2021 NFL Draft Offensive Tackle Rankings Top Five
5. Walker Little, Stanford
Size: 6-7, 313
The Good: If – and it’s a giant if – he can stay healthy and if there’s a little bit of patience, he could be the second-best tackle in the draft. He’s got the ideal size, strength, and all-around skill level to be a long-time main man on the outside, and when he’s right, he can move, too.
A star among Stanford offensive line star prospects, he occasionally played like a finished product almost from the start – he had the look of a guaranteed next-level sure thing as soon as he got rolling. Again, when he’s healthy, he’s as smooth and as promising as they come, but …
The Not-So-Good: The knee injury suffered in 2019 derailed everything. It came in the opener against Northwestern – that game was a season-killer for both sides – and it took him a full year to get back, and then came 2020.
He didn’t play. It wasn’t necessarily a bad move to opt out last season to give everything a bit more time to heal, but now he’s a massive boom-or-bust guess.
NFL Draft College Perspective Thought: Stanford linemen are always hit-or-BIG-miss – to be kind – and Little is the scariest of prospects in both ways. If he can build on the 2018 season and look like that again, and with the potential to improve his strength and power, he’s a Pro Bowl talent who could be the star of the line. But he hasn’t don’t much of anything for the last two years and he still has to show off what he’s like on is rebuilt knee.
Love him in the third, but take your shot for the stars in the late-second.
Projected Round: Third