Oregon just sent a tight end to the first round in April, and PFSN draft analyst Ian Cummings already has the next one atop his board. Jamari Johnson, who split Oregon’s tight end room with first-round pick Kenyon Sadiq in 2025, headlines Cummings’ way-too-early 2027 tight end rankings on The Hot List. The bigger surprise sits at the bottom of the top five.
Jamari Johnson Tops Hot List’s 2027 NFL Draft Tight End Rankings
Johnson caught 32 passes for 510 yards and three touchdowns last season while playing second fiddle to Sadiq, whom the Jets took 16th overall in April. At 6-foot-5 and 257 pounds, Johnson brings the alignment versatility NFL offenses covet, lining up inline, in the slot, at H-back and as a lead blocker who can pull.
“There is no end to how you can use Jamari Johnson,” Cummings said.
The ceiling is what moves him to No. 1. “You are looking at not only a tight end one candidate, but maybe one of the higher drafted tight ends in recent memory, maybe even in the past decade,” Cummings said.
The pipeline backs up the optimism. Terrance Ferguson went to the Rams in the second round in 2025. Sadiq became Oregon’s first first-round tight end since Russ Francis in 1975. Johnson would make it three straight draft classes with a Duck tight end off the board.
What separates Cummings’ board from the consensus is a clear preference for three-down functionality over pure mismatch upside. That bias explains his boldest call. LSU’s Trey’Dez Green, a top-15 overall prospect on the consensus board by Cummings’ own account, lands fifth among tight ends on his.
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Green’s tools jump off the screen. The 6-foot-7 former two-sport star averaged 27 points and 11 rebounds as a high school junior and has scored on nearly a quarter of his career catches, a 23.9 percent touchdown rate. He set LSU’s single-season tight end touchdown record with seven scores in 2025. Cummings just doubts the frame holds up as a blocker.
“You never want to be too tall or too light. [Trey’Dez] Green is both right now, and you can see that manifest on the tape,” Cummings said. He pegs Green as a big-slot weapon rather than an every-down tight end. “In line, he’s not going to be functional, and it is going to be a little bit of a schematic limitation for some teams. But if you know how to use them, [he] can be a very, very valuable pass game weapon.”
Temple, Dartmouth and Penn State Headline Cummings’ Sleepers
The middle of the board runs on projection. Georgia Tech’s Chris Corbo, a two-time FCS All-American who transferred from Dartmouth, ranks second after a 45-catch, 516-yard season. “The metrics are absolutely out of this world from last year, and the film is very, very impressive as well,” Cummings said, while acknowledging the leap from the Ivy League to the ACC.
Temple’s Peter Clarke, a London native who learned the game at the NFL Academy, sits third on the strength of his blocking and red zone work. He set a Temple single-season record for a tight end with six touchdown catches in 2025. Cummings calls him “a complete two-phase tight end … a guy who’s gonna have a very solid, predictable, and functional role at the NFL level as either a tight end 1 or a high end tight end 2.”
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The deepest reach is Penn State’s Andrew Rappleyea, fourth despite catching just 20 passes for 180 yards and three scores in 2025 after an injury wiped out nearly all of 2024. He anchors a stacked Nittany Lions room alongside Iowa State transfers Ben Brahmer and Gabe Burkle, who followed new coach Matt Campbell to Happy Valley. “Don’t be surprised if by next November or December, he is taking up real estate,” Cummings said.
Boards built in June rarely survive a full fall intact. But if Cummings has read this right, Oregon will own the top of yet another tight end class, and the names the consensus has not reached for yet will be the ones pushing the position higher.
