in-line alignments.

He can drop his hips and create separation at the top of routes on breaks back to the quarterback or across the field, but also smoothly bend out to the sideline, without losing time. You saw him really work the middle of the field, where he understands when to make those body catches and swallow the ball, with defenders around him.

Moore shows a good understanding for how to set up routes with different speeds and even showed it on some flat-to-wheel patterns, while his eyes go back to the quarterback as soon as he enters the throwing window. He also quickly snaps his head around when he becomes the hot receiver and keeps his feet bouncing as he settles down.

Briley Moore never seems to fight the ball, with only one drop last season, and once he tucks it away, he gets vertical and really rumbles ahead, shoving off tackles, keeping his legs churning and gaining yards through contact. Early on against West Virginia, you saw him drag three defenders for a couple of extra yards.

The biggest shortcoming – quite literally – for Moore is his very limited catch radius, due to arms just short of 31 inches, which is in the two-percentile for the position. He won’t provide much in contested-catch situations, where you put the ball up in the air and ask him to come down with it.

We haven’t seen him run a lot of deeper-developing routes, with only one catch of 20+ air yards last season for the Wildcats. Moore’s speed after the catch doesn’t quite match what you see off the snap, as you see him get from behind quite a bit in games (versus Texas Tech and Baylor in particular) and his receiving production in a wide-open Big-12 is pretty underwhelming in general.

Moore put up some really good testing numbers at the K-State pro day, with a 4.64 in the 40, a 38" vert, 10' 1" broad jump and 26 reps on the bench press. I really don’t think there are many targets that deserve consideration for a selection on the first half of day three, but Moore is a guy who got me excited when I got around to his tape.

He has that maniacal attitude as a blocker, he has the burst to threaten vertically and can create separation out of his breaks, he doesn’t drop the ball and he turns into a bowling ball after the catch. I like him best as an H-back and fullback option, in combination with more of a traditional in-line guy maybe.