The Rams keep finding production at tight end, and the rest of the league still doesn’t seem to be catching on.
Colby Parkinson was a big part of that last season. He caught more than 75 percent of his targets and finished with 408 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, leading a room that had four different tight ends score at least three times. Even with that kind of output, Parkinson and the Rams barely register in the broader conversation about the position.
The numbers make the case pretty quickly. Arizona’s Trey McBride drew 169 targets in 2025 and turned them into 1,236 yards and 11 touchdowns.
The entire Rams tight end group, meanwhile, put up 1,128 yards and 17 touchdowns on just 150 targets. That came while Terrance Ferguson worked through rookie struggles, too.
What makes the group so difficult to pin down is that there isn’t one obvious centerpiece. Fans usually know where the star power is on a roster, but in Los Angeles, that answer keeps shifting. Parkinson, Ferguson, Tyler Higbee, Davis Allen and rookie Max Klare all have a path to meaningful snaps this season, and the mix could look different from one week to the next.
That uncertainty creates problems for defenses right away. Sean McVay can line up with zero, one, two or three tight ends on any given play, and the variety only gets harder to sort out because Parkinson and Higbee bring different styles even though both can be effective. That gives the Rams a wide range of looks and makes it tougher for opponents to anticipate what’s coming.
There’s also the simple reality that Los Angeles may not need everyone to contribute at once. Klare, the team’s second-round pick this year, is still facing the usual rookie adjustment.
Ferguson, who posted a 44 percent catch rate last season, hasn’t become a player defenses fear. But with five tight ends competing for roles, the Rams only need one of them to catch fire.
The committee approach also helps on a roster that already carries injury concerns because of age. McVay needs only three tight ends to operate his 12- or 13-personnel packages, which means the Rams could still have two more available even if the rotation gets thinned out.
There’s a catch, of course: it’s hard to imagine Los Angeles keeping five tight ends on the 53-man roster. Decisions are coming.
Even so, the fact that the Rams could realistically move on from a useful player like Allen says plenty about how deep this group is. The Rams have one of the league’s most dangerous tight end rooms, whether the rest of the NFL wants to admit it or not.
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