Charlie
Kolar.
Charlie
Kolar.
Iowa St.· 6'7"· 252 lb
"A 6-foot-6 academic Heisman winner who caught 168 passes at Iowa State without a single explosive trait, and whose NFL value always depended on whether size and reliability could survive without speed."Pre-draft read
Kolar is a 6-foot-6 in-line tight end who plays like an oversized possession receiver. Iowa State used him attached, flexed into the slot and detached in trips, and his mechanics are built on a wide catch radius and a feel for settling into the soft spot of zone. He does not separate with burst; he separates with size, timing and a late high-point that turns contested throws into completions.
The secondary trait is red-zone and seam work, where the length becomes a target rather than a mismatch. As a blocker he is a positional, angle-first player who seals an edge more than he displaces a defender. The athletic ceiling is modest and the signature is reliability: an outlet who catches everything inside the numbers.
A tight-end-heavy play-action offense that keeps two or three tight ends on the field and asks the second one to seal an edge, chip and work the intermediate middle.
Year 1: TE2 in a 12-personnel offense, blocking on early downs and working the seam in the red zone. Ceiling: a low-volume starting Y who blocks at a plus level and catches 40 passes.
A spread offense that runs one tight end who has to win vertically as a flex mismatch, where his lack of separation speed leaves him covered on every route.
Value comes from being the second or third tight end in a heavy personnel group, never from carrying a passing game alone.
Charlie Kolar Iowa State Highlights
Cyclones cut-up built around seam throws, contested catches and red-zone targets.
Charlie Kolar 2020 Highlights | Iowa State TE | 2022 NFL Draft Prospect
Junior-season reel from the 44-catch, seven-touchdown Mackey finalist year.
Film Room Session with TE Charlie Kolar, Iowa State
Kolar walking through his own tape, useful on how he reads zone leverage before the snap.
Kolar is a long, dependable in-line tight end with rare production for the position. He is not a move piece and not a flex mismatch in the traditional sense; he is a big-bodied route runner who works the intermediate middle, wins on timing throws and finishes in traffic. Everything in his game runs through size, hands and instincts rather than speed.
The resume is close to unprecedented at Iowa State. He caught 168 passes for 2,181 yards and 23 touchdowns, was a three-time first-team All-Big 12 pick and a two-time Mackey Award finalist, and in 2021 he won the William V. Campbell Trophy as the nation's top scholar-athlete. He also came with a body of injury history that mattered: a sports hernia repaired in 2020 that lingered into his pre-draft spring, and a frame that had already carried four heavy college seasons. The blocking was functional rather than dominant.
Boards liked him as a safe, high-floor second tight end in the third-to-fourth range, a player with a clear role and almost no bust risk. Baltimore, a team that stacks tight ends on purpose, took him at 128 on the same day it also spent a fourth-rounder on Isaiah Likely. That pairing told the story of the pick: Kolar was the size-and-blocking half of the bet, not the ceiling half.
- 01
Catch radius
at 6-foot-6 with 34 1/2-inch arms he extends outside his frame and high-points throws that most tight ends can only body, which makes him a natural red-zone answer.
- 02
Elite college production
168 catches for 2,181 yards and 23 touchdowns, the second-most receiving scores by any tight end in the country across his four years in Ames.
- 03
Zone feel
settles into soft spots, adjusts his depth to the coverage and comes back to the quarterback, which turns him into a reliable outlet on scramble and third-down downs.
- 04
Hands and body control
routinely finished contested catches in traffic and over the middle, with almost no drop or ball-security issues across four seasons of heavy volume.
- 05
Football character
a three-time Academic All-American and the 2021 William V. Campbell Trophy winner, a floor-raising trait for a player whose value is in doing his job every snap.
- 01
No separation speed
he never tested at the combine and the tape shows a long-strider who cannot threaten a safety vertically or run away from NFL linebackers.
- 02
Blocking is positional
seals and angles rather than displaces, and he can be walked back by edge defenders when asked to block down in a gap scheme.
- 03
Injury history
a sports hernia required surgery in 2020 and lingered into his pre-draft spring, a flag on a player whose value depends on being available every week.
- 04
Limited after the catch
plays with a high center of gravity and tempered balance, so most of his production stops at the point of the reception.
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Iowa State | 13 | 11 | 137 | 3 |
| 2019 | Iowa State | 13 | 51 | 697 | 7 |
| 2020 | Iowa State | 11 | 44 | 591 | 7 |
| 2021 | Iowa State | 12 | 62 | 756 | 6 |
| Career | — | 49 | 168 | 2181 | 23 |
The 2020 and 2021 lines are verified on cfbstats (Iowa State team 311, player 1087200): 11 games with 44 catches for 591 yards and seven touchdowns in 2020, and 12 games with 62 catches for 756 yards and six touchdowns in 2021. The 2018 and 2019 lines come from the full Sports-Reference player page, cross-checked against the Chargers' and Iowa State's official career totals. He redshirted in 2017, so that season is omitted rather than listed as zeros. The four seasons sum exactly to the career line reported by both Sports-Reference and Iowa State: 49 games, 168 receptions, 2,181 yards and 23 touchdowns. Fox Sports lists lower games-played figures for 2018 and 2019 and is not used, since its totals do not reconcile with the school's 49-game career count.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Big-bodied TE2 who blocks, catches a handful of red-zone passes and holds a roster spot for years.
Size-and-hands Y who never tested well and still becomes a decade-long volume target on timing routes.
Depth tight end whose role evaporates behind better athletes and never produces beyond spot duty.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
His career began in a hospital, not a huddle: the sports hernia from college required surgery a week into his first training camp, he opened 2022 on injured reserve, and he did not debut until November, finishing his rookie year with two games and four catches. From there he became exactly what Baltimore wanted. He played 15 games in 2023 behind Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely, 13 in 2024, and all 17 in 2025, growing into one of the league's better blocking tight ends while catching 10 passes for 142 yards and two scores in his final Ravens season. He was on the field for two years of 1,500-yard Derrick Henry rushing seasons. Los Angeles signed him to a multi-year contract in March 2026 and he has opened the year as their No. 2 tight end.
This is what a fourth-round tight end is supposed to look like. He was never going to be a pass-game centerpiece, and 33 career receptions in five seasons says so plainly, but he turned into a durable, trusted blocker and situational target who earned real free-agent money from a second team. The board read the floor correctly and the ceiling correctly; the only miss was how completely the receiving production would vanish behind better pass catchers.