School: Utah

Position: TE

Year: Senior

The Good: Kincaid is visibly a tremendous all-around athlete; his basketball background is clear once you watch him play. He’s an easy runner who displays nifty footwork, and he’s extremely quick to hitch in his curl routes (which dominated his route tree at Utah). Kincaid is natural in high-pointing the football and can go up and get balls; he boasts one of the better contested catch rates in this class. Kincaid is willing to lower his shoulder and displays enough toughness with the ball in his hands.

The Bad: Before you even get into Kincaid’s tape, you observe that he’s a fifth-year senior who just enjoyed his breakout season at 23 years old. His age alone certainly doesn’t invalidate Kincaid as a prospect, but it’s worth noting – especially since his production was closely intertwined with his athletic advantage over Pac-12 defenders. And more into that production, Kincaid caught 23% of his receptions and 26% of his yards on the season in one game against USC where they let him cook so long as he stayed in front of them all game. More into his player profile, Kincaid is a total non-entity as a blocker. Kincaid can still survive in the NFL as a F tight end who purely lives out of the slot, but that’s a limited offering for perhaps football’s most versatile position before even entering the league. And I am that pessimistic about Kincaid’s blocking. Kincaid is obviously a talented receiver – otherwise we wouldn’t be having an NFL Draft conversation about him – but he doesn’t possess much craft to his route running nor much of a physical advantage at 240lbs compared to pro TEs.

The Bottom Line: I’m pretty confused about the hype surrounding Kincaid. (I formed this opinion before recent news of a back fracture that will keep Kincaid out of the Combine, for what it’s worth.) Like, he could become a fun complementary TE in an NFL offense, but I don’t see a Round 1 prospect here. I covered his lack of blocking in enough detail, and I’m not confident in Kincaid being THAT sure-handed or THAT fast or THAT good with the ball in his hands to remain a mismatch in the NFL and overcome his deficiencies. Utah had sneaky good surroundings for Kincaid as well, with a QB in Cam Rising who would’ve been drafted had he declared and an offensive coordinator in Andy Ludwig that Notre Dame unsuccessfully attempted to hire. Usually we’d collectively care more about a prospect being 23 and “breaking out” against Pac-12 competition, but I’m seldom hearing it raised in Kincaid’s narrative at all. It feels like Daniel Jeremiah placed him as a Top 10 prospect in his first rankings and we’re all just running with it now. Like I said, pretty confusing to me.

Grade: Third Round

Pro Comp: Lance Kendricks

Games Watched:

• Arizona State 2022
• USC 2022
• Washington State 2022
• Oregon 2022

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