Dishing out punishing run blocks as a tight end can fetch a cushy first NFL paycheck after all.
Tommy Tremble spent the last two seasons at Notre Dame crushing defenders as a blocker and displaying athletic upside. His 2020 season felt like weekly tight end blocking teaching tape. His March pro day confirmed his potential as a pass-catcher. Turns out, that’s enough on its own to be a Day 2 NFL Draft pick and dwarf a lack of receiving production.
The Carolina Panthers selected Tremble in the third round with the 83rd overall pick Friday in the 2021 NFL Draft. He’s Notre Dame’s 11th tight end draft pick since 2005, and the fourth of those to be selected as a three-and-done player. Per Spotrac, he will sign a four-year contract worth $4.9 million.
Tremble is a top-100 draft pick. He’s a multi-millionaire. He’s the fourth Notre Dame player drafted this year. His decision to forego three years of eligibility was apparently astute.
All of this happening, especially after just three years and 35 catches at Notre Dame, is a bit jarring.
For starters, he was second among Irish tight ends in catches each of the last two years. He caught 19 passes and zero touchdowns in 2020. He wasn’t targeted more than three times after the 2020 season opener. He had two multi-catch outings in Notre Dame’s final 10 games.
At tight end in particular, though, the old scouting adage “traits over production” carries weight.
"This is one of my favorite players in this draft because of his physicality," NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah said on the draft broadcast. "He’s a dominant blocker, he’s very explosive. He doesn’t see a lot of footballs in the passing game. There are a lot of similarities to [49ers tight end] George Kittle when he was coming out of Iowa."
Tremble is the eighth tight end taken since 2018 who had 35 or fewer career catches in college. He’s the sixth to be drafted before the end of the fourth round. The blocking, of course, only adds to his case. He was Pro Football Focus’ highest-rated run-blocking tight end in 2020, a veritable human bulldozer.
“There’s just not a lot of opportunity to produce if you’re talking about box score receiving numbers,” PFF lead draft analyst Mike Renner told BlueandGold.com earlier this month. “I think blocking and how they block, you can quantify that kind of production.
“You want the guy who has the dog and want-to in him to block in the NFL. In terms of actual on-field receiving, catches and yards, I don’t think the NFL could really give a damn for the most part at tight end.”
The league certainly cared about his pro day performance. Tremble ran a 4.59-second 40-yard dash at 6-3 and 241 pounds. He had a 36.5-inch vertical jump and 10-foot, 2-inch broad jump.
“It’s a position where only so many guys are 6-5, 240+ who can move,” Renner said. “Draft those guys. Don’t draft the ones who maybe had 90 catches in college but aren’t going to be able to run past linebackers in the NFL.”
The traits are obvious now, but there’s still a cloak of mystery surrounding Tremble that stems from never holding a spot atop the depth chart and nondescript stats.
In 2017, as a senior at The Wesleyan School in greater Atlanta, Tremble suffered a severe ankle injury that wiped out nearly all of his season. He was being recruited as a linebacker and tight end, barely scratching the surface of his upside.
A three-star recruit, he signed with Notre Dame later that fall, picking the Irish over Michigan, UCLA and in-state Georgia. His father, Greg, played for the Bulldogs. He arrived in South Bend as an intriguing mold of clay, his best football seemingly still ahead of him.
After a redshirt year in 2018, Tremble surpassed former top-50 recruit Brock Wright for the No. 2 tight end role behind Cole Kmet. In the 2019 season-opener at Louisville, with Kmet sidelined, he caught three passes for 49 yards. One of those was a 26-yard touchdown. The buzz around him as a future impact player began then. He ended 2019 with 16 catches for 183 yards and four touchdowns.
When Kmet declared for the 2020 draft, Tremble’s path to a featured role cleared faster than initially expected.
It closed, though, with the arrival of freshman Michael Mayer last June. The top-40 recruit wedged his way into a major role Week 1 and ended the season tied for the team lead in catches (42).
There was still room for Tremble and his physicality in an offense than ran half its plays in multi-tight end sets, but not to the point where he was a frequent target in the passing game. Mayer was the tight end in 11 personnel sets (one running back, one tight end) and led the position in snaps.
All told, Tremble finished sixth on the team in catches and had 218 yards in 2020. And yet it was a success. His contributions were enough to catch the NFL’s attention, his raw skills enough to capture its collective imagination.
“At Notre Dame, there’s that long history of tight ends,” TheDraftScout.com’s Matt Miller said in January. “He’s the most athletic one I’ve seen come through there in recent memory.”
Mock drafts had pegged Tremble as a late-second or third-round pick. He was a top-60 player on several prospect rankings lists. Carolina made him the fourth tight end chosen in this year’s draft, behind Florida's Kyle Pitts (fourth overall, Atlanta Falcons), Penn State's Pat Freiermuth (55th, Pittsburgh Steelers) and Boston College's Hunter Long (81st, Miami Dolphins).
Notre Dame’s previous draft picks this year are tackle Liam Eichenberg (42nd overall, Miami Dolphins), guard Aaron Banks (49th, San Francisco 49ers), linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (52nd, Cleveland Browns).
----
• Talk about it inside The Lou Somogyi Board.
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• Sign up for Blue & Gold's news alerts and daily newsletter.
• Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts.
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @Rivals_Singer, @PatrickEngel_,and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.
