A Patriots Fan's Draft Wish List: WR Devontez Walker

David Beach. Shutterstock Images.

I'll be the first to admit that as we navigate the unchartered waters of the offseason in New England, with a new braintrust captaining the Patriots ship, I find myself more and more scanning the horizon for the familiar. Landmarks. Lighthouses. Channel markers. Buoys. Anything that will finish up this nautical metaphor before even I get sick of it. But mostly for some indication of how Eliot Wolf and Jerod Mayo plan to improve this roster. 

And one star we can steer by (I'll drop this now), is the way things are being done around the rest of the NFL. After 24 years of the Pats not doing business the way every other team does it, I'm now chasing trends. Big, physical quarterbacks are a thing, so I want Drake Maye. Pairing quarterback with their familiar college wide receivers is a thing. From Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase, to Tua Tagovailoa and Jayden Waddle, to Jalen Hurts and DeVonta Smith, and beyond. I want in on that. Or at least to consider the practicality of bringing Maye back together with his favorite target in Devontez Walker. 

The upside is that this QB and wideout reunion is only a motion away. Those aforementioned recievers were all Top 10 picks. Depending on your source of information, Walker can easily be gotten with the Pats 2nd round pick and possibly their third pick. I've seen a couple of sites that have him as their 15th best WR prospect. NFL Mock Draft Database has him going 76th overall, putting him well within reach of New England at No. 68 and freeing them up to add an offensive tackle in the 2nd. 

Which strikes me as a sound, though not spectacular strategy. And it tracks, given that they've met with him twice. First at the Senior Bowl:

And again at UNC's Pro Day:

And while no one besides his agent would place him in the top tier of his classmates, there's a lot to like about him as a lower cost bargain alternative:

Devontez Walker, North Carolina. 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, 4.36 40-time, 1.54 split, 40.5" vertical

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Walker brings the combination of decent size mixed with elite speed. His 4.36 was the fourth best time among wideouts at the Lucas Oil Rodeo and the eighth best by anyone at any position. Adding up to a nice package of athleticism:

… that the receiver room in Foxboro is in desperate need of. Though at a reasonable (draft) price. 

He didn't do himself many favors at Mobile, where he picked up a bad case of the Oopsies on deep balls. But over the course of 8 games in Chapel Hill and 66 targets, he had just three drops. With almost 700 yards, a 17.0 yard average, and 7 TDs. This on the (tar)heels [note the wordplay; that's the Old Balls Difference in action] of a 12-game, 921-yard, 15.9 YPC, 11 TDs season in 2022 as Maye won pretty much every award the ACC gives out. It's likely not a coincidence that Maye's career peaked in the same season Walker didn't miss any time. He would also give the Pats something they're lacking, which is an outside the numbers (93% of his passing snaps were from out wide) boundary-X with next-level speed in the deep game and the play strength to get through traffic that say, Tyquan Thornton hasn't shown.

Positives: Walker is a long strider with a explosive acceleration once he shifts into his 5th gear. But he combines that with good hands for fighting himself open against press coverage. And despite his Senior Bowl issues, is generally regarded to be a quality hands catcher with a big radius. His strengths are finding the openings against zone and being a deep threat, as the average of 30.7 YPC on his career 19 TDs would indicate. And while his numbers were down somewhat from year-to-year, he improved a lot when it came to winning contested catches battles. 

Negative: Simply put, route running. Getting in and out of his breaks. Making sharp cuts. Efficiency of motion. Which make it hard for him to sell all the branches and twigs of his route tree. Right now he just lacks refinement to go with all that athleticism. Which can be the difference between occasional highlight plays and consistent production. Sure, it was fine in the ACC. But it's going to need to get coached up into improving if he's going to beat NFL corners on a regular basis. If I can break my own rules by slipping another positive into this space meant for negatives only, despite appearing in 28 games at UNC, he's still just 22. So he's by no means a finished product. 

The Generic Equivalent of: Alec Pierce.

Walker wouldn't be the answer to all our hopes and dreams at wideout. Not right away. And maybe not ever. Even with him, there'd be a glaring need for a legitimate WR1 that opponents have to gameplan around. But he'd add an athletic element that would improve the situation. As well as the obvious familiarity with the guy I hope is the future of the franchise. More over, it would add a skill guy with a potentially high upside while allowing the Pats to fill the gaping hole that remains at left tackle. Which I intend to explore in the next preview.