Contextualization Of New Steelers TE Zach Gentry’s 2018 Pass Targets At Michigan

The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Michigan tight end Zach Gentry in the fifth-round of the 2019 NFL Draft on Saturday and he seems to be the least-favorite pick of the team’s fans so far. While we’re still in the beginning stages of fully breaking down all of Gentry’s Michigan tape, I wanted to start our deep dive into the Steelers newest tight end by contextualizing all of his 2018 pass targets.

In total, Gentry was officially targeted 45 times during the 2018 season with one of those passes being batted down behind the line of scrimmage. Another target against Michigan State wasn’t intended for him, but he caught the ricochet pass just the same.

Of those 45 targets in 2018, Gentry caught 32 of them for 514 yards and 2 touchdowns. I located all 45 of those Gentry pass targets from 2018 and have contextualized them all in the table below. The data in the table includes pertinent information such as time, down and distance, line of scrimmage, and the target result. Additionally, yards gained on completed passes is also included in addition to the pass distance for each attempt and the yards gained after each catch.

Gentry’s average target depth in 2018 was just under 10 yards at 9.96 yards. The average depth of Gentry’s 32 receptions in 2018 was 11.09 yards. Gentry also averaged 3.53 yards after the catch in 2018. 10 of his 32 receptions resulted in gains of at least 20 yards.

In total last season, Gentry had 6 drops with 3 of those coming late in the season against Ohio State. Two of those three drops came on third downs as well. Gentry’s drop early in the season against Notre Dame also came in the end zone and thus negated a possible touchdown.