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How Travis Kelce, George Kittle are using Nashville to elevate the future of tight ends


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Travis Kelce, George Kittle and Greg Olsen have grand ambitions for Tight End University.

The Nashville-based camp brought many of the NFL's best tight ends in the past decade to Vanderbilt University's practice facilities for three days of meetings, practices, film sessions and mentorship.

All Pros like Kelce and Kittle were on hand, running drills with children and giving pointers to the up-and-coming pros helping them as counselors. But the field was also littered with former stars like Olsen and Rob Gronkowski.

"I feel like every important group of people — doctors, finance people, everybody in the world doing important stuff — they all have conferences to make each other better," Kelce said Thursday. "I think that was one of the things we tried to do here was get everybody under the same roof, and let’s just talk about football to really try to enhance our game."

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Naturally, tight ends believe they don't get the respect the position deserves. Kittle laments how Kelce has the second-most receiving yards in the NFL regardless of position since 2016 but is paid the equivalent of what the league's 19th-highest-paid wide receiver makes. Tight ends run block, pass block, pull across formations, line up in-line, split out and in the backfield and run routes against cornerbacks, safeties and linebackers, but that versatility isn't treated with the same kind of reverence simpler positions get.

That's why Kittle and Kelce think it's so valuable to have camps like Tight End University.

"We just want to give guys more tools for their tool belts so they can go into games, they understand what they’re watching on film and they just have more things to do and more access to ideas so they’re not making stuff up on the football field," Kittle said. "Now when I watch Travis Kelce and he does a really cool move on an in-breaking route against a certain coverage, I now know ‘Hey, this is why he did that.’ Instead of watching and wondering why he would do that, he’s in the meeting rooms explaining why he does that. I’m like ‘Oh, lightbulb, that makes a lot of sense to me, I can go try that too.’ "

Olsen points out that, since 2000, only nine have led the league in tight end receiving yards. Either Kelce, Gronkowski or Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez topped that leaderboard 14 of those 23 years.

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To change that narrative it may start at the coaching level. Ten of 32 NFL tight ends coaches played the position. However, it's not a stark difference from the 18 teams with player who were receivers and coach the position.

Three years into the Tight End University experiment, the on-field results haven't reflected the mission yet. Tight ends caught 2,503 passes for 26,306 yards and 197 touchdowns in 2022. In 2012, tight ends caught 2,374 passes for 25,699 yards and 190 touchdowns. A decade of growth only meant 607 more yards and seven more scores.

The growing generation of young tight ends, including Tennessee Titans second-year standout Chig Okonkwo, is learning from Kelce and Kittle. But so is the even younger generation who were in attendance and benefit from the charity wing of the camp. Bridgestone donated $50,000 to children's literacy efforts in the Nashville area during the camp.

Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on Twitter @nicksuss.