Colts tight ends coach Tom Manning pulled up a clip of Tyler Warren bulldozing a defender and asked the Penn State a tight end a question:
“Did you not like this guy?”
Warren’s response during a formal interview with the Colts at the NFL Combine – captured on “Behind The Colts” – succinctly summed up the way he plays.
“That was really my first chance to get to set the tone,” Warren said.
Warren’s college tape is littered with defenders flailing away at the 6-foot-5, 256 pound tight end. It’s not just that Warren will run through arm tackles. When he lowers his shoulder into a defender, he usually runs them over – which contributed to his 701 yards after the catch, per Pro Football Focus, most among any Power 4 (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) player in 2024.
Colts area scout Chad Henry nicknamed Warren “truck,” and it doesn’t take much imagination to understand why.
“Because he’s big, strong, reliable and he’s going to truck some defenders,” Henry said.
The Colts expect Warren’s physicality to translate to the NFL, even as the guys trying to tackle him get bigger, stronger and faster. But Warren doesn’t just try to set the tone with the ball in his hands – he also wants to be a tone-setter when the ball’s in his running back’s hands.
“That’s the name of the game in football is violence,” Warren said on this week’s episode of The Colts Show podcast. “When you can do that and be willing to be violent, and then add the technique and the fundamentals that go into it, that’s when you become really good. It’s a violent sport so you gotta have violence when you play.”