Parker Washington, Penn State (5’10”, 212)
What Scouts Say:
Skilled return man, special teams ace, slot Swiss army knife type of offensive asset. Has elite contact balance and breaks tackles while continuing to move forward. Has not been a high-volume WR, limited by the Penn State offensive scheme, so there are questions about how much volume he can handle. Strong hands, and makes contested catches. Slot guy primarily in college was never the main target. Not the sharpest route runner, and not an elite athlete. Not a huge guy for metrics, either. May end up relegated as a WR2 at the next level.
What We Saw:
Tony:
Parker Washington isn’t going to consistently jump off the tape at you, but upon watching his game tape I saw a slot WR that makes himself a QBs favorite with his incredible hands, elite body control and huge catch radius. He breaks tackles like Deebo Samuel at times and gets low at contact while continuing to push forward. He’s not an elite player or a particularly crisp route runner, and therefore most likely won’t get monster draft capital or a huge role in the NFL, but there’s certainly a reality where he carves out a solid niche role on an offense and stays moderately productive for a few years at the next level.
Shane:
As the woman on the airplane in Beavis and Butthead Do America said, “I’m mostly going to be doin’ the slots”, Parker Washington took that to heart as he played a significant majority of his snaps from the slot. He didn’t do too much to excite me, there were flashes but he needs refinement at different levels. Not a great separator once contact was initiated with the DB, and mostly dealt with 5+ yards of empty space off the line to work with. He did have good footwork and decent head movement to attempt to bait the defender into making the wrong move, but most of the time it didn’t work. There’s promise there. Great hands and will extend his body to grab the ball within a wide vicinity of his frame. Decent YAC ability with the ability to make guys miss, but lack of top-end speed might limit his draft capital. Good dart throw in the 3rd as he’s got the pieces, he just needs to assemble the puzzle.
Player Comparison:
Thiccstian Kirk/Devin Duvernay
