2019 NFL Draft Prospects: Tight End - Foster Moreau, LSU
A New Orleans native, Moreau decided to join his home-state Tigers as a former three-star recruit. He didn’t catch a pass in his true freshman year and brought in only six in his second season as more of a role player. These last two years he has been a starter for LSU, catching a combined 46 passes for 550 yards and five touchdowns, while being a valuable blocker for his team.
Moreau is a very versatile as a blocker and pass-catcher at 6’4”, 255 pounds. He is an old-school player who doesn’t wear gloves. While he dropped five passes in 2017, he only had one of those last season and was a highly dependable target in the passing game for the Tigers. He had this tremendous one-handed catch off a bootleg versus Florida, where the QB had to get rid of it quickly and threw it to the back of his tight end.
Moreau also showed some pretty good hands at the Senior Bowl, after being underutilized at LSU. He is highly effective on dig routes over the middle, where he displays fluid hips and is unafraid to take on contact. Even though he didn’t get to show it a whole lot, you see flashes of vertical speed to attack the seams. He surprised some people with a 4.66 in the 40 yard dash and some of the best numbers in the leaping events at the combine.
Once he secures the catch, Moreau puts both hands on the rock, takes down the shoulder and runs through people with the ball in his hands, twisting and stretching for additional yardage. Moreau is a tough-nosed, high-effort blocker. He gets his hands inside the frame of defenders, drives them off the ball and keeps pushing until the echo of the whistle. He absolutely bullies smaller DBs, when he gets the chance to.
Moreau was asked to pull around and kick out defensive ends quite a bit as well as acting as a lead-blocker. He can seal off or reach edge defenders with active footwork. He also put in excellent work as a pass-protector, where he shows the ability to slide his feet and re-anchor against power-rushers, while understanding when to ride speed guys past the quarterback.
For as much as I think, Moreau could develop in the passing game, he is sluggish off the line and doesn’t really put pressure on defenders when he sets up quick breaks. He gets hung up with contact way too easily underneath and fails to disengage as the play develops. His route tree at LSU was extremely basic and he didn’t show a lot of nuances in his approach. Moreau won’t make anybody miss or just hit another gear to run away from somebody after the catch either.
Moreau is somebody I think will help out your run game from day one and has a lot room to grow in the passing game, while offering enough in protection to put him on the field on third downs early on. His route-running definitely needs some refinement and you will need to work on how he gets off the ball, but I think there is enough talent to spend an early day three pick on him and develop the kid.
Grade: Fourth Round