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Wide receiver Devontez Walker of North Carolina picked up the phone during the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft and heard the voice of Baltimore Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta after going without a call the first two days of the draft. “How would you feel about catching passes from Lamar Jackson?” DeCosta enquired.
Walker soon broke down in tears while talking to DeCosta and continued crying as he spoke with Ravens coach John Harbaugh. For Walker, the emotions had been building since he was 4, when he first told his mother and grandmother that all he wanted to do was play in the NFL.
But the path to the league has been a challenging one for Walker, from a torn ACL to a contentious transfer dispute with the NCAA to a nightmarish Senior Bowl performance. Now, after bouncing around to three colleges, Walker is hoping he has found a home as the newest playmaker for the reigning NFL Most Valuable Player.
“Just hearing that an NFL team values your skill set and you as a person, it just makes you feel good, [like] you’ve done all the right things to get to this point,” Walker said. “It was just a great feeling.”
Walker, the 19th wide receiver taken in this year’s draft, has the potential to be Jackson’s No. 1 deep downfield target. After making his debut at North Carolina on Oct. 14 because of an eligibility issue, he ranked second in the ACC with 656 receiving yards and led the conference with seven touchdown catches.
Walker’s strengths are his size (6-feet-1, 191 pounds), speed and ability to outleap defenders. In eight games last season, he totaled nine receptions on passes thrown at least 20 yards in the air.
