Brock Bowers has already established himself as one of the NFL’s best tight ends.
ESPN analyst Seth Walder believes the Raiders star could take a much bigger step in 2026: Becoming the league’s best offensive player.
Walder predicted Bowers will win Offensive Player of the Year, a particularly aggressive call considering a tight end has never captured the AP award. It would also represent a major rebound after Bowers’ injury-shortened 2025 season ended with 64 catches for 680 yards and seven touchdowns in 12 games.
The logic starts with new Raiders coach Klint Kubiak.
“Last year, Klint Kubiak had one clear-cut playmaker who was better than all the rest,” Walder wrote. “What happened? A 35% target rate for Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Now, it’s Bowers who is the clear-cut best receiver. I think the Raiders will run their offense through him, and he’ll put up monster numbers.”
Smith-Njigba turned that workload into 119 catches, 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns for Seattle, ultimately winning the 2025 Offensive Player of the Year award and helping the Seahawks win the Super Bowl. Smith-Njigba’s Offensive Player of the Year season provides an obvious blueprint for what Kubiak could attempt with Bowers.
Las Vegas has even more incentive to funnel its passing game through him.
The Raiders enter the season without a wide receiver who has ever produced a 1,000-yard campaign. Tre Tucker and Jalen Nailor could emerge, but neither enters 2026 as the type of established target who should prevent Bowers from dominating opportunities.
And Bowers has already shown what he can do with volume.
When healthy in 2024, he caught an NFL rookie-record 112 passes for 1,194 yards and five touchdowns despite playing with Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell at quarterback.
His impact becomes even more interesting when compared to that season’s Offensive Player of the Year, Saquon Barkley.
On plays where each player was directly involved as a runner or receiver, Bowers produced approximately 0.57 EPA per play with a 56.3% success rate in 2024. Barkley, who rushed for 2,005 yards on his way to the award, was at approximately 0.13 EPA per play with a 44.1% success rate.
That is not an apples-to-apples measurement of their complete value — Barkley handled far more opportunities, and those numbers do not capture everything either player contributed without the ball. But they illustrate that Bowers was already creating enormous value whenever Las Vegas put the offense in his hands.
The tougher comparison is Smith-Njigba.
The 2025 winner produced approximately 0.81 EPA per play with a 63.5% success rate on his direct opportunities, comfortably ahead of Bowers’ rookie marks. Smith-Njigba also generated the gaudier counting stats that tend to matter in an awards race.
That suggests Bowers may need more than simply returning to his rookie form. He could need to improve upon it.
Kubiak provides a compelling path. The new Raiders coach just oversaw an offense built around an elite pass catcher, and Las Vegas has upgraded its quarterback options with Kirk Cousins and No. 1 overall pick Fernando Mendoza.
The Raiders drafted Mendoza first overall after also bringing in Cousins as the veteran bridge.
Bowers probably needs historic tight end production to actually win the award.
Walder is betting that Kubiak will give him the opportunity to produce it.
