But when the 2021 college season ended and the NFL draft neared, Rogers was inspired to make an abrupt change, leaving him little time to be taught the fundamentals of a new place earlier than the pre-draft whirlwind started.
“I knew I had a lot to gain and not much to really lose in the situation,” he mentioned. “These people I’m playing against are great college athletes that have been playing the position all their life. If I can go out there and just show a little potential, I know some teams will be willing to take a chance.”
Just 10 months into his NFL profession, Rogers has proven extra than simply “a little potential.” The 24-year-old has emerged as a precious contributor for the Washington Commanders on offense and particular groups. His coaches view his transition to tight finish as nothing wanting distinctive, but it’s his potential that has them extra intrigued.
“To predict that he would end up being a tight end, I can’t tell you that I would’ve seen that because really you have to give that to Armani,” mentioned Eric Stokes, Washington’s senior director of participant personnel. “What he did is, quite frankly, remarkable.”
The Commanders have made a behavior of reworking proficient gamers into multiskilled weapons. Take Antonio Gibson, Washington’s main operating again who was a broad receiver on the University of Memphis. Or Logan Thomas, a former quarterback who, like Rogers, switched to tight finish. Or J.D. McKissic, one other again who transformed from receiver on the professional stage.
Rogers’s blocking expertise stay uncooked, but his velocity and energy could possibly be a boon within the passing recreation — particularly contemplating new quarterback Carson Wentz’s fondness for his tight ends. Since 2017, when he helped the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl, Wentz has focused tight ends the second most amongst certified quarterbacks, behind solely the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson.
In Washington’s Week 1 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, Wentz focused Rogers solely as soon as, but the catch provided a glimpse of what could possibly be.
On a display screen play, Rogers slid into the flat, caught a quick go, then spun off a defender to see nothing but open discipline. He picked up 23 yards earlier than being pushed out of bounds.
Four performs later, the Commanders had been in the long run zone.
“You watch Armani and his athleticism, and I think it is a skill set that’s going to go ahead and continue to develop well for us in terms of his ability to run and catch the ball,” Coach Ron Rivera mentioned.
Washington’s employees took discover of Rogers nicely earlier than he arrived in Washington. He appeared on the radar of govt vice chairman Marty Hurney when he was normal supervisor of the Carolina Panthers.
At UNLV, Rogers set a number of college data, together with the varsity’s profession mark for web dashing yards by a quarterback with 1,549. He is the one quarterback in program historical past to hurry for at the very least 100 web yards in six video games and, in 2017, he was one among simply 5 gamers nationwide to common at the very least 140 passing yards and 75 dashing yards.
““Marty and I actually saw him initially at UNLV when he was a quarterback,” Stokes mentioned. “He wore number one, and he had this kind of Cam Newton look to him in terms of his stature and his eyes. But you could see that he necessarily wasn’t going to be a quarterback.”
At Ohio, Rogers set the FBS document for the longest run by a quarterback at 99 yards. But he didn’t begin a single recreation, and his hoped-for future as an NFL quarterback pale. So his brokers, Frank Bauer and Kenny Chapman, urged a place change.
“I knew I wanted to be in the NFL, and not playing quarterback my last year and not having any film the last two years or whatever the case may be, I just know this is an opportunity for me to get to the next level,” Rogers mentioned. “I have to do what I have to do to be on an NFL team.”
Rogers’s father, Sam, was a linebacker for 10 years within the league, with three totally different groups. Sam was hesitant for his son to modify positions. But ultimately he supported the transfer.
“He had a rough two years at Ohio University,” Sam Rogers mentioned. “And when you got a kid like Armani who loves to compete, loves to be on the field, not saying anything bad about other kids, but he just knew he was better than the kid they were putting in front of him. Sometimes it does take the air out of you.”
A transfer to tight finish provided Rogers a clear slate. Once he determined, he referred to as his longtime coach, Travelle Gaines, and requested for his assist.
“I thought he was crazy,” Gaines recalled. “But he worked so hard, it just all made sense that he is where he is now.”
