LI's Jeremy Ruckert not fazed by uncertainty of NFL Draft
Tight end Jeremy Ruckert #18 of the Ohio State Buckeyes speaks to reporters during the NFL Draft Combine at the Indiana Convention Center on March 2, 2022 in Indianapolis. Credit: Getty Images/Michael Hickey
Jeremy Ruckert drove home on Friday, one last trek from his base of football operations over the past four years in Columbus, Ohio, to where he grew up in Lindenhurst on Long Island. He’s traveled those roads so often he doesn’t even need his GPS to tell him where to go.
The next time he heads home, though, he has no idea where he’ll be coming from.
And he’s OK with that.
“As of right now I’m not expecting anything,” he told Newsday just as he was crossing from Pennsylvania to New Jersey on Friday’s trek. “I just go with the flow.”
For a player whose NFL career is about to begin, Ruckert is remaining pretty chill. He does not see the NFL Draft this week as the destination but the start of a journey. Sure he grew up dreaming of playing pro football, especially after he put his soccer playing days when he was a standout goalie behind him early in high school. And of course he’s always wanted to hear his name called in the draft, which may happen as early as some point on Friday evening when the second and third rounds are held.
But when it comes to wondering what team will select him and when…
“I’m not too into that,” he said.
Plenty of NFL teams are into him. After four solid years at Ohio State, during which he was mostly a blocker on the line of scrimmage – a “traditional Y tight end” as it’s called in the sport – but also flashed some pretty incredible pass-catching abilities (he caught a touchdown pass every 4.5 receptions in college), Ruckert can become a valuable and immediate asset to just about any team in the league.
“Most of his career was spent doing a lot of the dirty work,” NFL Network analyst (and fellow Long Island product) Brian Baldinger said on a recent breakdown of Ruckert’s video on social media. “The guy knows how to play… Ruckert is going to be somebody’s tight end.”
Dane Brugler of The Athletic has Ruckert as the third best tight end in the draft class.
“He is a strong candidate to be a better pro than college player,” Brugler wrote, noting his skillset is reminiscent of Adam Trautman, a third-round pick of the Saints in 2020.
Ruckert met with pretty much every NFL team’s tight ends coach, offensive coordinator or head coach at either the Senior Bowl, Combine or Ohio State pro day and was brought in for predraft visits with the Jets, Cowboys, Texans and Bengals. He was unable to perform onfield drills at any of those events because of a foot injury he sustained on the first day of practice at the Senior Bowl, but he was recently cleared to return to the field and no longer wears the walking boot he was sporting as recently as earlier this month.
“That wasn’t a major thing,” Ruckert insisted. “All good.”
All that’s left now, it seems, is the waiting to see with which he’ll begin his NFL career. That destination should become clear at some point next weekend.
“I’m fortunate,” he said. “This is something I’ve been working for for a long time.”
As for where his NFL career will begin, well, it will be on Long Island where he’ll be jwith 60 or 70 of the family and friends he is expecting to join him in watching the festivities unfold from Las Vegas.
“The people who are the closest to me and who I grew up with,” he said.
The people from home.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
