Houston Texans select Luke Lachey in seventh round of 2025 NFL Draft

The Houston Texans selected Iowa tight end Luke Lachey in the seventh round of the 2025 NFL Draft. He is now in the NFL after spending the last five seasons with the Hawkeyes.

Lachey joined Iowa in 2020 and played in one game before redshirting. In 2021, Lachey played in all 13 games with three starts and caught eight passes for 133 yards. He played in all 13 games with seven starts in 2022 and caught 28 passes for 398 yards and four touchdowns.

2023 was a challenging year for Luke Lachey as he played in just three games before missing the rest of the year with a right ankle injury. Last year, Lachey returned and played in 12 games with 11 starts. During that time, Lachey caught 28 passes for 231 yards.

“I just feel like blocking was a big thing for me,” Lachey told 93.7 The Ticket before the start of the season (per Daftnasty Magazine). “In high school, I was a wide receiver….so didn’t really block that much then. Coming in here (Iowa), it was like if you can’t block, you can’t play. That was the biggest thing that I tried to learn. Coming from last season, just with being injured all last year…a big thing for me was just being healthy.”

Luke Lachey played high school football at Grandview Heights in Columbus, Ohio. He ranked as the No. 474 overall prospect and the No. 20 tight end in the Class of 2020, according to the On3 Industry Rankings, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

What NFL Draft analysts are saying about Luke Lachey

Lance Zierlein of NFL.com gave an analysis of Lachey for his draft profile. He was projected to be drafted in the sixth or seventh round, Zierlein revealed what Lachey needed to do to be an every-down tight end in the NFL.

“Combination tight end capable of lining up in-line or as a move tight end,” Zierlein wrote. “While Lachey can do both, he lacks the core strength and consistency of a typical “Y” tight end and has average quickness to escape man coverage on the next level. He has experience operating underneath and as an intermediate target, using proper leverage in his routes and good body control, along with strong hands, when contested. He has NFL size but needs to prove he can more consistently sustain as a run blocker in order to become a trustworthy, three-down player in the league. Unless that happens, he’s likely to be fighting for a role as a TE3 or TE4.