Travon Walker profile: Why the Jacksonville Jaguars drafted the edge in the 2022 NFL Draft
The Jacksonville Jaguars picked Travon Walker with the first pick in the 2022 NFL draft.
A five-star recruit in 2019 (number three defensive tackle), Walker was a rotational player for that loaded Bulldogs defense his first two years (5.5 TFLs and 3.5 sacks combined). He finally did step into a more prominent role this past season, when he put up 33 total tackles, 7.5 of those for loss, six sacks and two passes batted down, ending the season with a national championship.
This guy has lined up anywhere from one- to seven-technique at UGA and transformed his body depending on where they needed him to play. He may be one of the very few players actually capable of playing anywhere across the front, even if he doesn’t know what exactly to do yet. If you tag him as an edge defender, it would be hard to say if there’s a stronger guy in this class.
Travon Walker's strengths
Walker comes out of his stance with his hands ready to strike and rock the pads of blockers backward, while having those long arms to keep guys away from his chest. You see him, at times, get combo-ed on the front-side with the tight-end and he’s not moving off the spot whatsoever.
When he’s sealed off on the backside, Walker can just drive the tackle behind the center, at times, to create chaos in the backfield. Having him matched up with tight-ends will likely end with those guys getting rag-dolled or Walker flat-out crashing through the inside shoulder and chasing the play down.
He can redirect without really any wasted steps, and when he chases the ball, he always moves faster than it looks like he does, in particular, as he shuffles laterally initially and then just takes off to chase things down as an unblocked man.
And Walker is a strong tackler, who can stop momentum and pull ball-carriers backward. A play that isn’t talked about enough from Natty was when Alabama threw one of their receivers a shallow crosser, who broke the first tackle and looked like he may out-angle the safety for six, but Walker came from being tangled up in the middle to chasing the ball down 20 yards downfield at the numbers.
Walker operated quite a bit out of a four-point stance on all three downs. He packs a mean long-arm maneuver, which you see some blockers brace themselves for at times. Plus, then, he can pull very large men off himself, once they start leaning into him, like they’re 200 pounds. He has the flexibility to contort his body on wider angles and make it tough to cut off his path, as linemen have to switch onto him on twists and stuff like that.
Walker, as a pass-rusher, if he gets close and there’s still a blocker in his way or the guard has slid over, he doesn’t try to find a different path anymore, but just powers through and takes away the quarterback’s space to step up. And as he wins on an inside move, he can still compress the pocket, even when the guard slides over to help out.
Walker’s production as a pass-rusher was limited by having z-slant inside and open a lane for one of his teammates and not being put in wide alignments, to create more favorable angles. Still, you see snaps on tape where he lines up at one-technique and loop all the way around the tackle and reach the passer at the climax of the drop.
Even as the set-up man on twists, he can power through the reach of blockers, to get home. On a few obvious passing situations, he times up the snap perfectly, to explode like a fire-ball. Walker was put over guards quite a bit on longer downs last year, where the initial twitch can give those opponents issues. Altogether, he had nine more QB hits and 20 hurries, to go with his six sacks. And he has plenty of experience dropping into the hook area, especially on the field side, and taking away the number three at times when stemming down the seams, although he doesn't look super-comfortable in space necessarily yet.
Travon Walker's weaknesses
However, too often Walker is the last guy out of his stance for the Georgia D-line. He simply doesn’t have much of a plan as a pass-rusher at this point and just bangs into bodies on a lot of occasions – particularly on the interior – and it’s not like he has some secondary moves to win anyway. When it all comes together, it can be beautiful, but Walker’s upper and lower half aren’t always in sync.
He doesn’t attack half the man consistently enough and puts stress on blockers with his initial approach, before going after the area, that they leave themselves vulnerable at. He lacks some feel for timing games up front and understanding how to approach blockers in his way.
His natural powers are impressive, but there’s certainly a bull-in-the-china-shop “quality” to him, and he will have to refine his technique, to actually win cleanly with hand-swipes. There’s not a whole lot to criticize as a run-defender, but at times, he seems pre-occupied with his blocker and doesn’t decipher schemes.
Conclusion on Travon Walker
Travon Walker has had a meteoric rise since the conclusion of this past season, as people fell in love with the freaky upside he presents. Dane Brugler was the first to talk about him as a top-tier prospect, having him at number six overall on his big board back in February.
Then, Walker went to the combine and put on an absolute show, when he ran a 4.51 in the 40 at 272(!) pounds, was good in the jumps and top-three in both agility events for the position. More importantly, people his size should not be able to move as easy in space and go through the bag drills the way he did. And his hips looked so loose running the figure-eight and bending that inside shoulder.
With that being, he is so much of a projection as a pass-rusher because he didn’t have a ton of success actually winning around the corner and showing that he can string together moves, by having his hands and lower body unified. At this point, he seems to be a lock for the top-five, which might be a bit too rich. He has the physical tools to end up as the best defensive player in this draft, but he still has a long way to go.
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