looking at it. Long story short: don’t necessarily recruit good high school tight ends to play tight end in college. Recruit really good athletes with big frames.

Here are the top 25 NFL TEs from last year as graded by PFF, along with the primary position they played in high school, according to 247/Rivals/Hudl/Wikipedia:

1 George Kittle - 49ers - WR

2 Travis Kelce - Chiefs - QB, RB

3 Mark Andrews - Ravens - WR

4 TJ Hockenson - Vikings - TE

5 Sam LaPorta - Lions - WR

6 Dallas Goedert - Eagles - WR, RB, LB

7 Kyle Pitts - Falcons - TE

8 Trey McBride - Cardinals - TE, RB, DE (all-state basketball, baseball, and football player)

9 David Njoku - Browns - WR (also national champion high jumper)

10 Evan Engram - Jaguars - WR

11 Cole Kmet - Bears - TE

12 Jake Ferguson - Cowboys - WR, LB

13 Dalton Kincaid - Bills - Not recruited for football, only played one year in HS, played mostly basketball

14 Brock Bowers - Raiders - TE

15 Pat Freiermuth - Steelers - TE

16 Dalton Schultz - Texans - TE

17 Darren Waller - Giants - WR

18 Hunter Henry - Patriots - WR, OL, DE

19 Gerald Everett - Bears - Not recruited for football, only played one year in HS, played mostly basketball and track

20 Dawson Knox - Bills - WR, QB

21 Tyler Conklin - Jets - Not recruited for football, played college basketball before switching to football

22 Chigoziem Okonkwo - Titans - WR

23 Luke Musgrave - Packers - TE (also HS lacrosse, track, & ski)

24 Jonnu Smith - Dolphins - TE

25 Taysom Hill - Saints - haha

These guys all (except Taysom) transformed into elite TEs in college and were drafted at that position into the NFL; most of them didn’t enter college with that positional background.

Of course, BYU’s all time leading TE (Pitta) - HS WR

Antonio Gates - didn’t play college football, very good college BB player.

Tony Gonzalez - 26 ppg as a HS basketball player in Orange County, played 3 years college basketball at Cal

Like all HS recruiting, my suspicion is that the kid who excels at TE in high school might be a great college TE - but he also might be the kid who just grew and matured and filled out faster than most of the other kids. So TE is where he gets put, and he can dominate at that level but not the next.