Javon
Baker.
Javon
Baker.
Central Florida· 6'1"· 202 lb· 4.54s 40
"The catch radius was never the question at pick 110; the route tree and the maturity were, and two years later a receiver with first-round tape is on a practice squad without a second NFL reception."Pre-draft read
Baker played the X in UCF's offense, split wide and left alone on the backside to win the ball in the air. He is a catch-point receiver first: he tracks the deep shot over either shoulder, times his leap late, and finishes through contact with strong, confident hands that snatch away from his frame instead of trapping.
He is not a burner, so the vertical production came from stacking corners with a physical release and playing bigger than his listed weight at the top of the route. Underneath he is a willing runner after the catch who looks for contact rather than avoiding it. The signature is the 50-50 ball: on jump balls and back-shoulder throws he plays with a genuine belief that the ball belongs to him, and at UCF it usually did.
A vertical play-action passing game that isolates an X receiver on the backside and lets him win one-on-one on go balls, back-shoulders and comebacks.
Year 1: situational boundary X on 15-20 snaps a game, targeted on shot plays and red-zone fades. Ceiling: full-time X starter who lives on 15-plus yards a catch as the vertical complement to a separator.
A timing-and-spacing offense built on option routes and separation underneath — the tree is too narrow, and quick game against press asks him to do the two things he does worst.
His value collapses without target volume; he is not a receiver who stays sharp on eight snaps a week.
Javon Baker 2023 Full Season Highlights | UCF WR | 2024 NFL Draft Prospect
The senior season that made him a first-team All-Big 12 pick: 1,139 yards at nearly 22 a catch.
Javon Baker All Targets & Catches 2023 Season | NFL Draft Film
Every target from 2023 — the honest look at both the contested-catch wins and the narrow route tree.
Javon Baker Highlights - Senior Bowl - WR UCF
Senior Bowl week, where the press-release questions showed up against NFL-caliber corners.
He is an outside-only alpha, and the profile lives or dies on that. Two buried years at Alabama behind a loaded room, then a transfer to UCF where he immediately became the primary target — 56 catches for 796 yards in the last AAC season, then 52 for 1,139 and seven scores as the Knights moved to the Big 12, at nearly 22 yards a reception.
That yards-per-catch number is the whole scouting report. The 2023 tape is a highlight loop of contested wins, including a one-handed toe-tap score and an 86-yard touchdown against Oklahoma, and it earned first-team All-Big 12 and a Senior Bowl invite. The flags were just as loud. The route tree was narrow, he had trouble beating physical press cleanly, his 4.54 speed did not match the vertical role he had been playing, and rooms had maturity questions about a receiver who needed volume and confidence to function.
The board reflected the split. Some evaluators wrote him up as a top-100 talent who fell for testing rather than tape; others had a Day 3 grade and a limited role. New England, badly in need of receivers, took him at 110 as the second wideout of its draft — a bet that the catch radius and the temperament would beat the route-running and the timed speed.
- 01
Contested-catch winner
he attacks the ball at its highest point, times the leap late, and finishes through contact as well as any receiver in the class.
- 02
Deep-ball tracking
locates and adjusts over either shoulder without losing speed, which is why he averaged nearly 22 yards a catch as a senior.
- 03
Strong hands away from the frame
he snatches the ball rather than letting it into his chest, and drops were not part of his UCF profile.
- 04
Physical release package
uses his hands and a hard stem to stack corners at the top of the route instead of relying on burst to separate.
- 05
Competitive edge after the catch
seeks contact and falls forward, and he plays with an alpha temperament that shows up on blocks and in traffic.
- 01
Narrow route tree
UCF asked for verticals, comebacks and slants, and the intermediate breaking routes an NFL X needs were mostly missing from the tape.
- 02
Long speed does not match the role
a 4.54 forty for a vertical-only receiver means the college separation may not survive against NFL corners.
- 03
Struggles with disciplined press
physical corners who reroute him early can knock the timing off his entire route and take him out of a play.
- 04
Maturity and volume dependence
evaluators flagged a player who needs targets and confidence to stay engaged, a real risk in a rotational rookie role.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.54sp50
- Vertical
- 37inp50
- Broad jump
- 121inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Alabama | 7 | 2 | 15 | 0 |
| 2021 | Alabama | 11 | 7 | 101 | 1 |
| 2022 | UCF | 14 | 56 | 796 | 5 |
| 2023 | UCF | 13 | 52 | 1139 | 7 |
| Career | — | 45 | 117 | 2051 | 13 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A contested-catch specialist with a narrow tree who never adds the intermediate routes, loses his role by Year 2 and bounces between practice squads.
The ceiling only if the vertical role hits: a boundary big-play threat who turns limited volume into 15-plus yards a catch and real defensive attention.
If the maturity and the separation both fail, a Day 3 receiver out of the rotation almost immediately and off the drafting team inside two seasons.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The Patriots gave him almost nothing and he gave them almost nothing back. Baker was a healthy scratch in the season opener and in several games after it, played 11 games as a rookie in 2024, and finished the year with one catch for 12 yards. An Instagram Live rant in September after a traffic stop drew a public rebuke from head coach Jerod Mayo about immaturity, and it set the tone for a season in which he never earned a role. He made the initial 53-man roster in August 2025 and was released the next day. Philadelphia signed him to the practice squad and cut him in October; San Francisco added him to its practice squad in December 2025, and he entered 2026 still there, without another regular-season snap.
In hindsight this is not a case of the evaluation missing the tape — it is a case of the flags being the story. The contested-catch ability was real and remains real. The route limitations, the separation questions and the maturity concerns were all documented before the draft, and they were the exact reasons a receiver with a top-100 highlight reel was available at 110. New England bet the temperament would push the development. Instead the temperament arrived first and the development never did.