The Buffalo Bills traded up 23 spots in the fourth round to select Kentucky DT Deone Walker. Walker was approached as a first-round possibility heading into the 2024 season, but the tape seemingly went backward in 2024 — a large reason his slide went into the fourth round.

Walker is one of the biggest human beings in the 2025 NFL Draft class, standing at 6’7” and 330 pounds. He’s also equipped with 34” arms and will immediately be one of the more physically imposing defensive linemen on the Bills’ roster with a crew that has plenty of them.

There are a multitude of red flags with Walker. While he’s a large human being, his weight is very top-heavy, with a thin lower half and large midsection. His pad level is way too high and he needs to lose some weight or rearrange how he’s constructed physically. You could tell he wasn’t physically in shape on the 2024 tape. Walker played through a spinal fracture during the 2024 season. He didn’t test well as an athlete with his gargantuan size.

Walker is a colossal human being with surprisingly good get-off on film. But the inconsistencies exist because of how much his fatigue grows over the course of a football game. He’s light on his feet and not clunky in his movement.

Deone Walker was doing stuff like this when he was 19 before he played with a bad back last year

Absurd physical talent the Bills just got and went to perfect defense to utilize it pic.twitter.com/14PUcJnmUV

— Mike Renner (@mikerenner_) April 26, 2025

Overall, the Bills are betting on someone with a unique body type and a massive human being who could play either of the one-technique or three-technique spots on the defensive line. Buffalo’s strength-and-conditioning program will have their work cut out for them to see if they can reshape his body or allow him to lose some weight to improve his overall stamina over the course of a game. There’s some risk here, but the Bills may have a plan for him with a fourth-round trade-up.

The “Boom-or-Bust” moniker is thrown around often, and this is definitely the case for Walker. Just how much his back injury affected his play in 2024 is a legitimate question.