Is Oscar Delp the Next George Kittle? 2026 NFL Draft Scouting Report & SPS Grade

Updated May 18, 2026

George Kittle was the 146th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft out of Iowa, taken by San Francisco in the fifth round with a scouting profile that read closer to a useful starter than a future All-Pro. He grew into the centerpiece of one of the most prolific TE seasons in modern history and remains the 49ers’ TE1 today. The New Orleans Saints just selected Oscar Delp with the No. 73 overall pick in Round 3 of the 2026 NFL Draft. The 6’4.5″, 245-pound tight end out of Georgia ran a 4.49 at his Pro Day with a 38-inch vertical and 23 bench reps, and finished his four-year Georgia career with 70 receptions for 854 yards and nine touchdowns across 55 games.

Delp’s Early Days In Athens

Delp arrived at Georgia as a 4-star recruit and the No. 1 tight end prospect nationally, picking the Bulldogs over South Carolina, Michigan, and Clemson. He played behind Brock Bowers and within a deep rotation, which capped his volume. He was honored as a William V. Campbell Trophy semifinalist as a senior and never missed a game in his college career – a durability profile NFL teams always seek out. The Saints just paid Round 3 capital for that profile. But will Delp’s analytics share the same sentiment as those film analysts? Further, will he score high enough to make the top 10 all-time TE SPS list? Let’s dive in.

The Film Breakdown: Pros & Cons

We all should be looking at both film and analytics as we know they go hand-in-hand. The following consensus film critiques are derived from looks into Delp’s game film. These highlight the positive and negative traits New Orleans just bought into with a Round 3 pick:

The Pros (The “Elite” Upside)

• Vertical Seam-Stretching Speed: Bleacher Report’s evaluation flags Delp’s straight-line burst as a true coverage problem, noting his “speed down the seam is a weapon; second and third-level defenders have to respect it.” That same report credits him with “NFL size and athleticism to transition to the next level.” (Bleacher Report)
• Three-Down Blocking Profile: Bleacher Report describes Delp as a “multi-functional tight end who has run and pass blocking ability to aid on all three downs,” adding that his size “helps him move people in the run game.” Steelers Depot piles on with “high effort blocker” who “attacks with good hand placement” and “controls defenders with grip strength.” (Bleacher Report, Steelers Depot)
• Soft Hands and Clean Route Timing: Steelers Depot explains his traits of “good hands,” “good body control,” and the ability to “stretch the field with vertical speed.” (Steelers Depot)

The Cons (The Refinement Needs)

• Lost in Press and Physical Coverage: Bleacher Report flags that “physical defenders can bump him off his route and maintain connectivity in man coverage,” and adds that “his playstyle needs a physicality boost” both as a blocker and at the catch point. The same report notes Delp “can be too top heavy and fall over his feet, giving smarter defenders quick paths by him” – a technique fix that lands squarely on the new Saints’ tight ends room to coach up. (Bleacher Report)
• Production Never Matched the Athletic Profile: Steelers Depot points to “low production” and the fact that Delp “was not the main receiving tight end at Georgia” – he never cracked 300 receiving yards in a single college season and finished 2025 with one touchdown. The same report flags that he “does not run a full route tree” and “does not break tackles with ball in hand.” (Steelers Depot)

For dynasty managers, the Kittle comparison cuts in two directions. Kittle landed in San Francisco in 2017 and quickly earned the TE1 job by week 1 after Vance McDonald was traded. Delp arrives in New Orleans behind Juwan Johnson at TE1 and Noah Fant at TE2, with Moliki Matavao behind him on the depth chart – a much more crowded room than Kittle inherited.

Head coach Kellen Moore has openly framed Delp as a personnel-package weapon rather than a Week 1 starter, telling NOLA.com that Delp “can drop out in space” and has “some juice and some speed, vertical speed” while remaining “a very willing, physical run player.” Moore even cited the way “the teams that made runs this year, a lot of them are playing with 12 or 13 personnel,” suggesting that Delp may get meaningful snaps inside heavier looks even before the depth chart shifts ahead of him. The Year-1 opportunity is narrower than Kittle’s 2017 was, but the long-game role inside Moore’s tight-end-heavy system is real, and dynasty managers shopping at the late-second to mid-third turn in rookie drafts have a defensible workload bet. Will the analytics give more credence to his profile as a potential league winner similar to Kittle?

What Is Oscar Delp’s SPS Grade?

For those of you who aren’t familiar, The Star-Predictor Score (SPS) is a scouting tool designed to maximize investment potential and reduce risks when drafting rookies in Fantasy Football. It is proven to have a higher accuracy than draft capital alone to predict fantasy football success. The SPS includes 13 to 17 metrics, with the exact number varying by the player’s position. All metrics are pre-NFL – and some are proprietary to BrainyBallers – providing a complete analysis of a player’s analytical profile. The SPS gained widespread notoriety for its high accuracy, having made it on Barstool and The Pat McAfee Show. The SPS database can be found here, and future projected SPS grades can be unlocked here.

As the Pat McAfee crew noted when reviewing our top 10 all-time prospects graphic: “They haven’t missed… those are all the guys they predicted would be stars and they hit on all of them.” 

The Verdict

Can Oscar Delp grow from “rotational Georgia tight end” to a real piece of the Saints’ offensive identity, now that New Orleans has staked Pick 73 on him? The film points to legitimate three-down traits – vertical speed, soft hands, willing run-blocking – and Kellen Moore has already publicly mapped a 12 and 13 personnel role for him in the new offense. The room ahead of him is heavier than what Kittle walked into in 2017, but the scheme is built to feed multiple tight ends, the academic and durability profile is clean, and Delp never missed a college game across four seasons in the SEC. The Star-Predictor Score (SPS) measures the pre-NFL metrics that separate dynasty TE1s from depth-chart afterthoughts, independent of all subjectivity. Is his profile built for the long haul?