Massive TE Darnell ‘Mount’ Washington seeks similarly sized impact on Steelers’ offense

Move over “Muuuuuth.”

Long after “Heeeeeath,” could Pittsburgh Steelers fans be on the verge of yet another tight end cult hero?

Darnell Washington’s name doesn’t offer any obvious phonetic opportunity for an easily repeated in-stadium chant. But there’s a perfect nickname for a man of his size playing in his adopted NFL home city.

“Mount” — as in, Mount Washington.

“He’s one of those guys that when you meet him in person, it’s going to be like, ‘He’s bigger than I thought,’” offensive coordinator Matt Canada said soon after the Steelers took Washington with a third-round pick last week. “He’s really been blessed in a lot of different ways physically.”

At 6-foot-7, 264 pounds, Washington wows with size even around men who are quite accustomed to being surrounded by athletes who, well, wow with size.

Canada, general manager Omar Khan and coach Mike Tomlin all repeatedly expressed awe at Washington’s stature.

“He’s an enormous human,” Tomlin said.

The Steelers are projecting Washington can make a similarly sized impact on their offense.

“He’s a huge human being,” offensive coordinator Matt Canada said of third-round pick Darnell Washington of Georgia. https://t.co/UGpCb2pX86

— Tribune-Review Sports (@TribSports) April 30, 2023

In addition to the raw size, Washington’s measurables at the NFL combine gave him the ninth-best “athleticism score” of any player (regardless of position) by Next Gen Stats’ analytics that are based on historical performances in drills and how those translate to impact on the field at the NFL level.

Washington ran the 40-yard dash in an impressive 4.64 seconds, was tied for second among tight ends with a 1.57-second split for the first 10 yards and had the best time among tight ends in the 20-yard shuttle.

In that drill, among the several dozen who ran it from all positions, Washington’s time of 4.08 seconds ranked third behind only a 196-pound wide receiver (Jaxon Smith-Njigba) and a 198-pound cornerback (Julius Brents). Only two tight ends over the past 20 years who weighed at least 260 pounds ran the shuttle in a quicker time than Washington.

“He’s such a big guy,” Canada said, “ … but he moves so well for such a big man.”

Steelers OC Matt Canada talking about Darnell Washington pic.twitter.com/paQ8i4vT7g

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) April 29, 2023

As NFL Next Gen Stats put it, “There may not be a more intriguing height-weight-speed prospect in this year’s class than Washington,” who “shares a similar size and speed profile with Rob Gronkowski.”

While no one would reasonably expect “Mount” to be the next “Gronk,” the Steelers’ affinity for Washington went well beyond his combine numbers.

“The awesome thing about him besides his measurables is his mindset,” Tomlin said. “Here’s a guy that I think maybe has ‘sixth offensive lineman’ on his license plate. He embraces the things that come with being who he is, and knowledge of self and embracing that I think is one of the things that made him attractive, besides the unique physical traits and the things that he’s been able to accomplish. The mindset, the willingness, too, is equally exciting.”

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So how did a specimen with such pedigree — a five-star recruit three years ago who significantly contributed to two national championship Georgia teams — fall into the third round?

One part of is his lack of receiving production, and another is injury concerns.

Washington had just 45 catches in his college career, including 28 for 454 yards and two touchdowns last season. But paired with Brock Bowers — who is widely regarded as the country’s best receiving tight end — Washington wasn’t asked to run routes as often as other top tight ends. But no tight end in the country who was targeted as many times as Washington was in 2022 had a better average yards per catch (16.2).

And as far as any apprehension NFL teams had over his medicals, Washington addressed them thusly: “I feel great, man. Something they probably had concern with is probably the knees because I am tall and a bigger guy, but they’re talking about some knee swelling. For me, I’ve never had injuries with my knees, knock on wood. I never tore anything in the knee. I had surgery on the right one, but it was just to clean some cartilage up. There was no tear, no break, no fracture, no nothing.”

Washington was projected as a first-round pick by the NFL’s official draft site and a consensus early-second round pick by nflmockdraftdatabase.com’s compilation. Many draft analysts lauded the Steelers’ pick of him as something of a, well, mountain of a steal.

“All you’ve got to do is watch Georgia tape,” Tomlin said. “He stands out.”

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