It’s hard to improve on being the best team at anything in the NFL. The talent gap, even between the best and worst teams, is truly quite slim, and the league is constructed in a way that generally pulls the great teams down over time and lifts the bad teams up.
The Los Angeles Rams are entering 2026 with a huge target on their backs. No, they aren’t the reigning champions, but they were widely considered the best team in the league last year and they were undoubtedly the best offense. It’s hard to
argue with being No. 1 in scoring, total offense, passing offense, success rate … you get the gist.
But if you’re not constantly evolving, your stay at or near the top in the NFL isn’t going to be there for very long. Thus, the Rams need to do something this year to stay in front of the pack.
The player who could be the most direct path to hitting that next level? Second-year tight end Terrance Ferguson.
Most of the Rams’ biggest contributors are mostly known commodities at this point, considering guys like Matthew Stafford, Kyren Williams, Puka Nacua, Davante Adams and most of the offensive line. Colby Parkinson and Tyler Higbee, two other members of the tight ends room, also fall under that description. But Ferguson, at least based on his athletic profile and collegiate tape, still has plenty of room between his current form and his ceiling.
Ferguson was a great athletic tester coming out of Oregon, posting an elite 9.57 RAS with a tantalizing combination of raw speed and explosiveness. And he showed off that expected big-play ability last season, only catching 11 passes as a rookie but averaging 21 yards per reception. What’s more, nine of those 11 receptions (and 10 of 12 if you count his lone postseason snag) went for either a first down or a touchdown.
The upside here shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at this point, as Ferguson is getting plenty of attention in league circles. Last week, in a camp notebook from the campus of Loyola Marymount University, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer had a glowing review of the second-year tight end.
“Terrance Ferguson has had a fantastic offseason,” Breer wrote. “He is now proving to be a guy who can play all over the formation and looks like he could be a force after the catch, showing why the Rams coveted him in the 2025 draft and now believe he could grow into one of the NFL’s best tight ends.”
That’s a lofty goal but again, not an especially surprising one for Ferguson. Consider how dangerous he was while playing an unrefined game as a rookie.
According to NFL Pro/Next Gen Stats, Ferguson led all qualified tight ends last season with 17.6 air yards per attempt, an average more than six yards per attempt higher than the second-place finisher. L.A. wants to push the ball downfield to Ferguson, and they did it to great albeit limited success (remember the conversion stat from above), both because he only played 39% of the team’s offensive snaps last year and because he only caught 40% of his targets.
The Athletic Football Show also named Ferguson one of its second-year X-factors in an episode this past week, and it was a gush-fest over the young Ram.
“Opportunity is going to be a big problem with this because they do have so many capable tight ends,” co-host Dave Helman said, “but Terrance Ferguson is probably your best bet to become basically ‘Wide Receiver 3’ in that offense, and if he does it could be really, really fun. Not that the Rams need the help, but I would enjoy watching it.”
Helman is right that opportunities will be spread thin in a room that also includes the do-it-all “Y” Colby Parkinson, the long-time contributor Tyler Higbee and another high-upside rookie in Max Klare. But if Ferguson is indeed the skeleton key who can open new doors for this Rams offense, they’re going to find a way to get him on the field. They’ve got superstars. They’ve got an offense that’s already explosive (fourth in explosive pass rate last season, in fact). But another step forward for Ferguson this year could be the piece that propels Los Angeles back to the head of the pack this season.
