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The Washington Commanders selected Kansas State tight end Ben Sinnott with the 53rd overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft. The 6-foot-4, 250 pound tight end received high praise from Commanders general manager Adam Peters after the draft when Peters compared him to 49ers tight end George Kittle and 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk, both of whom Peters worked with in San Francisco. Comparing Sinnott to the best fullback in football and one of the best tight ends in football is setting a high bar for him and I think it’s unfair to expect him to hit that right away, but he is someone that has plenty of potential to develop into a well-rounded football player that offers a lot of flexibility in how he can be used. 

Run Blocking

Let’s start with the run blocking. It’s not the flashy part of the game that will be on highlight reels, but it’s something that could get Sinnott on the field early and often in his NFL career. Sinnott can be inconsistent with his technique, which I’ll get onto later, but he’s a feisty blocker that doesn’t shy away from contact and being involved in the run game. Let’s start with the most basic type of block he’ll be asked to do. Every team will run some form of zone run scheme and when they do, they’ll often ask the tight end to sift back across the line and cut off the back side defensive end with a cut block. Sinnott does this well. 

There’s quite a few examples in this clip of Sinnott using a cut block on a sift. You’ll see on all of these plays that the offense runs a zone run to one side of the line while Sinnott sifts back against the direction of the play and cuts the back side defensive end. You have to be careful with cut blocks in the NFL now, as they are penalized if they go below the knee, but Sinnott does a consistently good job of targeting the hip of the defender to cut them off on the back side of the run. It’s a relatively simple job, but it’s a crucial part of zone scheme runs because it creates a separation point in the defense between the front side and back side of the play, meaning the running back has somewhere to cut back into if he needs it. It also sets up some easy play-action bootlegs with the sift turning into a flat route. 

Sinnott does a good job with those types of blocks, but most tight ends are at least competent at that type of block. Where most college tight ends tend to struggle in the modern game is blocking inline, especially in game schemes. With the game trending more and more towards the pass, its rare to find a tight end that can line up inline and execute a base drive block or an angle drive block as a core part of the run scheme. Sinnott though is capable in that regard. 

Here we see a few examples of Sinnott blocking inline on gap scheme runs. On the first play of the clip, he’s left responsible for blocking the edge defender straight up while the rest of the offensive line block down inside. Sinnott does a nice job getting his pads low, keeping his hands inside and exploding up on contact, knocking the defender back. He then continues to drive his feet and walks the defender back five or six yards, creating a nice lane behind him for the running back to work into. 

The second play of the clip is slightly different. This time, Sinnott aligns next to the right tackle and executes a down block on a big interior defensive lineman as part of a combination block with his right tackle. The tackle makes first contact with the defender, but Sinnott comes in and wipes it all out, knocking the defender over and finishing the block on top of him. Now, ideally Sinnott knocks him over and stays on his feet to pick up the linebacker, which is part of his assignment, but you certainly don’t hate to see a tight end getting involved in knocking guys over in the run game. 

The third play of the clip is a better example of what Sinnott was meant to do on the second play. This time he lines up outside the left tackle, but has a similar assignment to block down off the defensive lineman in combination with the left tackle, before then peeling off and picking up a linebacker. Sinnott still plays physically, giving the defensive lineman a strong shove inside, but instead of trying to throw his entire body into one block, Sinnott then peels off and picks up the linebacker scraping over from the back side of the run. 

Those types of blocks are extremely important in being able to run the ball in the NFL. It’s very hard to execute an NFL offense, especially one that we expect to be running a lot of gap scheme runs, without multiple solid blocking tight ends. John Bates gives Washington one good blocker and now Sinnott gives them a second option there. Having that second guy that you can line up inline and trust in the run scheme is huge. Sinnott is capable of making those first level blocks as we’ve just seen, but the second tight end often needs to be able to climb up to the second level and take on guys there too. Sinnott is capable of that as well. 

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