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Day 2 of on-field drills at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis ended with tight ends demonstrating their athletic gifts inside Lucas Oil Stadium. No, this isn’t a loaded tight end group like we had a year ago, a few prospects elevated their stock with strong performances.

Here are some of the winners and losers from Friday’s on-field drills in Indianapolis, starting with a look at the measurements of the prospects in CBS Sports’ top 100 consensus rankings.

Brock Bowers, Georgia

N/A

N/A

N/A

Ja’Tavion Sanders, Texas

4.69

N/A

N/A

Ben Sinnott, Kansas State

4.68

40″

10-foot-6

Cade Stover, Ohio State

4.65

34.5″

9-foot-8

Grading the top-rated TEs

Brock Bowers, Georgia: N/A

Bowers opted against working out at the combine, and with seemingly such a “lead” on the rest of the tight ends in this class, that decision makes plenty of sense. He measured in just over 6-foot-3 and 243 pounds with quality length — nearly 33″ inches. No major changes here. 

Ja’Tavion Sanders, Texas: B

While I don’t think Sanders is a total burner at the tight end spot, barely running under 4.70 seconds surprised me a bit, especially for someone who was a monster high school recruit and did hit plenty of long plays in college. I would’ve liked to see some jumps from him, too, but he decided to wait until his pro day. He does have big hands, over 10 inches. That’s a plus. 

Ben Sinnott, Kansas State: A

A 4.68-second 40-yard dash for the nearly 6-foot-4 and 250-pound Sinnott was rock solid, and his jumps were eye-opening. It’s rare we see tight ends hit 40 inches in the vertical, and the 10-foot-6 broad will be close to the 94th percentile at the position since 1999 at the combine. Sinnott is in the discussion to be the second or third tight end off the board now, if he wasn’t already before the combine.  

Cade Stover, Ohio State: B

While his jumps didn’t compare to Sinnott’s and a few other tight ends, Stover ran a respectable 40-yard dash in the group…

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Howie Roseman explains where Eagles went wrong with Nolan Smith originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Why draft Nolan Smith in the first round and then not play him?

Good question.

And a question with no valid answer.

Smith, the 30th pick in last year’s draft, had a promising training camp, then disappeared once the season began.

He never played more than nine snaps in the Eagles’ first 10 games and averaged just 6.1 snaps per game through the Chiefs game. At one point in the middle of the season, he played just 11 snaps in a three-game stretch.

His numbers nudged up after that, but even with 41 snaps in the season finale against the Giants – most after the game had been decided – he averaged only 11 snaps per game.

Even late in the season, when the edge rushers weren’t making an impact – four sacks the last eight games, none the last four – Smith rode the bench.

He didn’t do a ton with the snaps he did get. A sack. Three QB hits. A tackle for loss. Eighteen tackles. But can you even fairly evaluate a player who’s barely playing?

Nope.

Both defensive coordinators are gone, and on Tuesday Howie Roseman admitted what we all knew.

Smith should have played more.

“In retrospect, just seeing him certainly in the playoff game, one of the guys who played well in the playoff game, maybe giving him a little bit more time during the year and experience, we talked about that,” Roseman said at the combine in Indianapolis.

“He’s got all the right tools in his body. He’s got the right mentality. And at the same time, he’s got to go out and show it.”

Smith played 16 snaps in the wild-card loss to the Bucs and it was by far his best game. He split a sack with Fletcher Cox, had four tackles in just 16 snaps and he had a quarterback hit. Pro Football Focus gave him the 4th-highest grade of all edge rushers wild-card weekend at 84.9 (Brandon Graham was highest at 90.2).

Where was that all year?

Sitting on the bench for 84 percent of the Eagles’ defensive…

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There could be a dramatic change coming to the way the NFL operates on a down-to-down basis. 

According to CBS Sports NFL Insider Jonathan Jones, the league tested optical tracking on line-to-gain rulings at both MetLife Field and Hard Rock Stadium throughout the 2023 season, as well as at the Super Bowl earlier this year. If there is support from enough owners, the league could move to optical tracking rather than the so-called “chain gang” as early as the 2024 season, Jones reports.

At the moment, it’s unclear how much support there is among ownership to make the switch. And as Jones notes, it could be difficult to outfit all 30 NFL stadiums and international stadiums with the requisite technology in time for the upcoming season. But it’s notable that it is being tested, because it indicates a willingness to move in that direction in the future.

Line-to-gain and spot-of-the-ball issues are not of the judgment call variety that the NFL can’t feasibly eliminate. If the league can ensure a way that the ball is spotted more accurately than it is with the current, obviously archaic system of referees eyeballing it from yards away from the play, it should do just that. 

Of course, what the league “should” do has never really stopped it from doing certain things before, so nothing is guaranteed. But if the league can make sure the technology works and can be installed where it needs to be installed, it should be a no-brainer to get this passed by the competition committee and then a full ownership vote.

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Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz looks at the one big thing for Los Angeles’s offseason – which involves boosting the defense around superstar lineman Aaron Donald.

Video Transcript

– It’s time to take a look at one big thing facing the LA Rams this offseason. It’s, How do you make that defense better? Now we didn’t have high expectations for the Rams coming into this season. I think we can all be honest about that. They were one of the youngest teams in the NFL. And frankly, on both sides of the ball, we found ourselves wondering if this was even going to be a competitive team.

And all of a sudden, the Rams were not only competitive, they were very good. The Rams were ahead of schedule. They won’t have that grace this year, as everybody is going to have more expectations. But the alarming thing is that the Rams have got to figure out how to fix their defense, which is strange to say on a defense that has Aaron Donald. But if you look at the numbers last year, the defense just wasn’t good enough, especially when it comes to pass rush.

Now I’d love to think that the Rams could simply go out and address that. But they’ve also got to figure out a way to keep some important free agents in-house. They’ve got offensive line issues they’ve got to keep in place. They’ve got to figure out what they’re going to do with Matt Stafford long-term. Are they going to eventually draft a replacement for Stafford? Are they going to use some of their 10 picks in the NFL draft to move up?

There are all of these questions around the Rams. But realistically, the one question that they’ve got to answer right away is, How do you get better defensively? Because we’ve seen, yet again, Sean McVay, who can never be questioned for his offensive brilliance, has found a way to make the most out of every single person that comes into that offense. Now that you know that that offense is going to be as good as it’s going to be for as long as he’s ever going to be there, the only thing you need to focus on, if…

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