Todd Heap was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the 2001 NFL Draft, the season after the team won Super Bowl 35 over the New York Giants. The Ravens tight end earned Pro Bowl honors shortly thereafter and now has played in the NFL for ten years, with the 2010 campaign one of his better ones in recent years. However, that still didn't get the respect from NFL.com's Pat Kirwan, who ranked Heap in the middle of the pack in comparison with other tight ends in the league, according to a story on Football News Now.
Kirwan separated the league's tight ends into three groups, "A" through "C" with Heap being placed in the third group. By comparison purposes, group "C" included other tight ends such as Philadelphia’s Brent Celak, Dustin Keller from the New York Jets, Chicago’s Greg Olsen and Minnesota’s Visanthe Shiancoe.
Group "B" tight ends were guys such as Pittsburgh’s Heath Miller, Washington’s Chris Cooley, Atlanta’s Tony Gonzalez, Oakland’s Zach Miller and Tampa Bay’s Kellen Winslow. Leading the league's tight ends were the "A" group, including Dallas Clark from the Indianapolis Colts, San Francisco’s Vernon Davis, San Diego’s Antonio Gates, Jacksonville’s Marcedes Lewis and Jason Witten from the Dallas Cowboys.
Based on his declining performance, although he has been much more durable the past couple of years than he was in the previous seasons, he is obviously thought to be on the downside of his career, and the Ravens drafted two tight ends in the 2010 NFL Draft to prepare for the day he hangs up his cleats.