{"id":634592,"date":"2025-12-28T07:36:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T07:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/634592\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T07:36:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T07:36:19","slug":"texas-am-te-amari-niblack-has-declared-for-the-2026-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/634592\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas A&#038;M TE Amari Niblack has declared for the 2026 NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/aggieswire.usatoday.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas A&amp;M&#8217;s<\/a> tight end room will look vastly different next season, as the 2025 room&#8217;s leader, Nate Boerkircher, and now, fellow senior Amari Niblack, have run out of eligibility and will enter the 2026 NFL Draft. On Friday, it was announced that junior tight end <a href=\"https:\/\/aggieswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/aggies\/football\/2025\/12\/26\/texas-aggies-football-theo-melin-hrstrm-transfer-portal\/87923457007\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/aggieswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/aggies\/football\/2025\/12\/26\/texas-aggies-football-theo-melin-hrstrm-transfer-portal\/87923457007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Theo Melin \u00d6hrstr\u00f6m<\/a> will enter the <a href=\"https:\/\/aggieswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/aggies\/football\/2025\/12\/23\/texas-aggies-football-january-football-transfer-portal-tracker\/87887323007\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/aggieswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/aggies\/football\/2025\/12\/23\/texas-aggies-football-january-football-transfer-portal-tracker\/87887323007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">transfer portal,<\/a> meaning head coach Mike Elko and new TE coach Derek Shay will need to rebuild the room through the portal.<\/p>\n<p>Niblack, who transferred to Texas A&amp;M last offseason after two seasons at Alabama, and one season with the Texas Longhorns, did not reach his full potential as a pass catcher during his lone season in College Station, but did improve as a pass protector, while finishing the year with five receptions for 59 yards.<\/p>\n<p>Standing at 6&#8217;3&#8243; and 235 pounds, it&#8217;s hard to say how the Florida native will be used at the next level, but the skill set to become a hybrid wide receiver is there.<\/p>\n<p>During his 2023 sophomore season, Niblack&#8217;s ability to evade coverage and use his size was evident in spurts, producing what still stands as his career-high 327 yards and four touchdowns, averaging 16.4 yards per catch. However, because of Nate Boerkircher&#8217;s immediate impact this season, Niblack was underutilized as a receiver, which is a tough pill to swallow, knowing what the offense could have looked like if things had gelled early on.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, Niblack officially declared for the 2026 NFL Draft and will likely be an undrafted free agent, with a chance to land on a roster and develop during the preseason.<\/p>\n<p>Contact\/Follow us\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aggieswire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">@AggiesWire<\/a>\u00a0on X\u00a0(formerly Twitter) and like our page on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AggiesWire\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&amp;M news, notes and opinions.\u00a0Follow Cameron on X:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CameronOhnysty\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">@CameronOhnysty<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas A&amp;M&#8217;s tight end room will look vastly different next season, as the 2025 room&#8217;s leader, Nate Boerkircher,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4955,17051,1600,2343,1603,3610,19,7,88,6,15,2764,51,2347],"class_list":{"0":"post-634592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-17051","10":"tag-aggies","11":"tag-au0026m","12":"tag-breaking","13":"tag-breaking-news-social","14":"tag-draft","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-nfl-draft","19":"tag-social","20":"tag-texas","21":"tag-texas-au0026m-aggies-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115796049047516156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}