Tampa Bay Buccaneers select Jalen McMillan in third round of 2024 NFL Draft

Washington wide receiver Jalen McMillan has found his NFL home and was selected in the draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with the No. 92 pick in the third round of the 2024 NFL Draft.

McMillan becomes a pro following an illustrious career at Washington, where he was apart of perhaps the best wide receiver corps in the country last fall. The Huskies featured McMillan obviously, and then Rome Odunze, who hauled in 1,600+ yards worth of production, and then Ja’Lynn Polk, who also finished above 1,000 with 1,159.

Odunze led the team last year with roughly 1,100 receiving yards (albeit in less games) but McMillan was on his tail with 1,098 as Polk recorded just over 700. But this past season, Polk took the leap past 1,000 while McMillan struggled with injuries for part of the year and caught a pass in just seven out of 15 games, recording 559 yards and six total touchdowns. Still, with well over 3,000+ combined yards in 2023, no college football team boasted a better troika of wideouts.

In those seven games McMillan did play, he was as good as Polk or Odunze. He had one game of nine catches and 131 yards, another of eight for a buck twenty. At his best, McMillan was a star, but with other top wideouts around him, and injuries hampering his ability to perform, ultimately McMillan slipped through the cracks a little bit in 2023.

What NFL Draft analysts are saying about Jalen McMillan

Lance Zierlein of NFL.com went through and wrote out scouting reports for almost every draft eligible prospect, examining the pluses and minuses of each player. Take a look at his note on Jalen McMillan right here:

“Slot target with good size and production over the last two seasons. McMillan is a long-striding field-stretcher who is at his best with momentum routes in a West Coast passing scheme. He lacks aggression and play strength and could labor against press or when faced with contested catches. McMillan has adequate build-up speed to create opportunities down the field but needs the ball on target. Teams will need to determine if McMillan was a product of the impressive Washington passing scheme, or if he’s a stand-alone talent outside of UW.”

Best of luck to McMillan, who will now get the chance to prove to Mr. Zierlein that he is, in fact, capable of producing in a system outside of Kalen DeBoer’s at Washington at the professional level.