2019 NFL Draft Prospects: Tight End - Dawson Knox, Ole Miss
A former tight end from Tennessee, Knox missed all but one game his senior year in high school and decided to join the Rebels as a tight end. After redshirting in 2015 to get healthy and work on his body, he was limited to special teams in his first year in Mississippi. As a sophomore he caught 24 passes for 321 yards, starting nine of ten games. While the overall numbers didn’t improve last year, he put up a massive 18.9 per catch in Ole Miss’ offense.
At 6’4”, 250+ pounds, Knox ran a 4.51 at the Ole Miss pro day. He shows the explosiveness off the snap to put defenders on their heels, is a constant threat down the seams and gains ground quickly after the catch, as he runs away from linebackers on shallow crossers.
Knox’s production was highly limited by the fact that the play-calling didn’t allow him to work the middle of the field, which was largely left open for A.J. Brown, and quarterback Jordan Ta’amu being hesitant to give him opportunities or flat-out missing throws. However, I think he has all the weapons to be an outstanding receiver. He shows good mobility of the hips and tilt in his feet for rounded breaks and is flexible enough to come out of that on whip routes.
Knox creates a lot of separation on out and stick routes, where he just didn’t get the ball. The potent pass-catcher shows natural, sudden hands to bring in catches on passes that get there right out of his breaks and he dropped just one pass last season.
Knox doesn’t stop his feet going into contact and gains extra yardage consistently. He has some wiggle to make defenders miss in the open field, even if he didn’t get a lot of chances to show it. He doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty as a run-blocker as a wing-man or from that H-back position, where he shows excellent leverage and rolling of the hips. He brings good initial thump and continuous leg-drive, really putting in the effort in that area.
Knox was used a lot to pull around the formation and lead-block for his backs, plus then the Rebels faked the run and asked him to stay home. Overall I think he shows quick feet and some pretty good anchor as a pass-protector. He looked very natural and smooth running routes and catching the ball at the scouting combine.
As a seal-blocker, Knox is beaten across his face by some defensive ends and struggles to stay engaged with physically stronger defenders. You see him duck his head at times and he will need to work on his hand-positioning in general. His route tree at Ole Miss was limited to vertical concepts, breaking outside or back towards the QB within the first five yards of the line of scrimmage.
The zero career touchdowns and almost no opportunities in the red-zone are a question mark and an area you can’t really evaluate. A lot about him as a pass-catcher is based on projecting somebody with 39 career catches, which is certainly odd.
What do you make of a tight end with who was targeted less than 30 times last season and never even reached the end-zone in college? You look at the athletic tools and try to project. Knox can flat out run, I see the ability to expand on his routes with better footwork and he is a high-effort run-blocker. I don’t see anything that would make me believe he can’t put up better numbers as a pro, but since he never showed me I can’t put him above a couple of other guys.
Grade: Mid-First