MOBILE, Ala. — An NFL draft hopeful who gets an invitation to the Senior Bowl has a chance to accomplish several things over the course of the week.
It’s a job fair where a player can put skills on display for scouts, meet with teams and maybe pick up a few tricks, too, while learning a little bit about what he’ll be asked for at the next step in his career.
Players, though, are not the only ones who get those chances during the week here. So, too, do many young coaches who are picked for Senior Bowl assignments.
Take Broncos quality control coach Logan Kilgore, who is spending the week coaching National team tight ends Theo Johnson (Penn State), Brevyn Spann-Ford (Minnesota) and (Michigan) and also coaching the team’s returners.
Not only does he get an up-close-and-personal look at the rugged Big Ten trio of tight ends plus a collection of wide receivers, but he’s also learning and having a blast.
“It’s been a great experience,” Kilgore told The Post. “Just getting around other coaches in the league and being able to come together for a collaborative deal for a week, it’s been great. Offensively, it’s been fun to see these guys come in, they’re so excited from college and then start to make that transition to the NFL, it’s a really cool deal.”
The whole thing comes together pretty quickly. Coaches have a few days of communication before arriving in Alabama and then they hit the ground running in pursuit of giving players not only the optimal chance to show what they have in front of evaluators, but also to improve along the way.
“We had about a week of planning and (New York Giants QB coach) Shea Tierney, our offensive coordinator, did a great job of getting everybody on the same page,” said Kilgore, joined during the week by fellow Denver quality control coach Zach Grossi, who coached the American team tight ends. “Having smart, physical Big Ten tight ends has made my job pretty easy.”
Coaching tight ends is nothing new for Kilgore, who had been hired to be the Arkansas State tight ends coach in December 2022 but left after a couple of months for the chance to join Sean Payton’s staff in Denver. Before that, he was the offensive coordinator for quarterback Arch Manning, the nephew of Peyton Manning, at Isidore Newman High in Louisiana.
Kilgore has a history with Payton dating back further, too. The former Saints head coach had Kilgore as a college free-agent quarterback for an offseason in 2014 after his career at Middle Tennessee State. Kilgore instead ended up playing in the Canadian Football League for six years and then transitioning into coaching.
His pupils this week said he’s good at it, too.
“I wasn’t really sure what to expect or what the coaching experience would be like (here) in a very short period of time,” said Johnson (6-foot-6 and 257 pounds), who had 34 catches for 341 yards and seven touchdowns for the Nittany Lions in 2023. “He’s done such a great job with guys that aren’t versed in NFL verbiage and all that. He’s done such a great job of teaching us. I actually just said at the end of practice like, ‘Yo, I really appreciate how you’ve been this week for us.’
“I think he’s done a really great job.”
Barner is fresh off a national championship at Michigan, so he’s had a whirlwind few weeks after catching 22 passes for 249 and a touchdown and providing powerful blocking for Jim Harbaugh’s team.
“(Kilgore)’s done a really, really good job,” Barner said. “We appreciate him coming out here and doing this for us. He’s done a really good job of helping us get the playbook down. When you come here, it’s a new offense and he’s done a phenomenal job with that. And he’s just cool to be around.”
Kilgore, of course, like everybody else in attendance, got to size up the trio of tight ends.
“It’s a huge opportunity for them to show their ability to learn a system at the NFL level and put it on tape in just a couple of days,” Kilgore said. “We all know it’s a difficult format for the players just as far as meeting time and stuff like that, and I think all three of them have done a great job for themselves.”
He also worked with the team’s group of returners that included Florida’s Ricky Pearsall, Michigan’s Roman Wilson, Rice’s Luke McCaffrey, Arizona’s Jacob Cowing before a Thursday injury and Western Michigan’s Malachi Corley.
“I was blessed to coach Marvin Mims this year at returner this year for us in Denver,” he said. “Being able to take some of that stuff I learned from Ben Kotwica and Mike Westhoff and be able to apply it with these guys, I think they appreciated the knowledge that I was able to help them with.
“At the end of the day, if you want to be a good returns coach, have a good returner. So this has been cool.”
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