With their second round pick in the 2025 NFL draft, the New York Jets selected LSU tight end Mason Taylor. Taylor was a bit of a trendy pick for the Jets and was linked to them in the hours before round 2 kicked off, so I don’t think many were shocked when the Jets handed in their card and had his name on it. Taylor, like many prospects, has his proponents and his detractors.
Those that don’t like him point to a rather underwhelming college career. Indeed, Taylor never cleared 550 yards receiving or had more than 60 catches or had more than 3 touchdowns. In fact, his final career line at LSU read as 129 catches, 1308 yards, and 6 touchdowns, which compares similarly to the output that first round tight end Tyler Warren accumulated in just this season (104 catches, 1233 yards, and 8 touchdowns). Needless to say, Taylor’s raw production left something to be desired.
His underlying data in 2024 wasn’t exactly glowing either according to ProFootballFocus’ data. His receiving grade was around the 70th percentile, his yards per route run was around the 50th percentile, his contested catch rate was around the 55th percentile, and his run block grade was around the 55th percentile. None of that is bad, but not of that is exactly great either.
So why did Taylor go so high? In part because he’s a good athlete. Of note though, he opted out of explosiveness testing, which likely signals that he wasn’t going to test well, so his RAS score is likely inflated a bit.
Taylor also has some context in his favor. LSU doesn’t typically utilize tight ends a ton. The record for receiving yards by a tight end at LSU is 590 yards by Thaddeus Moss, which is a bar that Taylor almost cleared this season. With that said, the list of tight ends who left LSU and went on to have strong NFL careers is scant, so this might just reflect that they don’t throw to tight ends a ton because they haven’t really had one worth throwing to a ton. However, the current head coach for LSU is Brian Kelly, who has a pretty lengthy track history of developing NFL quality tight ends. This includes players such as Kyle Rudolph, Tyler Eifert, and Cole Kmet, who all had roughly similar outputs in college to what Taylor provided this season.
Long story short, this appears to be a pick more for potential than for current play. Only time will tell if that pans out, but fans will have to hope for a more productive NFL version of Taylor than the version that was seen at LSU. If that happens then the pick will likely be looked back on very fondly.