Eagles Will Have A Healthy Presence At Tight End University

Tight End University returns to Vanderbilt in Nashville next week, and this year’s event will have a healthy Philadelphia flavor with the Eagles’ Dallas Goedert set to attend for a fifth consecutive year.

The brainchild of star tight ends George Kittle, Travis Kelce, and the now-retired Greg Olsen, the event was put together with two goals in mind: making the league’s tight ends better and getting them paid.

"If you're on an NFL roster or were in the last year, you're invited," Kittle recently said on the Dan Patrick Show. "I talk about run blocking, pass protection, YAC [yards after catch]. Those are things I focus on. Travis talks about his route tree, how he reads his coverages, Greg Olsen talks about his routes. Jordan Reed has spoken about his releases. This year Evan Engram is going to talk."

Goedert, meanwhile, has grown from a young ascending player to part of the establishment at the position.

“It's definitely grown a lot over the years,” Goedert told Eagles On SI. “I'm going into my fifth year [going] and my mindset going to it this year compared to my first year has definitely changed.”

Early on, Goedert was trying to pick the minds of the more established stars, and now he’s that for the younger players.

“My first year, I went there 100% to learn,” Goedert said. “I remember picking Travis’ brain, asking him a lot of questions. And now that  I'm going into Year 8 instead of Year 3, I kind of switched to people asking me the questions, people asking me how I was able to do this. Why my stance is the way it is. 

“So it's cool to be able to go there and help the younger guys and continue to be able to grow the tight end position.”

Another aspect of the three-day event that Goedert looks forward to is the networking.

“Another thing I always enjoy about it is just meeting tight ends on different teams,” he said. “Being from South Dakota State, there's not a lot of people that I played with or against in the league. So sometimes I wouldn't have anybody to talk to after a game, but ever since Tight End University, we have that camaraderie, and I always know somebody on the other team that I can talk to before or after the game.”

Goedert told Eagles On SI that three other members of the Eagles’ TE room are planning on attending this year: Grant Calcaterra, E.J. Jenkins, and Nick Muse.

“I think it's just important to keep growing the position and over the last five years, it seems like the tight ends have been a super important part of the game, especially if you look at the people that go far in the playoffs, it seems like they always have one of the better tight ends,” Goedert said.

This year’s Tight End University runs from June 23-26 in Music City.

"We try to talk about all the things a tight end does because we're the only position that gets to do everything," Kittle said. "Pass pro, run blocking, catching the football, scoring touchdowns, running the ball sometimes, so we kind of try to cover as much as we can in the limited time we have with these guys and just give them a step forward in their careers to help them make a team in the upcoming camp."