Two Tar Heels put the finishing touches on their week in Mobile on Saturday afternoon. While Tez Walker may have played nearly every snap for the National team on the offensive side, it was Cedric Gray who made himself the most money and probably secured himself as one of the top players at his position in this year’s draft.
Gray might have been the best defensive player on the field on Saturday, as he finished with a team-high seven total tackles, one tackle for loss and two pass breakups. After struggling to fight through a couple early on, he did a great job of shedding blocks to make tackles in the run game and he had a tremendous day in coverage, the best of any linebacker on the field. This was a perfect finish to what was a very good week for him in Mobile.
Gray entered the week as a late Day 2-early Day 3 prospect, but this performance should have him trending more towards that late Day 2 selection. The Combine will be another opportunity for him to impress and with how athletic he is, it’s hard to imagine he won’t be able to do that. Right now, the Texans are the only team that has been officially tied to him, but that list should grow substantially once he gets to Indy.
Walker, on the other hand, saw his draft stock take a major hit this weekend. It started in practice, where he had a rough first two days catching the football. He rebounded with a solid, yet unspectacular day for himself on Thursday in the final practice and the hope was that he was saving his best performance of the week for the game. Unfortunately, that was not the case. As one of just three wide receivers to play for the National team, he had plenty of opportunities to impact, but failed to catch any of his six targets, dropping two of them.
With as deep as this wide receiver class is, this is a tough blow to Walker’s stock. Coming into the week, he was seen as a solid 2nd rounder who was starting to get some 1st round buzz, but after this weekend, that talk is out the window. Now, he will likely need to catch the ball well at the combine to even have a shot to land in the 2nd round.
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