Brock Bowers is the third-ranked tight end in Pro Football Network’s 2026 Top 100, checking in at No. 73 overall. Read that as a floor, not a verdict. He earned it while playing most of last season on a bad knee, in a Las Vegas offense that slid all the way to the No. 1 overall pick.
Brock Bowers Landed at No. 73 Despite Playing Hurt
The talent was never the question. Bowers arrived in 2024 and rewrote what a rookie tight end could do. “He had over 1,100 receiving yards as a rookie, which is nuts, especially at the tight end position,” PFN analyst Jacob Infante said on the Hot List. “A rookie wide receiver would be lucky to produce that much in the receiving game. Rookie tight end, that’s unheard of.” He was a first-team All-Pro in his first NFL season.
Year 2 tested him. Bowers suffered a PCL sprain and a bone bruise in his left knee in the season opener against New England, and the injury lingered into the winter. He missed five games and his yardage dipped, but the production held where it counted. “He still had 7 receiving touchdowns,” Infante said. “Keep in mind, as a rookie he only had 5. So the touchdowns were up.”
Even at reduced capacity, Bowers finished with 64 catches for 680 yards and 7 scores in 12 games, a 56.7-yard-per-game pace that ranked third among all tight ends. He made his second Pro Bowl in as many seasons. “Maybe [he’s] one of the most athletic, if not the most athletic, and the best route running tight end in the NFL today,” Infante said, praising his explosiveness out of breaks, his agility, and a yards-after-catch game he called elite.
How Klint Kubiak and the Raiders’ QB Plan Set Up Brock Bowers
Here is what changed. Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak, fresh off coordinating a Seattle offense that won the Super Bowl last season, and made him head coach. In Seattle, Kubiak ran a play-action-heavy scheme built on multiple personnel groupings, a design that leans on a featured tight end. Without a true No. 1 receiver on the roster, his passing game runs through Bowers, and the coach has not been subtle about it, calling him a “football robot from heaven” after only a few practices.
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The quarterback picture is the other lever. Las Vegas signed veteran Kirk Cousins and spent the No. 1 overall pick on Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, giving Bowers a stable option now and a franchise answer coming. Infante saw it early.
“Whether it’s Kirk Cousins or eventually whenever Fernando Mendoza enters the starting lineup for the Raiders, I feel confident he’ll have better quarterback play to work with,” he said. “Just keep in mind how good Bowers has been with bad quarterback play.”
Bowers says the knee is behind him. “I feel great,” he said during offseason work. “I had a good offseason working out, staying healthy, and trying to get back to 100 percent.” A healthy Bowers in Kubiak’s scheme with a real quarterback plan is a version the league hasn’t seen yet.
That is why No. 73 reads like a starting line. Trey McBride
