Eagles select Vanderbilt tight end Eli Stowers in second round of 2026 NFL draft

The Eagles entered draft weekend with short- and long-term needs at wide receiver and tight end.

With their first two picks, they selected a player who was named the top player at each position in college football last season.

Hours after they introduced wide receiver Makai Lemon, their first-round pick, to local media, the Eagles on Friday night selected Vanderbilt tight end Eli Stowers with the 54th pick.

Stowers, a first-team All-American, had 62 receptions for 769 yards and four touchdowns with the Commodores. The 6-foot-4, 239-pound native of Texas is a former quarterback who has played tight end for just three seasons after beginning his college career at Texas A&M as a quarterback.

Shoulder injuries made it so that Stowers “couldn’t throw the ball the same.” He transferred to New Mexico State, where he competed with Diego Pavia for the starting quarterback job. Pavia won, but Stowers went into offensive coordinator Tim Beck’s office and told him he’d do “anything” to get on the field, he said.

He transitioned to tight end, went with Pavia and the coaching staff to Vanderbilt, and has excelled.

The Athletic’s Dane Brugler said “Stowers will need to prove himself as a serviceable blocker at the NFL level, but he is explosive as a pass catcher, and I love the way he maximizes his catch radius. He has mismatch-creating potential and can eventually develop into an NFL starter.”

The Ringer’s Todd McShay noted that Stowers “recorded a high rate of chunk plays (30.6% of catches going for 15-plus yards), was efficient (2.43 yards per route run), was solid after the catch (5.9 yards per reception), and flashed a good tackle-breaking ability (nine forced missed tackles) last season.”

Stowers said he had a formal interview with the Eagles at the combine, where he ran a 4.51 40-yard dash, had a 45½-inch vertical leap, and an 11-foot, 3-inch broad jump. Those are elite numbers for tight ends, and while Stowers still has some polishing to do, his profile is intriguing, and he’s still learning a lot about his new position.

“Ultimately, moving to another position, pretty much everything is new to me,” he said. “Every single part of the tight end game is something I want to continue to get better at.”

In addition to the Mackey Award, given to the nation’s top tight end, Stowers also was given the William V. Campbell Trophy, otherwise known as the “Academic Heisman.”

Tight end was a position of need for the Eagles entering the draft. They brought back both Dallas Goedert and Grant Calcaterra on one-year deals and added blocking tight end Johnny Mundt in free agency, also for one year. But they had no tight ends under contract beyond 2026 and now have an athletic and improving pass catcher on a rookie deal.

Stowers said his transition to tight end included watching a lot of film to try to learn the ins and outs of the position. One of the players he watched, he said, was Goedert.

On Thursday, the Eagles began preparing for life without A.J. Brown. One night later, they have their succession plan for Goedert.