For two weeks in January, Rogers ran by three-a-days, with early-morning exercises that centered on energy adopted by restoration periods, noon exercises that centered on velocity and agility, after which afternoon periods to work on the nuances of tight finish — the blocking, pass-catching and route-running. The final one appeared to return virtually naturally, maybe due to Rogers’s years watching and dealing with wideouts as a quarterback.
“The first time he actually ran routes was at the East-West Shrine game,” Gaines mentioned. “But he just wanted to get better and perfect his craft.”
Rogers additionally labored with Steve Calhoun, a personal quarterbacks coach in California who was one of many Commanders’ 2022 Bill Walsh NFL Diversity Coaching fellows, and he had the assistance of his father, who made a residing masking tight ends and shared all of the issues that made his job troublesome.
“It was hard. At first I took him out on the field just to see if he could catch,” Sam Rogers mentioned. “I knew he could catch basically in the shotgun, but not knowing he could catch over his shoulder, behind his back and all this stuff, twist his body around. So I took him out on the field and said: ‘Oh wow. You really have decent hands.’ ”
Though Rogers was one of many lesser-known invitations to the East-West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galko, the director of soccer operations and participant personnel for the sport, had adopted him for years. Rogers had no recreation tape to share of himself as a tight finish, but Galko acquired clips of his coaching and remained intrigued.
“He’s a good case study for how to properly have perspective when scouting, because just the fact that he was able to be an adequate route runner and knew what he was doing was impressive,” Galko mentioned. “The really impressive thing that he showed was the subtle stuff — using his hands against linebackers in one-on-ones to get that late-breaking separation that’s so important for a tight end, the slight shoulder adjustments against nickel corners when he’s doing a corner route.
“In isolation, none of those things are like, ‘Oh, I’m an NFL guy.’ But I think probably everybody he played against was either drafted or made a roster at linebacker or cornerback in practice. And the fact that he won consistently … and knowing that he has just learned this position weeks ago, all raised the question: What’s he going to be like in three months or, for the Commanders, in three years?
“Is he the next Logan Thomas?”
Before the East-West recreation, Galko mentioned, no NFL groups really useful Rogers. They weren’t in opposition to him enjoying, but additionally they didn’t advocate to see him there.
“But post-event, yes, he was quite the talk of a lot of NFL personnel,” Galko mentioned.
Especially for Washington. Hurney and a contingent of workforce scouts attended the total week of follow and the sport in Las Vegas. Their curiosity in Rogers elevated after his professional day at UCLA, the place he recorded a 4.58-second 40-yard sprint and jumped 34 inches on his vertical. Rogers wasn’t drafted, and he selected to signal with Washington realizing, partially, how a lot the Commanders had invested in him.
It helped that Rogers’s brokers additionally represented Hurney, Rivera and General Manager Martin Mayhew. They additionally represented former Pro Bowl tight finish Julius Thomas, a basketball participant at Portland State who performed one season of soccer earlier than going professional.
“Same type of model for Armani. We thought he’d get recognized for his athleticism, and sure enough,” Chapman mentioned. “We call him Julius Thomas 2.0.”
If Rogers wants an instance of what’s doable, he want look no additional than the man beginning in entrance of him. Washington lately has come to favor transformed tight ends. Thomas, a former standout at Virginia Tech, entered the league as a quarterback when the Cardinals drafted him in 2014. By the time he arrived in Washington in 2020, he had three seasons of studying the place on his résumé, although none as a full-time starter. Once he obtained the additional reps that season, he mentioned he lastly felt comfy on the place.
“Probably Week 3, Week 4,” Thomas mentioned. “I really knew what I could do. I was understanding our offense and how I fit in our offense.”
Rogers mentioned all of it clicked for him throughout organized workforce actions. He had been a tight finish for all of 5 months. Injuries to the Commanders’ tight ends within the offseason helped expedite his progress, and he’s thus far garnered a repute for his mind-set and work ethic, evidenced by his fast acclimation.
“I feel like a totally different person,” he mentioned. “I feel like I play tight end now.”