2019 NFL Draft Prospects: Tight End - Kahale Warring, San Diego State
Kahale Kuio Kalani Michael Wodehouse Warring starred in six different sports at his Californian high school, but didn’t join the football team until his senior year. He decided to walk on at San Diego State and redshirted his first year to bulk up. After breaking his foot as a reserve the following season, the Aztecs gave him a scholarship and he was productive as a three-game starter in 2017 (18 catches for 248 yards and three TDs). Despite officially starting only twice in his final season, he still earned honorable mention All-Mountain West for leading his team with 31 catches for 372 yards and three scores.
Body-wise this young man is all you want out of a tight end. At 6’5”, 252 pounds he ran a 4.67 in the 40, a 36.5-inch vertical and 122-inch broad jump. Warring didn’t get a whole lot of opportunities to prove himself as a weapon in the passing game on a run-heavy offense, but he has shown to be a physical route-runner, who knows how to use subtle push-offs to his advantage and will hold up defenders to clear teammates on mesh concepts. He also got free with some nods one way and then breaking the other. Warring comes off the ball as a vertical threat and is pretty sudden in his breaks. He is strong when it comes to fighting through jams and won’t let contact at the top of the route bother him.
The Aztecs used him on jump-balls on the goal-line, where he shows the hops and box-out skills to tower over defenders. In general he displays excellent focus when catching the ball with defenders around him and he also ran some tight end screens at SD State. Warring won’t shy away from banging heads with defensive ends in the run game, where he sinks his hips and shoots his hands. He shows excellent footwork to seal off defenders on the backside and the effort to sustain blocks as the play develops. While he was rarely utilized in pass-pro, I wouldn’t rule this out for him in the future after what I’ve seen from his work ethic to quickly develop into a good player in a short amount of time.
Unfortunately Warring dropped almost 12 percent of his targets last season. His hands can be somewhat inconsistent, as he makes some tremendous grabs over defenders and follows it up with some other passes slipping right through his fingers. Moreover, he will catch big defenders more than take it to them in the run-game and you see him get pulled off by those guys every once in a while. Warring's experience is highly limited and he didn’t put up any impressive numbers during his collegiate career that would make you pound the table for him.
Warring is an intriguing prospect with the body of a Greek god and flashes of an NFL tight end. His Blocking and route tree certainly need some development, but the physical tools and competitiveness all seem to be there. I would probably spend a pick in the middle-rounds on him if I am looking for a future guy, who I think could end up starting a couple of years down the road.
Grade: Fourth Round