Syracuse, N.Y. — Oronde Gadsden II decided to forgo his college eligibility and enter his name in the 2025 NFL Draft instead of returning to Syracuse for another season.
That decision has proven to be a good one for the Los Angeles Chargers rookie tight end, who has had a historic two-game stretch.
Gadsden has accumulated 241 receiving yards and two touchdowns over the last two weeks. The last rookie tight end to have at least 240 yards and two touchdowns in two games was Hall of Famer Mike Ditka in 1961.
“Just staying consistent and coming in each and every day ready to work hard,” Gadsden told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard in a phone interview on Thursday afternoon. “Really ready to just show them what I got and just carrying things on from college and adding the things that they’re coaching me out here.”
Gadsden entered his junior year with the Orange as a preseason All-America pick and highly touted NFL prospect at tight end after catching 61 balls for 975 yards and six scores as a sophomore.
In the second game of his junior season, Gadsden suffered a Lisfranc injury that sidelined him for the remainder of the year.
Rather than enter the NFL coming off the injury, Gadsden opted to play for new coach Fran Brown, finishing last season with 934 yards and seven touchdowns on 73 catches. That earned him first-team All-ACC and third-team All-America honors by the Associated Press.
Despite posting record-setting numbers, Gadsden fell to the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft and was selected by the Chargers with the 165th overall pick.
“I mean, obviously, I think a lot of people in the draft think they got drafted later than they should,” Gadsden said. “So, yeah, I was also one of those people who did think that.”
During the pre-draft process, he received feedback that could have contributed to his slipping down some teams’ boards.
Gadsden said teams expressed concerns about his foot injury and run-blocking ability during the process. He said the general feedback was good, but those were the things that stuck with him.
While there’s nothing Gadsden could do about the injury concern, he said he is motivated to become better every day but doesn’t carry a chip on his shoulder given where he was drafted.
“There’s always that saying that it doesn’t matter where or when you get drafted. It’s just what you do when you get there,” Gadsden said. “Just making the most of that opportunity that you get.”
At a time when schools, boosters and businesses can pay college players, Gadsden could have potentially earned similar money by staying in school than the approximate $1 million he’s set to earn during his rookie season.
Gadsden said returning to college was a real possibility, but it hinged on who else would return for the Orange for the 2025 season.
“I wanted to see if Kyle (McCord) could stay back another year, LeQuint (Allen) could stay back another year — if he wanted to as well,“ Gadsden said. ”It was really us coming together and doing that. And then what would be the best for how it’s set up with Fran’s future and his team, especially because we were all ready to go, already.
“If he was like, he’s ready to step on, move on to the future, I mean, he could well do that and we would be fine with that. But we wanted to see what would come back with all — coming back with Kyle’s thing, coming back with LeQuint and some other guys on the team, we would have tried to make a comeback.”
McCord petitioned to get a waiver from the NCAA for another year of eligibility before eventually declaring for the NFL draft. Gadsden and Allen also headed to the league, and it’s paid off in a big way for the tight end.
Gadsden played sparingly in the first five weeks of the NFL season before seeing an increase in usage beginning in Week 6 vs. the Miami Dolphins.
Against the Dolphins, he played a then-career-high 75% of snaps and finished with 68 yards on seven catches.
He followed it up with the best game of his young career in Week 7. He had seven catches, 164 yards and one touchdown against the Colts, who have the best record in the NFL.
Gadsden’s 164 yards were the most in a game by a rookie tight end in 40 years, the fourth-most yards in Chargers history for a tight end and the most receiving yards by a rookie this season.
After the breakout game, his father, former NFL receiver Oronde Gadsden, appeared on Miami sports radio station 1043 WQAM and joked that he kept his son on the bench in his fantasy football league. Even after the big game against the Colts, he said he had no intention of playing him the following week.
“It wasn’t really a big deal to me,” the younger Gadsden said. “It was just something that he thought he was superstitious on, that every time he had me benched in fantasy, I would do good. But, I mean, he’s had me benched all those other weeks, probably prior. So, I mean, I don’t know how much it really means.”
Gadsden followed up his big game against the Colts with another impressive performance against the Minnesota Vikings on “Thursday Night Football.” He played 77% of the snaps, caught five passes for 77 yards and hauled in his second touchdown pass of his NFL career.
His recent performance comes as no surprise to some of the most important people in the Chargers’ organization.
After the Thursday night game, quarterback Justin Herbert said he knew Gadsden would be pretty good immediately and good things happen when Gadsden gets the ball.
Gadsden and Herbert have formed an instant chemistry, one that Gadsden compares to what he had with McCord in their one year together at Syracuse.
“Just like when Kyle showed up at Syracuse, you just wanted to show him that you were always ready to work and you’re going to be consistent and you’re going to be out there working hard, catching the ball, every pass that he throws to you, no matter where he puts it,” Gadsden said.
“And when you get that consistency and in practice, in training camp, throughout the week leading up to the game, it can easily translate to the game to make it as easy as possible.”
Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh has also sung Gadsden’s praises after his recent breakout. He noted Gadsden is already being double-teamed, and it’s allowing teammates to take advantage.
“It’s obviously great for me to be able to help the team in that way,” Gadsden said. “And our passing attack, we have a lot of guys that teams can’t run too much man on if they want to double all these different people and we keep on winning our one-on-ones.”
Going from a once-top prospect to a question mark because of injuries, Gadsden’s confidence never wavered, he said.
In the early part of his career, Gadsden has proven to be right and is silencing any critics he may have had.
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