The true measure of NFL draft prospect Carnell Tate
Wide receiver Carnell Tate is confident, intelligent and ready to star in the NFL. His mother made sure of it.
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CARNELL TATE PLACED his palms on the turf and crouched at the starting line of the 40-yard dash. Ordained as the next in a long line of superstar wide receivers from Ohio State, Tate drew his left arm back before surging forward with his right leg at the NFL combine in February.
His necklaces -- a cross dangled from one chain and a nameplate that read "Ashley" hung from another -- flopped around on his chest with each of his 19 steps.
He crossed the finish line in 4.53 seconds, slower than it took cynics to take to their keyboards.
Tate moseyed off the field to talk to one of his friends. Nolan Baudo, a high school teammate who walked on at Ohio State, assured Tate he was fine.
"I looked like you out there," Tate deadpanned.
They laughed and moved on, knowing that Tate's spot in the NFL draft, which begins April 23, won't be decided by a stopwatch. He's a route technician who's expected to be the first receiver off the board -- likely in the first 10 picks -- and his physical gifts are just part of his toolkit. His mind, maturity and emotional intelligence separate him in team interviews, because at 21, he can answer a question generally reserved for far older men.
"How do you handle the worst moment of your life?"
Carnell Tate carries an air of confidence and professionalism that is apparent to anyone who meets the wide receiver. Nick Fancher for ESPN WHEN TATE WAS a kid, his family called him "Mister."
"He used to walk around just like a little gentleman," his aunt Astoria Griggs said, "just asking questions, being very attentive to things, following up on things even at such a young age."
He grew up in the West Garfield Park neighborhood in Chicago, just as his mom did, in one of the most violent stretches of the city. Ashley Griggs held her youngest child close. In some ways, they were opposites. Carnell limited what he revealed about himself; Ashley Griggs was chronically effervescent.
She was the fun mom, cranking the radio in her car with the windows rolled down, making milestone celebrations a priority. Griggs loved birthday parties -- especially her own -- telling jokes and doting over her son and daughter.
"[Carnell] and his mom were very close," Tate's dad, LeSean Tate, said. "I won't say he's a mama's boy, but you know how a mama's bond is with her son. It's close."
She loved watching Carnell play football.
Baudo, who grew up on the south side of Chicago, met Tate the summer before their freshman year of high school at a Marist football camp. Baudo doesn't recall how the introduction went -- "I think we were talking about LeBron or something like that" -- but he remembers that he could sense something different about Tate from the start.
"You could tell he had a lot of confidence," Baudo said, "whether it was on the field or off the field. And you could tell that nobody could make him stray from it."
Baudo and Tate sat next to each other at practice and hung out after school, playing video games.
Marist is touted as Chicago's No. 1 Catholic college preparatory institution, and its football team plays in the toughest conference in the state. The program packs the stands and wins a lot.
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For as long as any Marist coaches can remember, no freshman had played varsity. Tate made them reconsider. He was 6-foot-1 with silky-smooth moves that former Marist head coach Ron Dawczak said were "ridiculous." Tate ran precise routes, and seemed to be the perfect antidote for a team that was hovering around.500 near the midseason mark in 2019 and lacking a No. 1 receiver.
One day, Dawczak asked him if he wanted to play on varsity and told him to ask his parents if he could.
"I just remember he had a big smile on his face," Dawczak said.
Tate made the transition look easy. Over the next nine games, he made a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch while falling down, and plucked a Hail Mary pass from four defenders for a touchdown. "We were all looking at each other going, 'Holy cow,'" Dawczak said.
He caught 28 passes for 444 yards and five touchdowns, and led Marist to the state semifinals.
After the season, a college scout came to Marist to recruit an upperclassman, and Dawczak suggested he watch a little film on Tate.
"As soon as I mentioned that he was a freshman," Dawczak said, "he rolled his eyes and kind of chuckled. He was going to humor me, and I put the film on of Carnell, and after like three plays, he goes, 'You know what, Coach? I never do this, but I'm going to offer this kid a scholarship today.'"
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Baudo and Tate FaceTimed every day and played Fortnite and would "just talk crap to each other," Baudo said.
He got to know Tate on a different level during those isolating days.
"If he cares about you, he really cares about you and would do anything for you," Baudo said. "If he loves you, he treats you like family."
Dontrell Jackson, Marist's receivers coach at the time, remembers driving his son to west Chicago during the pandemic to throw footballs in the fresh air with Tate.
Jackson picked up Tate at the home he shared with his mom and spotted a turf field nearby. Tate told him to keep driving.
"Coach, we can't go right there," Tate told him. "People just drive by and shoot at us for no reason."
Jackson drove to a safer place. It made him think about the mindset of the 15-year-old, and how growing up in one of the most dangerous parts of the city affected the way he carried himself.
"[He was a] mini professional," Jackson said, operating with a sense of precision regarding his routes and schoolwork.
"He's a young man, but an old soul," he said.
Tate became friends with Nolan Baudo, right, in high school, and Tate has leaned on Baudo through his highs and lows. Photo courtesy nolanbaudo/Instagram TATE RECEIVED AN offer to play at IMG Academy in Florida, but he was hesitant to go. His parents wouldn't get to see him play as much, and he'd miss his friends at Marist.
But Illinois' 2021 spring football season was in doubt because of the pandemic, so Tate moved to Florida. His dad said it was more than that.
