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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have one of the youngest tight end rooms in the NFL. Could one of those tight ends make a big splash in 2023?
The Athletic’s Nick Baumgardner put together a list of potential Day 3 draft picks from 2023 that could make an immediate impact for their teams, and Tampa Bay TE [autotag]Payne Durham[/autotag] was one of the players in question. Durham will join a tight end room with second-year tight ends Cade Otton and Ko Kieft, and Baumgardner thinks Durham could stand out among the two.
Here is what he wrote about Durham:
Outside of his frame (6-5, 253, 33 3/8-inch arms), there is nothing flashy about Durham. He’s not that fast; he doesn’t have much wiggle; if he averages 10 yards per reception, you’re probably doing OK with him. But if you throw him the ball 75 times, he’ll probably catch 70 of them. Durham has powerful hands, a great frame, and he understands the finer points of football, which allows him to give QBs friendly throwing windows over and over again.
Durham is a solid blocker who can be a dependable, team-first chain-mover in the NFL. He’s a three-down prospect who likely will start as a TE2, but there is TE1 potential here. Known at Purdue as a tone-setter because of the way he worked, Durham won’t get bullied as a run blocker in training camp — a lot of rookie TEs do.
Tight end is notoriously one of the tougher positions to adjust to at the NFL level, but Durham has the football IQ to make it work. As mentioned, his physicals are nothing to write home about, but he has dependable hands and knows his way around blocking schemes. He also has a nose for the endzone — in 2022, he caught eight touchdowns on 56 targets.
While Durham may not start in 2023 over Otton, he could carve out a niche in Tampa Bay that could give whoever is under center for the Bucs a nice red zone target to go after.
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