100 Days of Mocks: 33rd Team Picks Stud Tight End

With 98 days until the 2023 NFL Draft, our mock-worthy series continues with the pick made by The 33rd Team, the site founded by former NFL execs Mike Tannenbaum and Joe Banner.

Author:
Bill Huber
Updated:
Jan 19, 2023 11:02 AM EST
Original:
Jan 19, 2023

In this story:

Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Tight end Robert Tonyan bounced back from a torn ACL and did his thing for the Green Bay Packers: get open and catch the ball.

Tonyan is headed to free agency and, given the team’s flirtation with the Raiders’ Darren Waller at the trade deadline, it appears the team would like to upgrade an important position. Enter Notre Dame’s Michael Mayer, who was the pick in The 33rd Team’s recent mock draft – Day 3 of our 100 Days of Mock series leading up to the 2023 NFL Draft.

“GM Brian Gutekunst adds another weapon for Aaron Rodgers or Jordan Love. Mayer is a true two-way tight end who offers coach Matt LaFleur a lot of versatility in Green Bay’s offense,” wrote The 33rd Team’s scouting department.

Mayer has a chance to be one of the NFL’s next great tight ends. He’s not an overgrown receiver with freakish tools, such as the Falcons’ Kyle Pitts. Rather, he’s a sure-handed master of the intermediate route and excellent blocker. Pro Football Focus compared him to Jason Witten stylistically.

As a junior in 2021, he caught 67 passes for 809 yards and nine touchdowns to earn consensus All-America honors. He had a pair of 100-yard games, and concluded his career with eight receptions for 98 yards and two touchdowns vs. USC.

In three seasons, he caught 180 passes for 2,099 yards and 18 touchdowns. Mayer obliterated the school record for most receptions by a tight end, previously held by Tyler Eifert with 141.

Mayer has athletics in his DNA. Older brother A.J. Mayer played quarterback at Miami (Ohio) and Arkansas State. His father, Andy, played baseball at Ohio University. A cousin, Luke Maile, is a catcher for the Cincinnati Reds who spent the 2021 season with the Brewers. His grandfather, Dick Maile, was a standout basketball player at LSU.

Basketball was supposed to be his path.

“I loved basketball,” Mayer said via Notre Dame Insider. “I wanted to play basketball in college, so I decided I wasn’t going to play football in high school. I was just going to play baseball and basketball.”

Mayer’s dad asked the high school’s freshman football coach to make a recruiting pitch.

The rest is history.

“He’s the one that did all the work,” the coach, Ted Edgington, said. “The only thing I did was make a phone call.”

100 Days of Mocks

Starting Jan. 17, when there were 100 days until the start of the NFL Draft, we started our mock-worthy goal of 100 mock drafts in 100 days. Here’s the series.

100 days: First-round quarterback?

99 days: Trading for outside linebacker