Oakland Raiders: What rookie TE Foster Moreau brings to the offense

Overview and Conclusion

In LSU’s run-heavy offense, Moreau played his role perfectly as a TE/H-Back with solid blocking. Moreau usually blocked even on passing downs and was good at it, making him sort of an extra tackle on the line.

With projected starter Darren Waller being purely a receiving tight end and the Raider offensive line still somewhat of a question mark despite looking good on paper, Moreau has the skill set to fill a role that a few on the team already do, but without the potential Moreau has as a dual-threat.

While Moreau’s blocking was good versus college defenders, it does need some work for him to be just as solid at the NFL level. Moreau uses his length well when blocking and has good upper body strength, which is why he is almost always able to keep his man engaged.

But he does not use his lower body enough when blocking to generate power by chopping his legs and because of that, defenders are able to disengage easily at times on top of him not being able to drive guys back very often. This is not a big problem as his blocking overall was still solid and all players have some things to work on.

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When it comes to his ability as a pass-catcher, Moreau is all potential and a total question mark as he blocked the vast majority of his snaps, including passing plays. His route running is not the smoothest or crispest, but he was able to find soft spots in the defenses and most of his receptions were on short routes where he was the safety blanket.

On multiple occasions he flashed the athleticism he showed at the combine and got yards after the catch as he’s sneaky fast and a big body that is tough to bring down.

Moreau catches with his hands and in none of the games I saw did he have any drops nor did he catch it with his body. The one negative I saw in his receiving is that he looks back for the ball too late in his route at times and that may have contributed to his low amount of targets.

As Mayock said, Moreau is a lot more athletic than he was able to show and if he surprises in camp he may be able to contribute early in the passing game as the Raiders do not have a clear-cut number one tight end on the team.

While Waller is penciled in as the starter, he is not a blocker and so the offense will be rotating in multiple tight ends which should give him some opportunities. Moreau is already a good enough blocker to have a spot in the league but whether he can develop that potential as a pass catcher will determine if he was worth the 4th round pick or if he is just a replaceable blocking H-tight end.

I gave Moreau a 5.35 grade as a prospect using Matt Miller’s grading scale, which projects him as a quality backup. That would make him an OK pick in the fourth-round if true, but being optimistic, I think Moreau has the tools to be a future starter if the potential as a receiver he showed were not just flashes, but what he could do if given opportunities.