Georgia football: Travon Walker will be a top-3 2022 NFL Draft pick

Georgia football has a draft class full of talented players that will have long NFL careers. However, there is one who blew the water out of workouts and impressed so much. Travon Walker is a nasty defensive lineman that is better than those who grade above him.

He is better than Aiden Hutchinson regardless of the stat comparison. On-field production is huge, but at the same time, it isn’t the only thing people should consider. Seeing individuals compare Hutchinson to Joey Bosa is silly and such a reach.

Walker should be a top-3 pick easily because he is the best defensive end in the draft and still has the highest ceiling.

Georgia football defensive end Travon Walker should go inside the top-3 of the 2022 NFL Draft.

Since declaring for the NFL Draft, Walker’s stock continues to rise the closer we get to the end of April. He stunned the world at the NFL Combine then continued to impress at Georgia’s Pro Day. NFL.com writer Daniel Jeremiah has him going at No.2 overall to Detroit behind Hutchinson in his March 22 mock draft.

While I believe Walker is better than Hutchinson, we will focus on the No. 2 overall pick because that is a massive jump for the defensive end. Most had him in the first round, but the second pick off the board is absolutely wild.

Walker is that good, though, and we said it earlier in this article — he is better than Hutchinson. He is twitchier, has better length, and as a junior declaring for the draft, Walker is insanely good.

Then the NFL Combine came around, and Walker exploded onto the scene. At 6-5 and 272-pounds, Walker ran a 4.51 40-yard dash. That speed is insane. His whole combine was impressive, and that was when the shuffling started.

Mock drafts put him higher and higher, proving that a good combine can elevate a player’s stock. He was faster than Hutchinson, who ran a 4.74. Hutchinson might be 6-7 and 260-pounds, but Walker was faster, being 12 pounds heavier.

Last season the Dawgs had one of the best defenses in college football history, and Walker was a big contributor.

The guys like Jordan Davis and Nakobe Dean initially got more love than him because they were attention grabbers, but Walker was too when you watched his film.

Walker recorded 37 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, six sacks, two pass breakups, one fumble recovery and led the team with 32 quarterback hurries. Hutchinson may have had 62 tackles, 16.5 tackles for loss and 14 sacks, but he only had 12 quarterback hurries.

He is a stat maniac and deserves to be a high draft pick, but Walker will be a better NFL defensive end than Hutchinson because Walker did all of his stuff on a defense that didn’t depend on him to make every play as the Wolverines did.

Plus, did we see what Georgia did to Hutchinson in the Orange Bowl? He had four tackles and one tackle for loss. Meanwhile, Walker had two tackles, one tackle for loss, one sack, and four quarterback hurries. While it isn’t astronomically better, he did more.

Walker will be a top-3 draft pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, and it’s time we get our heads wrapped around that. Detriot will get a solid playmaker that can be one of the best to play the game. Georgia football developed him into this in just three short seasons, and Walker still doesn’t know how good he truly is.