Ja'Tavion
Sanders.
Ja'Tavion
Sanders.
Texas· 6'4"· 245 lb· 4.69s 40
"A converted edge rusher who became a flex mismatch tight end, Sanders sells his hands and his stride, not his blocking — and the NFL so far has paid him accordingly."Pre-draft read
Sanders was Texas' primary receiving tight end, flexed off the line about as often as he was attached, and he won with smoothness rather than power. He released cleanly against linebackers, stacked defenders on vertical stems and tracked the ball naturally over either shoulder, plucking away from his frame.
The secondary trait is run-after-catch: he turns upfield instantly on slants and crossers and is hard for one defender to corral in space. As a blocker he is willing but light, screening more than displacing. The signature is the seam shot — a big slot who forces a safety to declare and punishes single coverage down the middle of the field.
A Shanahan/Canales-style play-action offense that uses 12 personnel as a spread look, letting the second tight end detach and attack the seam instead of asking him to survive on the line.
Year 1: rotational move tight end in two-TE passing packages and play-action seam shots. Ceiling: a 60-catch TE1 in a pass-first offense that keeps a blocking tight end on the roster next to him.
A gap-scheme, run-first offense that asks its lone tight end to base block a 275-pound edge on duo and counter — his lack of anchor turns those snaps into negative plays.
His value climbs sharply when he is paired with an inline blocker; asked to play every down alone, the offense has to hide him on run downs.
Ja'Tavion Sanders 2023 Texas Highlights
Junior-year reel showing the seam work and run-after-catch that defined his Texas tape.
Texas TE Ja'Tavion Sanders 2023 Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft
Draft-cycle cutup of his flex alignments and hands catches away from the frame.
Ja'Tavion Sanders All-22 Film Study
All-22 breakdown covering release quality, route stems and the blocking limitations.
Sanders is a converted edge rusher who grew into a modern flex tight end, a 6-4, 245-pound target whose football identity is matchup hunting rather than in-line grunt work. Everything he does well shows up detached: alignment in the slot, quick releases, natural hands, easy speed through the intermediate levels.
The production came in two very different shapes. He caught 54 balls for 613 yards and five scores as a sophomore in 2022, then dropped to 45 catches while raising his average to 15.2 yards a grab in 2023, when Texas leaned on Adonai Mitchell and Xavier Worthy outside. Both years he was the safety valve who could also stretch a defense, and both years the tape flagged the same thing: contact balance at the catch point is fine, contact at the point of attack is not. He is a finesse blocker who plays lighter than his listed weight.
Boards had him inside the tight end top three of the class behind Brock Bowers, with a late-second to third-round grade and a well-understood floor. Carolina taking him at the top of round four was value for a team installing Dave Canales' tight end-heavy scheme, and the fit made sense: pair a blocker in Tommy Tremble with a receiver in Sanders and let the personnel grouping lie.
- 01
Natural hands catcher
plucks the ball away from his frame, adjusts to throws behind him and rarely lets contested targets get into his pads.
- 02
Flex alignment value
comfortable in the slot or wing, which lets an offense keep 12 personnel on the field and still spread a defense out.
- 03
Seam speed for the position
4.69 speed with real stride length that forces safeties to open early and creates space underneath for everyone else.
- 04
Run after catch
turns upfield in one step off slants and crossers, and his balance through arm tackles turns short throws into first downs.
- 05
Ball tracking over either shoulder
a former basketball body that finds the ball late, adjusts on the move and finishes at the high point.
- 01
In-line blocking
screens and shields rather than displaces, and he loses ground against heavier edge defenders on down blocks and duo.
- 02
Play strength
plays lighter than his listed weight, which shows up on chip work and when defenders reroute him at the line of scrimmage.
- 03
Route nuance
stems are mostly straight-line, and he doesn't yet sell breaks well enough to separate against disciplined man coverage.
- 04
Contested-catch volume
the production came on clean-window throws, and his catch radius has not translated to a consistent jump-ball answer.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.69sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.32sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Texas | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Texas | 13 | 54 | 613 | 5 |
| 2023 | Texas | 14 | 45 | 682 | 2 |
| Career | — | 39 | 99 | 1295 | 7 |
Verified via cfbstats/Tankathon season logs. 2021 was a true-freshman year with no receiving production; season sums match the career totals.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Athletic receiving tight end who bounces between TE1 volume and a rotational role depending on scheme and health — exactly the band Sanders lives in.
The realistic ceiling: a reliable 60-catch flex tight end who lives on option routes and seam throws without ever being a plus blocker.
A move tight end who never solved the blocking piece and settled into replaceable third-down snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Carolina used him immediately, starting eight of his 16 rookie games in 2024 and getting 33 catches for 342 yards and a touchdown out of a rotation with Tommy Tremble — solid, low-volume work for a fourth-rounder on a bad offense, interrupted by a scary neck injury that sent him off on a stretcher. Year two went the wrong way. A Week 3 high ankle sprain and a broken ankle in Week 12 held him to 13 games, 29 catches and 190 yards, an alarming 6.6 yards per reception that reflected how narrowly he was being used. He entered the 2026 offseason healthy and openly targeting a starting job, but Carolina spent the spring failing to add a pass-catching tight end and then brought in Darren Waller in August, which reads as a vote of limited confidence.
The evaluation has mostly held: the hands, the flex value and the after-catch juice are real, and so is the blocking cap that kept him from ever being a true every-down player. What nobody weighted enough was durability, and two injury-shortened years have cost him the developmental runway a finesse tight end needs. He is not a miss — he has 62 career catches and a role in a scheme built for his skill set — but the pick has produced a rotational piece rather than the mismatch starter the traits suggested.
Data note: Verified via cfbstats/Tankathon season logs. 2021 was a true-freshman year with no receiving production; season sums match the career totals.