"He enjoyed his time at home," LeSean Tate said, "but [IMG] was pretty much college. It was like you just went to college early. You're away from your family, you're working out....
"It's just a business. Like, 'This is what I've got to do to get my body ready for the next level.' So, he's always been more mature. He understands it's for a purpose."
Tate's mom was less enthusiastic. She had no idea that Tate's instant success would take her son away from her so quickly. But she didn't stand in his way.
She called or FaceTimed him every day, multiple times if necessary. She flew down to watch him play when she could.
Tate thrived in Florida, and he had offers from LSU, Michigan and Notre Dame.
He chose Ohio State because of its tradition of sending receivers to the NFL. Five Buckeyes receivers have been picked in the first round in the past four drafts -- Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson in 2022, Jaxon Smith-Njigba in 2023, Marvin Harrison Jr. in 2024 and Emeka Egbuka in 2025.
Tate wrapped up his studies at IMG a semester early and arrived in Columbus, Ohio, in January 2023. He roomed with freshman Brandon Inniss, a top-10 receiver in the 2023 recruiting class and a reminder of how hard it would be to get on the field. Ashley, always her son's biggest supporter, implored her neighbors to buy his jersey.
By April, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day was raving to reporters about Tate's maturity, and how he handled the transition, from academics to training, with such ease.
In the spring game, Tate caught a 37-yard touchdown pass from Kyle McCord and nonchalantly accepted his teammates' congratulations.
Tate, who was named an academic All-American as a junior at Ohio State, made numerous highlight plays for the Buckeyes. Jason Mowry/Getty Images AS USUAL, ASHLEY GRIGGS FaceTimed her son on July 15, 2023. She was going to a class reunion. Tate planned to hang out with some teammates that night.
Hours later, Griggs was shot on West Washington Boulevard, a spot she had hung out at as a child and just a block or two from where Tate grew up. She was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. She was 40 years old.
Tate received a middle-of-the-night call from his uncle, who told Tate his mother had been killed in a drive-by shooting.
Baudo, who had arrived in Columbus a month earlier as a preferred walk-on, woke up the next morning to eight missed calls from LeSean Tate and Brian Hartline, the Buckeyes' offensive coordinator.
Baudo immediately tried to get a hold of Tate. His calls went unanswered. Baudo didn't have a car, so he ran three miles to Tate's apartment and "basically broke in." Inniss was asleep, he said, and Tate's door was closed, so he sat there for 25 minutes, trying to figure out what to do.
He woke up Inniss, and they sat on the couch and debated how to approach Tate. Eventually, they knocked on the door, walked in and found Tate sitting in bed. He told them to give him a couple of minutes.
When he came out, Baudo said, they hugged him and told him they loved him. They sat on the balcony together, and talked a little bit, as much as he wanted. Tate's dad flew to Columbus to pick him up.
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Though Tate hadn't even taken an official snap at Ohio State, his mom's death shook the program. Hartline said he had "great, candid" conversations with Griggs.
"She was very outgoing," Hartline said. "She loved to hang out with people and was very passionate about her son.
"She'd light up the room."
Hartline said he had never dealt with a death so close to a player before Griggs died, and he sometimes questioned if he was handling it properly. Hartline said he talked to Tate and asked if he was OK, but it was challenging because of Tate's introverted nature.
Hartline said there is a fine line between checking in and nagging, and he tried not to cross it.
"The whole time I was like, 'Man, are you good?'" said Hartline, now the head coach at South Florida. "He wasn't, you know, he just never let it affect him and what he does and the people around him. And he just had a very pro approach to it. But the receiver room was heavy around him. I was as heavy as I could be around him, but I just.... That still to this day has not really left me, to be honest.
"It's weird to talk about.... He's the one who went through it, not me. It's just, to have someone I care about so much lose someone so close to him, I don't know. I can't say I knew how to handle it."
According to a document obtained from the Cook County state's attorney's office, Griggs was shot multiple times in the head. Four others were injured in the shooting. Manuel Bahamon, 25, Alex Lopez, 33, and Ismael Lozada, 25, are each facing one count of first-degree murder and four counts of first-degree attempted murder. They are being held at the Cook County Jail without bond, and their cases are pending.
In the 10 years leading up to 2023, there were 1,500 murders in West Garfield Park, according to a report by the Chicago Sun-Times.
In a statement provided to ESPN, Cook County state's attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke called Griggs "a mother who nurtured her son's exceptional talent."
"The Cook County State's Attorney's Office will vigorously prosecute anyone who endangers the public through these inexcusable acts of violence," O'Neill Burke said. "We are committed to seeking justice on behalf of Ashley and holding those responsible fully accountable in court."
Tate (17) might not have wowed during the 40-yard dash, but he runs routes with precision and knows how to get separation from defenders. Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch via USA TODAY NETWORK TATE'S TEAMMATES STUCK close to him, taking him out to steak dinners on milestones such as his mom's birthday, asking him if he wanted to talk even though they knew he probably didn't.
Tate kept himself occupied with school and his playbook. Despite a crowded receiver room, he played in all 13 games his freshman season, catching 18 passes for 264 yards and a touchdown in an 11-2 season. Tate had to wait his turn, but he never lost faith in himself or let his sadness sidetrack him. "He never quit on himself or lost any confidence," Baudo said.
