What kind of production can we expect from Kenyon Sadiq in his rookie season?

Around this time last year, we tried to predict what the likely level of production could be for Mason Taylor in his rookie season, based on how other Jets' rookie tight ends had fared in the past 25 years. Today, let's try to do the same for Kenyon Sadiq.

Our ultimate prediction of 45-to-55 catches for Taylor proved to be pretty accurate. He ended up with 44, but this included four missed games, including a couple at the end of the year when we all know he could have played if needed.

Knowing that this method is generally quite effective, it's reasonable to expect more than this from Sadiq, since he is a first round pick rather than a second-rounder.

It's worth factoring in a few things, though.

First, Taylor was more productive in his college career - although both had a career high in their last season with Sadiq's 51 catches for 560 yards and eight touchdowns comparing favorably with Taylor's 55-546-2 (albeit in two more games).

Next, Taylor probably got more looks last year than he otherwise would have by virtue of the lack of weapons on the Jets' offense. Garrett Wilson had just 13 receiving yards after October 5th, Josh Reynolds and Arian Smith played much less significant roles than anticipated and Breece Hall wasn't used much in the passing game.

Finally, Taylor was probably held back by the poor quarterback play throughout the season. This year, he'll get to play with Geno Smith, who should have better overall numbers, and does like to use his tight ends. Brock Bowers and Michael Mayer combined for 99 catches, over 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns last year, despite missing nine games between them.

If we assume the latter two reasons cancel out and that Sadiq's level of production might not differ that significantly from Taylor's based on the first reason, we can consider the same historical data for Jets tight ends in the past as we did last year:

The Jets have had mixed results with the tight ends they selected in the first three rounds since Anthony Becht was a first round pick back in 2000. Taylor will be the fifth such player after Jeremy Ruckert, Chris Baker, Jace Amaro and Dustin Keller.



While none of those four became star players, the Jets did get good production from Keller and Amaro, who caught 48 and 38 passes respectively in their rookie seasons. That was not the case for Ruckert and Baker though, although Baker was much more productive than Amaro later on in his career and there's still some faint hope that Ruckert might start and break out this year.



The Jets, who also got 39 receptions out of fourth round pick Chris Herndon in his rookie season (and not much thereafter) will be hoping Taylor ends up near the high end of this scale. After all, Baker and Ruckert's lack of production was largely because they had established starters ahead of them in their rookie year (Becht was ahead of Baker and Ruckert was behind Tyler Conklin and CJ Uzomah). Taylor has no such established veteran ahead of him with Ruckert his primary competition.

We also considered the success of highly drafted tight ends around the league in recent seasons, concluding that 25 catches is a common benchmark most rookies were hitting, even if they were drafted later than Taylor was.

Next, we reflected on the higher picks such as Bowers, Dalton Kincaid and Sam LaPorta. Sadiq was actually picked higher than LaPorta and Kincaid and just two spots later than Bowers. LaPorta's success is particularly interesting given his history with the Lions, although this is Frank Reich's show now, so we might learn more from selections made by teams Reich has coached.

Amusingly, the highest drafted tight end during Reich's six years as Eagles offensive coordinator and Colts head coach was Jelani Woods, who is currently on the Jets as the fourth or fifth tight end of the five currently on the roster, so there's not much to be learned from that. Woods had - you guessed it - 25 catches as a rookie.

Despite the fact Sadiq was drafted much higher than Taylor, a lot of that was based on projection and any rookie projection that dramatically outstrips his best college season seems unlikely.

However, 51 catches in 14 games extrapolated over 17 games would give us a ceiling of 62, so - if he stays healthy - this could approximate a reasonable upper end of his possible range of projection.

Let's take an optimistic viewpoint and go a tick higher than our projection for Taylor last year, on the proviso that he stays healthy: 48-to-58 catches. Hopefully that should translate to significantly more yards and touchdowns than Taylor had in 2025, too.

What do you think Sadiq's (and indeed Taylor's) numbers will be like in 2026? Let us know in the comments...