Cade
Stover.
Cade
Stover.
Ohio St.· 6'4"· 247 lb· 4.65s 40
"A converted linebacker who became Ohio State's best tight end in a generation without ever learning to separate, Stover was drafted for the collisions rather than the catches — and the NFL has graded him on exactly that."Pre-draft read
Stover is an in-line Y who earns his money with a hand in the dirt. He works the point of attack on duo and gap runs, keeps his pads under the defender's, and finishes with a wide base that lets him steer ends and stand-up backers off the spot. Ohio State also flexed him to the wing and used him as the lead blocker on split-zone, where the old linebacker shows up in how he seeks contact.
As a receiver he lives on seams, crossers and the soft spot of zone — a big, sure-handed target who plays through contact and becomes a battering ram after it. He does not win with twitch: releases against press are labored and the break point lacks sink, so separation comes from stems and leverage rather than speed. The signature is the collision.
A gap-and-duo run offense that plays real 12 and 21 personnel and asks its second tight end to block a defensive end, not run option routes — play-action attached to a downhill run game where his releases come free off the line.
Year 1: blocking TE2 who plays 300-plus run-game snaps and works the seam off play-action. Ceiling: a genuine every-down Y on a run-first team, in the 40-catch, 400-yard range with elite point-of-attack value.
A spread-out 11-personnel passing offense that lines its tight end up in the slot and asks him to win one-on-one against a nickel — he has no release package for press and no gear to threaten the seam vertically.
His value curve is inverted from most modern tight ends: he is worth more to an offense that wants to run the ball 30 times than to one chasing explosives.
Cade Stover || Ohio State Buckeyes Tight End || 2023 Senior Highlights
Full 2023 senior reel — seam work, contested catches over the middle and the after-catch running that defined his tape.
2024 NFL Draft Highlights: TE Cade Stover | Ohio State Football
School-produced draft cutup showing his in-line blocking reps alongside the receiving production.
Cade Stover Ohio State Highlights
Career montage covering the linebacker snaps and the transition into full-time tight end work.
A former linebacker recruit who spent two years on defense, filled in at the position during the 2022 Rose Bowl, and only became a full-time tight end as a junior, Stover is the rare prospect whose football identity was never in question even while his technique was still catching up. Everything about him — the frame, the temperament, the willingness to block a defensive end on third-and-short — reads old-school Y.
The production arrived fast once the move stuck. He caught 36 balls for 406 yards and five scores in 2022, the best Ohio State tight end season in a generation, then posted 41 for 576 and five more in 2023 without C.J. Stroud throwing him the ball. Evaluators loved the toughness at the catch point and the after-contact running; the flags were the same ones the tape showed every week. He is a good athlete, not an explosive one, and against press and tight man he had no answer beyond strength.
The board had him as a TE3-to-TE5 in a thin class behind Brock Bowers, a fourth-round grade with a clear floor as a blocking-first TE2 and a modest receiving ceiling. Houston, needing a genuine in-line partner for Dalton Schultz, took him at 123 and got exactly the profile they scouted.
- 01
Point-of-attack blocker
plays with a linebacker's contact tolerance in the run game, sustains through the whistle and can be trusted to seal an edge defender on gap and duo concepts.
- 02
Catch-point toughness
a big, physical target who finishes contested balls through contact over the middle and posted a clean drop sheet across his final Ohio State season.
- 03
After-catch violence
averaged roughly seven yards after the catch in 2023, running through arm tackles and turning short zone throws into first downs.
- 04
Positional versatility
took snaps in-line, at the wing, as a lead blocker on split-zone and even at linebacker in a bowl game, which speaks to both football IQ and role flexibility.
- 05
Zone feel
understands spacing, sits down in the vulnerable windows and presents a wide catch radius as an outlet for a quarterback under duress.
- 01
Separation ceiling
lacks the twitch and hip fluidity to uncover at the break point against tight man, so most of his wins are leverage-based rather than earned with speed.
- 02
Release package
struggles to defeat press at the line of scrimmage, which caps how often a coordinator can isolate him against a physical safety or nickel.
- 03
Late convert
only two seasons of full-time tight end reps, and the route detail and hand-placement consistency lag behind his effort level.
- 04
Vertical threat limited
a 4.65 forty and a functional rather than explosive gear mean he will not stress a defense down the seam in the NFL.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.65sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 117inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.45sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Ohio State | 13 | 5 | 76 | 0 |
| 2022 | Ohio State | 13 | 36 | 406 | 5 |
| 2023 | Ohio State | 12 | 41 | 576 | 5 |
| Career | — | 38 | 82 | 1058 | 10 |
Season sums verified against career totals (82 rec, 1,058 yds, 10 TD, 38 games). Spent 2019-2020 on defense as a linebacker; those years carry no verified receiving production and are omitted rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
The median: a decade-long blocking TE2 who plays meaningful run-game snaps, catches 20 to 30 balls a year and is valued far more inside the building than outside it.
The ceiling is not this — it is the volume: a mid-round tight end who eventually earned 60-plus targets a year, which for Stover would require a leap in separation he has not shown.
The floor: a physical in-line body who never solves separation, gets squeezed by cheaper alternatives and drifts into a short journeyman career.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Houston used him exactly as advertised. As a rookie in 2024 he played 15 games with nine starts as the blocking-first complement to Dalton Schultz, catching 15 passes for 133 yards and a touchdown on a modest 4.5 percent target share — real snaps, minimal volume — before a clavicle fracture put him on injured reserve in mid-January. He was activated for the playoff run, but 2025 turned into a lost year: a foot fracture in Week 1 sent him back to IR, he was activated in mid-November, and he finished with 12 catches for 76 yards and no scores across nine games. A knee sprain and offseason hernia surgery followed.
Entering 2026 he is healthy again and back in a four-way fight with Brevin Jordan, Foster Moreau and rookie Marlin Klein for the TE2 job behind Schultz, with his cleanest path coming as the team's blocking tight end and de facto fullback. The evaluation has held up: the run blocking is legitimate NFL-caliber and the receiving ceiling is what the tape said it was. What nobody priced in was the availability. A fourth-round blocking tight end is a fair bet; two straight seasons interrupted by fractures is what turns a fair bet into a replaceable one.
Data note: Season sums verified against career totals (82 rec, 1,058 yds, 10 TD, 38 games). Spent 2019-2020 on defense as a linebacker; those years carry no verified receiving production and are omitted rather than zero-filled.