One Tight End prospect that’s flying completely under everyone’s radar is the Houston Cougars’ TE Tanner Koziol. After being selected in the fifth-round of the NFL Draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars, Koziol has become an afterthought amongst this 2026 NFL TE Class. Especially considering he wasn’t even the first TE taken by the Jaguars in just this year’s draft alone, as Jacksonville selected Nate Boerkircher with their second-round pick.
What most people do not see is the fact that Boerkircher carries extremely limited receiving upside, and will likely be primarily used as a run-blocking tight end. This leaves opportunity within the Jacksonville TE room up for grabs. Brenton Strange is currently the starter for the Jaguars, but his production has not really lived up to the hype of the second-round draft capital he got back in 2023. In his three seasons in the NFL, he’s never been in the top-15 in fantasy points per game and ultimately was not a prospect to write home about coming out of Penn State.
For whatever reason, the Jaguars were gifted Tanner Koziol in the fifth-round in what I believe to be an absolute steal. At 6-foot-6 and a half (95th percentile), 247 pounds — Koziol is a larger receiving tight end with 33.8 inch arms (88th percentile). That reach puts his catch radius at an 82nd percentile, while boasting a burst score that’s 85th percentile and speed score that ranked in the 78th percentile, courtesy of his 4.70 forty (70th percentile).
His performance at the NFL Combine earned him a 9.72 RAS (Relative Athletic Score), which was one of the highest amongst the TEs in the 2026 NFL Draft that tested their athletics at the Combine. That ranked higher than both the top 2026 TE prospects Eli Stowers (9.46 RAS) and Kenyon Sadiq (9.43 RAS).
Diving into production over the course of Koziol’s collegiate career, he posted 2234 receiving yards (98th percentile) on 237 receptions (100th percentile) with 24 touchdowns (98th percentile). He also had a contested catch rate of 27.6% (90th percentile) with a 2.97% drop rate (77th percentile).
Koziol accounted for 27.1% of his teams’ total receiving yards and touchdowns (97th percentile), while also breaking out at the young age of 18 and a half (94th percentile). His metrics amongst tight ends get even wilder. Koziol has the third-most non-screen receptions by any TE in a single season over the last decade or so with 74 in 2024. Not only that, he has two seasons within the top-ten in terms of most non-screen receptions by a TE since 2014.
Amongst drafted TEs since 2017, Koziol again had two top-10 seasons regarding best single-season reception shares. Tanner Koziol and Trey McBride are the only TEs with two seasons that lie in the top-10 in reception share over the last decade. Koziol’s 33.6% in 2024 and 30.6% in 2025 beat all of Sam LaPorta’s (30.2%), Colston Loveland’s (29.5%), Eli Stowers’s (27.4%), and Oronde Gadsden’s (26.8%) best seasons. Over just the last two years combined, Koziol led all FBS receivers — WR or TE — in receptions with 168.
The Utah Tight End averaged the second-most targets per route run out of the 2026 NFL TE Class with 0.25 TPRR, just behind Eli Stowers who posted 0.27 TPRR. He’s clearly being overlooked:
Koziol also managed to have the third-highest collegiate target share amongst all TEs over the last three NFL Draft classes. His 29.3% collegiate target share was again better than all of fellow rookie TEs Kenyon Sadiq, Eli Stowers, and Max Klare. More notably, Koziol edged out Brock Bowers (20%), Oronde Gadsden (25.7%), and Colston Loveland (27.9%).
Once you get to the end of the first round in your dynasty rookie drafts, you begin to wonder if keeping those 2026 draft picks were the right move. Players like Tanner Koziol are why we hold onto those random third and fourth-round picks in hopes of landing a “Puka-esque” prospect. Last year, Oronde Gadsden was the TE I planted my flag on in the final rounds of rookie drafts. Koziol seems to be this years’ Gadsden in my opinion. Both had phenomenal receiving profiles, but were just taken far lower in the NFL Draft than anyone expected.
Koziol may prove a lot of people wrong this year, but in my case I will not be surprised to see him produce at the NFL level. He is my favorite prospect at the Tight End position in this 2026 NFL Draft not named Eli Stowers. But in terms of value, Stowers is going to cost you a first round rookie pick. Koziol can be selected in the late-third and fourth-round of rookie drafts. I’m grabbing both in most of my dynasty rookie drafts, but if you miss out on the expensive TEs this class has to offer, Koziol is not the worst consolation prize by any means.
Despite the low draft capital, Koziol is still ranked as a top-5 TE for me in this class. I prefer him over all of Max Klare, Oscar Delp, Eli Raridon, Michael Trigg, Jack Endries, Marlin Klein, and Sam Roush. Justin Joly is the only other TE I’d value similarly to Koziol. I had Koziol as high as my TE2 pre-draft ahead of Kenyon Sadiq and would not move him much further down based merely off of draft capital.
