Character is a big metric during the pre-draft process, one that’s really only understood by talking to the players. Notre Dame tight end Michael Mayer projects his personality real openly and it’s one I’d have to believe every team is a fan of. 

“I have a little bit of a joke,” Mayer said. “I just tell people it’s how I was born because it was kind of how I was born. I just grew up like this. My intensity in sports. I played a lot of basketball growing up and I think just my intensity and a little bit, you could say, my controlled anger, controlled madness about the game of football. I don’t try and change for anybody. I attack the game of football like I do anything else in life.”

Mayer walks the walk like he talks the talk.He capped a very productive career with the Fighting Irish as a third team All-American, the final stamp on three years that had him reel in 180 catches for nearly 2,100 yards and 18 touchdowns.

He’s got good size at over 6’4” and nearly 250 pounds. Not a blazer by any means, running a 4.7 40 at the NFL Combine.

And while not maybe the best at one particular thing among this tight end draft class, he is the best-rounded.

“Look, I can block anybody you need me to block, but I feel like my red zone, my 3rd down,” he said. “I can really go up and get that ball. I can make contested catches and I feel like I can really route people up. I can have that connection with that quarterback also. He knows where I’m going to be. He knows how I’m going to run my route and I know where that quarterback’s going to put that ball.”

Mayer is absolutely in the running to be the first tight end taken in the draft, all but certainly at some point mid-to-later first round.