Why Noah Fant was such a great pick for the Denver Broncos

What makes Noah Fant such a great first-round pick for the Denver Broncos? We take an in-depth look at the prospect and what makes him special.

Noah Fant told the media the day after he was drafted by the Denver Broncos that the reason he decided to play football at the University of Iowa (over any other school he could have gone to) is, “…for this reason right now. I wanted to be in the NFL as a tight end, and Iowa does a great job of making well-rounded tight ends that are ready for the NFL. The whole plan worked out and I was very excited to go to Iowa and that was definitely the best place for me.”

The Iowa Hawkeyes football program isn’t a perennial National Championship contender but Kirk Ferentz consistently develops young, underrated high school kids into big-time NFL athletes.

Noah Fant may be his most talented guy yet, and that’s saying something.

Even though TJ Hockenson went 8th overall to the Detroit Lions and former Hawkeye George Kittle looks like a top three tight end in the NFL, Fant has a truly unique combination of size, speed, explosiveness, and production.

Fant is undeniably an incredible athletic specimen, but what makes him the right pick for the Denver Broncos. Having had some time to digest the pick, re-watch some of his games at Iowa, and look even more closely at what he brings to the table, here are a few reasons I absolutely love this selection.

Translatable Athleticism

Some guys are great athletes and not great football players. Some guys are great football players and not great athletes.

It’s tough to put things together if you’re one of those two things. Julius Thomas, a former fourth-round pick of the Broncos was a great athlete but not really a great football player. Peyton Manning maximized what he could be and he developed well, but it wasn’t long-lasting.

There are countless examples of great college players who just didn’t have the athletic chops to make it in the NFL.

Noah Fant is a great athlete and a great football player, and that’s where I want to start this post off. He plays fast and has immediately translatable athleticism to the NFL level.

In order to get the picture of what I mean here, you have to turn on Fant’s highlight reel.

Now, not every play in this reel is Fant blowing by guys (and there are many of those kinds of plays from 2017 and 2018 alike) but Fant’s athleticism is consistently on display and he gets separation vertically as well as any tight end you will see.

One area Iowa used Fant really well over the last two years that I think we’ll see the Broncos utilize him is putting him in motion and making defenses crazy before the snap. Especially in the red zone, Iowa liked to put Fant in motion and get him some momentum before the snap where he could really be a mismatch for linebackers in coverage.

It’s nearly impossible to defend a guy this big, fast, and explosive when he has a full or even half head of steam before the ball is snapped.

It doesn’t matter if they want to utilize him in the short passing game, intermediate, or deep downfield. Fant is going to be a mismatch athletically wherever he’s lined up.

Versatility

I’m willing to bet at some point since the 2019 NFL Draft ended you’ve heard one of the biggest myths of the year: Noah Fant can’t block.

There are reasons for this floating around, and they should be addressed immediately.

The first reason is, there’s a stigma around tight ends who are athletic receiving threats like Fant. If you’re that good in the passing game and that athletic, you must be horrible at run blocking.

The second reason is the fact that TJ Hockenson — Fant’s teammate at Iowa — is such a great blocker. Hockenson has a highlight reel of blocks where you wonder if he ever even considered the opponent has a family.

Fant has his share of pancakes, but it’s a smaller stack.

He’s not as good as Hockenson, and therefore his abilities are diminished because of it. I don’t agree with those takes.

Fant can become a better in-line player, but you don’t play for Kirk Ferentz at Iowa if you can’t block. The offense literally depends on the tight ends being able to block.

I think Fant can improve in-line blocking but he’s going to be a highly effective matchup/assignment blocker or space blocker in the NFL. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about in regards to blocking in space.

There are a number of other examples if you watch even just one game of Fant’s Iowa film where he gets out in space and is tasked with sealing off linebackers or defensive backs at the second and third level. He is not a liability as a blocker.

He can get better, but his versatility to play in-line or split out makes him a top 20 pick in the Draft.

More Myths to Debunk

I saw this tweet before the 2019 Draft and rolled my eyes so hard I wasn’t sure they would come back down.

This is straight up slander of a player I’ve watched every game of the past two years. I want to address the statistic he posted in the second tweet, and I won’t even pay any attention to the straight up disrespect in the first tweet.

Noah Fant had 78 receptions at Iowa. So the idea that he had 91 catchable targets and all 13 of those passes he didn’t catch were straight up drops doesn’t make sense to me. Not to mention, I never — and I’m not trying to fluff this guy up at all — I never remember yelling out at the TV during Iowa games, “WELLP. Noah Fant just dropped another!”

I don’t recall him ever having an issue with drops. Dropping 13 passes over the course of three seasons (two as a starter) is also not that big of a deal even if it is true.

Why is it not that big of a deal?

Well, first of all, Fant had more touchdowns in college (19) than he did drops if indeed he did have 13. Second, it was never a pattern or a bad habit. It might have happened on occasion, but if Fant had 13 drops on 91 catchable targets, they were spread out far between his big plays.

This is such a trash take I can’t even handle it.

And to address his contested catch ability — this is another point that makes me irate.

Fant didn’t have many contested catches at Iowa because there was rarely a contest. As we mentioned in a previous slide, Fant blew by most defenders who tried to square him up. He did such a great job of creating separation with route running abilities and speed that he was often running wild and free in the open field.

In essence, please get these takes and myths out of my line of sight.

Summary

No prospect is perfect. Noah Fant is not perfect. He has things he can work on. But what he brings to the table immediately for the Denver Broncos cannot and should not be ignored or diminished.

This kid is an NFL-ready playmaker, and he has been since he was a sophomore in college.

Even if you believe everything PFF’s top draft guy is saying and agree that Fant had 13 drops on 91 catchable targets, it’s unfathomable that you wouldn’t be excited about the fact that he had 19 touchdown catches in that same timeframe as well as an average of 13.2 yards per catch.

I don’t think Fant is a finished product, and that’s a good thing. He has plenty of room to get better. But he’s going to the perfect system fit in the NFL and that’s been evidenced by George Kittle’s rapid development with the San Francisco 49ers.

Tight end can be a tough position to transition to in the NFL but Noah Fant is as much an offensive weapon as he is a traditional tight end. He can be used in a variety of ways to make this Denver Broncos offense better, and I’m so glad Denver went with an offensive playmaker with their top pick.

Scoring points has been the most difficult task for this team over the past four years. Nothing would thrill me more than to see some of Denver’s wasted opportunities on third down and in the red zone turned into golden opportunities because of the presence of this dynamic playmaking tight end.