Tyler Warren is going to be a handful for opponents to deal with, and one of the greatest all-time NFL tight ends offered extremely high praise for the Indianapolis Colts rookie.
Rob Gronkowski, the sure-fire future Hall of Fame tight end, compared Warren to himself while breaking down what makes him special.
The Colts selected Warren out of Penn State with the 14th overall pick in the NFL Draft in April. He won the Mackey Award in 2024, annually given to the best tight end, and was a first-team All-American, helping the Nittany Lions reach the Big Ten Championship Game and College Football Playoff semifinals.
What Did Rob Gronkowski Say About Tyler Warren?
Warren is coming out of Penn State as one of the most highly touted tight ends in recent memory. He led the Nittany Lions in every receiving category in 2024 and posted 216 rushing yards while finishing seventh in Heisman Trophy voting.
So even though Gronkowski became a four-time All-Pro and four-time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the case could be made that expectations of Warren are much higher than those of Gronkowski when he came out of Arizona as a second-round pick in 2010.
Yet, according to Gronkowski’s scouting of the Colts’ preseason opener against the Baltimore Ravens, Warren looked like the real deal.
“I watched [Warren] in his first preseason game, when he played the first 20 snaps, and he was so good on all levels of the field,” Gronkowski said on the Ryen Russillo Podcast that dropped Thursday. “He kind of reminded me of myself.”
Gronkowski became a fan of Warren’s while he was at Penn State — “I watched him at Penn State and really fell in love with him,” Gronkowski said — yet could see Warren’s 6-5, 256-pound stature mesh with an elite mind and feel for the game.
“He ran my play-action over route — he knew how to get open and get away from the linebackers; he knew the exact target, like where to go, because it’s a feel route,” Gronkowski said. “He ran Julian Edelman’s old route — it’s called a whip route — to perfection. I said ‘damn, he’s doing that at that size?” Then he ran a 12-yard out kind of like myself back in the day.”
Aside from his splendid route running, Gronkowski also admired his physical prowess at administering pain to defensive players.
“This kid’s big and he can move and he made the guys tackle him and punish them for tackling him,” Gronkowski said. “I don’t know how he’s going to be in the run game. I didn’t see any of that, but I really love him in the pass game.”
What Is Tyler Warren’s Role On The Colts?
Warren was the go-to guy at Penn State yet will have some of the heat of taken off him in the NFL. The Colts already have elite possession receiver Michael Pittman Jr., plus deep threats Alec Pierce and Josh Downs.
But starting quarterback Daniel Jones works better with intermediate routes and a tight-end security blanket, since his rapport with Evan Engram with the New York Giants helped Engram reach the Pro Bowl in 2020.
Plus, with Mo-Alie Cox likely to handle the majority of blocking duties for Jonathan Taylor in the run game, that should free up Warren to be a bona fide weapon for Jones in the passing game.
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