Erick All scouting report: Exploring the Iowa tight end's strengths and weaknesses
A four-star recruit for Michigan in 2019, Erick All had less than 100 receiving yards across his first two seasons, before hauling in 38 passes for 437 yards and two touchdowns in 2021. Only three games into the following season (three receptions for 36 yards) he suffered a back injury that required surgery.
For the 2023 season, he transferred in-conference to Iowa, where across seven games he secured 21 receptions for 299 yards and three TDs, before tearing his ACL.
Details: 6’4″, 250 pounds; RS SR.
Breaking down Erick All's scouting report
Strengths
Blocking
- Erick All has quality experience at H-/fullback and then more as in-line TE/wing for two of the most run-heavy pro-style offenses in college football.
- Gives you quality effort generally as a blocker and works off combos with the appropriate timing.
- Strikes with forces when he has a bit more of a runway on split-zone or climbing up to the second level.
- Showcases impressive mobility to pull across the formation and become a lead-blocker, where he delivers some oomph on contact.
- Won’t slow down and ultimately finds work if he gets through the second level without anybody being in his path to block.
- Did well to run off coverage from the slot by putting his head down and forcing safeties to open with him.
Releases & route-running
- Capable of dropping the hips and cleanly getting out of square breaks, but also plant and getting through transitions quicker, such as on delayed glances or you can even see it on a few shovel passes or sweeps.
- Runs some impressive angle routes basically, where he widens the stem vs. outside-leveraged defenders and at times actually gets them to flip their hips that way before he breaks across their faces.
- Effectively bends off the outside foot on quick routes towards the sideline.
- Displays the suddenness with his feet to elude ancillary zone defenders and be efficient with getting to his ultimate landmarks.
- While he was mainly clearing out space, All does provide a vertical component, pushing up the seams with plus acceleration.
- Iowa utilized him more down the field, where he’d run corner-post routes, showing a nice head fake to get defenders leaning the wrong way.
- Averaged what would be a strong mark for wide receivers with 2.62 yards per route run in 2023.
Approaching the catch & YAC
- Erick All does a nice job of high-pointing the ball and turning his body away from contact.
- Tracks the ball over the shoulder and cleanly catches it with his fingertips on floating passes.
- Shows natural adjustments to back-shoulder placement based on the leverage of the defender and quickly pulls the ball into his frame to not allow it to be knocked out.
- Whether he hesitates or just makes subtle adjustments to his path, All has a knack for not giving defenders in the open field a straight shot at him.
- Has a bit of that bowling ball quality to him with the ball in his hands and plenty of horsepower to churn through wraps.
- All will stutter his feet to make defenders stop theirs, then plant and have his pads and hips aligned to drive through one shoulder of them.
- When he has space to run off crossers or slide routes, you’ll see this guy really pump those arms and be able to turn up the sideline for explosive plays.
Weaknesses
- Erick All would throw a shoulder into defenders during his time at Michigan instead of latching his hands and sustaining blocks by driving his feet through.
- Gets driven into the backfield at times when asked to cut off edge defenders on the backside from crashing through the C-gap.
- Needs to play with a more consistent physicality and more active hands against defenders working hard to stick to him.
- Finished his career with a 13.4% drop rate, showcasing a side-by-side clap-attack tendency.
- Suffered season-ending injuries in back-to-back seasons, including what is always rather scary with back surgery.
Erick All's 2024 NFL Draft projection
I started taking notes on Erick All in 2021 and liked plenty that I saw on broadcasts. Especially considering he only played in 10 combined games – and didn’t even finish two of those – over the past two seasons and what an atrocity this Iowa offense has been to watch. However, All did leave my mind to a certain degree until I actually went back to study him.
I was very impressed with his ability to go through different breaks with the appropriate suddenness or haste, some of the tough grabs he was able to hold onto, and then how he’d navigate through contact once the ball was in his hands.
With that being said, how he approaches more routine catches going forward and works on actually connecting with his hands as a blocker as well will determine how he turns early opportunities into extended ones.
He may not ever be a true Y, but as a number two for an offense, who can line up on that guy’s hip or is featured more in the backfield, I really like his ability to get to spots and create that initial displacement on the collision with defenders, even though he doesn’t yet secure those as well as you’d like.
His injury history will certainly push him down boards, but with a clean bill or at least confidence from your medical staff that it won’t affect him going forward, I’d be fine with selecting Erick All early on day three.
Erick All Grade: Early fourth round* (injury asterisk).
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