2022 NFL Draft: Buyer beware on Travon Walker, Jermaine Johnson and these other top prospects

We won’t know this right away, but early in the 2022 NFL Draft, a small collection of picks will get selected much too early. Happens in every single draft class. 

To warn you about who those prospects may very well be, I write this “Buyer Beware” piece every draft season.

Buyer Beware prospects in the past include: Gregory Rousseau, Kadarius Toney, Odafe Oweh, and Patrick Surtain in the 2021 class; Derrick Brown, D’Andre Swift, Kenneth Murray, and — gulp — Justin Jefferson in 2020; and Dwayne Haskins, Mack Wilson, Jaylon Ferguson, Josh Jacobs, Rashan Gary, and Jacksonville’s Josh Allen in the 2019 draft. 

While I’m not insinuating these prospects are guaranteed to bust, they’re just the most risky propositions who could still land somewhere in the first round or very early on Day 2. In my estimation, they’ll have a difficult time living up to their draft positions. These are my “buyer-beware” prospects in the 2022 class. 

Travon Walker, EDGE, Georgia

Why: Lack of pass-rushing moves; minimal bend

At 6-foot-5 and 272 pounds with arms over 35 inches long and a tremendous, all-around combine workout to his name, Walker appears like a justifiable top-five selection and someone with a strong likelihood of becoming a monstrously productive pro. 

On the field, his game is reminiscent of a prospect who should be picked much later and is in need of substantial technical maturation before he can become an effective NFL player. 

Despite his 6.89 three-cone time — scintillatingly fast for someone of his height and weight — Walker is noticeably stiff around the corner, which is essentially the cardinal sin of rushing the quarterback from the outside. It’s exceptionally rare for an inflexible defensive end to morph into a star in the NFL. If that type of player does beat the odds, he’s typically a pass-rush move genius. Unfortunately for Walker, he’s not that, either. 

Against the…