Devin
Culp.
Devin
Culp.
Washington· 6'3"· 231 lb· 4.47s 40
"Speed was never the question with Devin Culp; the question was whether a 4.47 tight end who caught 66 passes in five years could ever be more than a matchup the offense remembers twice a game."Pre-draft read
An in-line and flexed tight end whose entire game runs through speed. Washington aligned him attached, in the wing and detached in the slot, and used him as a vertical seam runner and play-action leak target rather than a possession chain-mover. He releases cleanly, eats cushion in a hurry and gets on top of linebackers before they can flip and run.
The secondary trait is yards-after-catch juice on crossers and shallow drags, where he outruns pursuit angles like an oversized receiver. As a blocker he is willing and competitive but plays with more effort than mass, better climbing to the second level than digging out five-techniques. The signature is timed speed: 4.47 at 231 pounds is a genuine outlier at the position.
Play-action heavy zone-run offense that uses a detached, speed-first move tight end
Year 1: TE3 and special-teams contributor who runs seams and leaks in play-action packages. Ceiling: a legitimate TE2 move piece who wins vertically and on crossers in a two-tight-end offense.
A gap-scheme, 12-personnel run offense that asks its second tight end to anchor as a true in-line Y and displace five-techniques on down blocks — his lack of play strength gets exposed immediately there.
Best deployed as a defined-role chess piece: a handful of vertical and boot concepts per game rather than a full-time route tree.
Devin Culp Washington Highlights
College reel showing the seam speed and yards-after-catch juice that defined his Washington tape.
Bucs 7th Rd Pick TE Devin Culp Film Study
Post-draft film study breaking down his release, route usage and blocking limitations.
Baker dimes up Culp for a Bucs' TD
First NFL touchdown, the vertical shot concept Tampa Bay drafted him to run.
Culp is a movement tight end built on rare straight-line speed, not on volume production or point-of-attack power. Five years in Seattle produced a role player rather than a featured target: the athletic complement in a room that asked him to run seams, sell play-action and block on the move. The identity is clear and narrow — a matchup runner who makes a defense declare whether a safety or a linebacker travels with him.
Context matters as much as the numbers. Washington's 2023 offense ran through Michael Penix Jr. and a historically good receiver trio, and Culp finished that Playoff run with 16 catches for 208 yards and two scores as the fourth option. His signature plays were vertical shots and leaks off boot, where the speed showed on tape and not just at the combine. The flags were plain: a 66-catch career, hands that fought traffic, and strength that lagged behind his frame.
The board read him as a late Day 3 traits swing. Indianapolis moved the needle: he ran 4.47, the fastest tight end time in the class, and evaluators who had him as a priority free agent bumped him into the seventh round on that number alone. Tampa Bay spent its final pick on him at 246, betting elite speed at a position starved for it would eventually find a package even if the receiving résumé never justified the pick on its own.
- 01
Elite timed speed
4.47 at 231 pounds was the fastest 40 among tight ends in the 2024 class and shows up as real vertical stress, not just a workout number.
- 02
Seam-runner threat
eats cushion off the line and gets on top of linebackers and box safeties quickly, forcing coverage declarations the offense can read.
- 03
Yards after catch
dangerous on crossers and shallow drags, where his long speed turns a five-yard completion into a chunk once he clears the first tackler.
- 04
Alignment flexibility
worked attached, in the wing and detached in the slot at Washington without the offense tipping run or pass by his placement.
- 05
Willing blocker on the move
competitive climbing to the second level and effective sealing edges in the run game when he is not asked to anchor.
- 01
Thin production profile
66 career receptions across five seasons in Seattle, never the featured tight end and never a volume target inside a loaded passing offense.
- 02
Play strength at the point
plays lighter than his listed weight and gets displaced by five-techniques and heavy edges when asked to dig out in-line.
- 03
Contested hands
inconsistent through traffic and away from his frame, with a catch radius that shrinks when a defender is draped on him.
- 04
Route detail
a straight-line mover more than a route technician, with limited nuance at the top of stems against zone match and press coverage.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.47sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Washington | 2 | 1 | 15 | 0 |
| 2021 | Washington | 12 | 20 | 222 | 1 |
| 2022 | Washington | 13 | 29 | 266 | 1 |
| 2023 | Washington | 15 | 16 | 208 | 2 |
| Career | — | 42 | 66 | 711 | 4 |
Verified against cfbstats.com season pages (2020-2023); season totals sum to career. 2019 appearances carry no recorded receiving statistics and are excluded rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
The realistic outcome: a dependable TE3 who survives on special teams and situational snaps rather than target volume.
The ceiling version: a flex tight end whose speed carves out a real receiving package and a decade-long career as a rotational move piece.
The floor: a workout-number tight end who never develops hands or in-line strength and bounces off practice squads.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Tampa Bay took him with the 246th and final pick of its 2024 draft and slotted him behind Cade Otton and Payne Durham. He made the roster as a rookie and played mostly as a special teamer and third tight end, finishing 2024 with five catches for 88 yards — his first NFL reception was a 26-yard gain in Week 17, exactly the kind of vertical chunk that got him drafted. In 2025 the receiving role shrank rather than grew: one catch for six yards and his first NFL touchdown, with the bulk of his snaps coming on kick coverage and in heavy packages. Entering 2026 he is still on the roster and still on his rookie deal through 2027, but the Buccaneers paid Otton to be the feature tight end and Culp is once again competing with Durham for the third spot rather than a route tree.
In hindsight this is roughly what a 246th pick should look like: not a hit, not a bust, a cheap traits bet that returned two years of roster value and a special-teams role. The speed was real and it was never a lie, but the rest of the position never caught up — he did not develop the strength to be trusted in-line or the hands to be trusted on third down, and without those the 4.47 only buys you a handful of designed shots per season. Tampa Bay lost nothing on the swing, which is the point of the seventh round, and Culp turned a workout number into a pro career most players taken around him never got.
Data note: Verified against cfbstats.com season pages (2020-2023); season totals sum to career. 2019 appearances carry no recorded receiving statistics and are excluded rather than zero-filled.