3 Third-year NFL tight ends set to break out in 2019 season

O.J. Howard

With the 19th selection in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Howard to be a big play threat down the seam and to take the top off of opposing defenses. While Howard has improved from his rookie to his sophomore year, he has not quite lived up to the hype of a top-20 pick.

However in 2019, Howard is staring a monster year right in the face as he will not have to deal with a revolving door of quarterbacks between Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick, and he has an offensive mastermind in Bruce Arians as his head coach. Howard has historically performed better with Winston under center than Fitzpatrick, and now with a full season with Winston, Howard is in a prime position to light up the stat sheet.

Thus far in his career, Howard has recorded 997 yards on 60 catches and 11 touchdowns; he took a step forward in 2018 and recorded 34 catches for 565 yards and five scores. Howard’s biggest enemy to this point in his career has been the injury bug, missing eight games over the past two seasons.

If the third-year tight end can manage to put together a full 16 games, he could realistically double his production from a year ago in 2019.