Brock Bowers broke the rookie records for catches and receiving yards by a tight end. Jared Verse won Defensive Rookie of the Year. Asked which one rose furthest from his draft slot, PFSN’s Football Debate Club did not pick the record-setter. CBS Sports’ Mike Renner and The Ringer’s Austin Gayle both landed on Verse, and neither thought it was close.
Why Jared Verse Is the 2024 Draft’s Biggest Riser
The case is about expectations. Bowers entered the 2024 draft as a consensus blue-chip prospect. Verse did not. “No one had Jared Verse as a top-10 player,” Renner said. “You can’t find a single person who was talking about Jared Verse the way he’s being talked about now.”
The draft itself makes the point. Verse went 19th overall to the Rams, the third edge rusher off the board after Laiatu Latu (15th, Colts) and Dallas Turner (17th, Vikings). “Even in your wildest dreams, no one expected this,” Renner said. “Two other edge rushers got drafted before him.”
What Verse became is the gap. As a rookie he posted 4.5 sacks, 11 tackles for loss, 2 forced fumbles and a rookie-leading 77 pressures, won AP Defensive Rookie of the Year and made the Pro Bowl. He followed it with 7.5 sacks and 3 more forced fumbles in year two and a second straight Pro Bowl.
Gayle sees a finished product. “I think he’s one of the top edge rushers in the NFL right now,” he said, praising a rusher who does not just win with speed. “A lot of teams have drafted an edge [for] speed, speed, speed, can you get around the edge. This guy can bull you through the middle.”
Brock Bowers Set Records, but He Was Supposed To
None of this diminishes Bowers. He caught 112 passes for 1,194 yards as a rookie, breaking the NFL’s single-season rookie reception record along with Mike Ditka’s 1961 mark for receiving yards by a rookie tight end, and he earned first-team All-Pro honors. He is one of the best young tight ends in football.
The difference is that everyone saw it coming. Many viewed Bowers as a top-10 talent, and he slid to 13th only because of the discount the league applies to tight ends, the same positional skepticism that has shadowed players like Kyle Pitts.
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Host Cam Mellor noted the pre-draft nitpicks, including a frame that measured a little light at the combine, then scored the round for Renner. Meeting sky-high expectations is not the same as blowing past modest ones.
A knee injury that cost Bowers 5 games and a December trip to injured reserve slowed his second season to 64 catches for 680 yards. Verse, meanwhile, only got more valuable.
Here is the proof. Days ago, the Rams sent Verse, a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 second-rounder and a 2029 third-rounder to Cleveland for Myles Garrett. A player drafted 19th two years ago, behind two other edge rushers, was just the centerpiece a contender surrendered to land a two-time Defensive Player of the Year. That is what a riser looks like.
