Montrell
Washington.
Montrell
Washington.
Samford
Washington is a 176-pound slot receiver whose best football happens with the ball already in his hands. He is a one-cut returner with real vision and long speed, the player who broke a 98-yard kick return touchdown against Florida and finished as a first-team FCS All-American returner in 2019.
As a receiver he wins on manufactured touches: jet sweeps, screens, shallow crossers and anything that lets him catch the ball moving forward. The 4.48 forty and 36-inch vertical are good, not elite, and the six bench reps say everything about his ability to release against press. He is a gadget piece and a returner, not a route technician who beats NFL corners on the perimeter.
Offense with a designed gadget package that manufactures touches for a speed player, paired with a special teams unit that wants an aggressive returner rather than a safe one.
Year 1: full-time punt and kick returner with five to ten offensive touches a game. Ceiling: starting slot in a heavy motion scheme.
A perimeter-based offense that asks its receivers to beat press coverage at the line and win contested balls outside the numbers.
His roster spot lives entirely on the return unit's depth chart.
The Most Dynamic Player In College Football: Montrell Washington Career Highlights
Full Samford career reel covering receiving, rushing and return touches.
Samford's Montrell Washington 98-yard TD on kick return vs. Florida
The single play that put him on NFL special teams boards, against SEC coverage.
Montrell Washington Rookie 2022 Highlights | Denver Broncos WR/KR/PR
Every meaningful rookie-year touch in Denver, almost all of them on returns.
Washington spent five seasons at Samford and built his draft case one return at a time. He caught a touchdown as a true freshman in 2017, played a rotational role in 2018, and then broke out in 2019 with 28 catches for 405 yards, 303 punt return yards and 155 kick return yards, earning first-team FCS All-American honors as a return specialist.
The senior year in 2021 was the complete version: 61 catches for 855 yards and nine touchdowns, 140 rushing yards and six more scores on nineteen carries, plus 620 kick return yards and three return touchdowns. He was first-team All-SoCon as a returner and second-team as a receiver, finishing the season with eighteen total touchdowns and a passing touchdown attempt for good measure.
The pro day confirmed a fast, small athlete: 5-foot-8 7/8, 176 pounds, 4.48 in the forty and only six bench press reps. Nobody drafted him to be a starting receiver. Denver took him 162nd overall as a returner with gadget value, betting that the same vision and burst that shredded Southern Conference coverage units would hold up against NFL gunners. The receiving role was always going to be optional.
- 01
Return vision
first-team FCS All-American as a returner in 2019 and first-team All-SoCon in 2021, with three return touchdowns in his final season.
- 02
Long speed
a 4.48 forty that shows up on tape as genuine breakaway ability once he clears the first wave of coverage.
- 03
Ball-in-hands production
eighteen total touchdowns as a senior across receiving, rushing and returns, an all-purpose profile few FCS players match.
- 04
Versatility
61 catches, nineteen carries and a completed pass in 2021, a player an offensive coordinator can use on jet sweeps and screens.
- 05
Experience
five seasons at Samford with production in every phase and no missed development time before the draft.
- 01
Size and strength
176 pounds with a 28 3/8-inch arm span and six bench reps, a frame that cannot release against NFL press coverage.
- 02
Route tree
his college production came on manufactured touches and vertical shots, not on the full-field route running an NFL slot requires.
- 03
Level of competition
Southern Conference defensive backs and coverage units are not a fair proxy for the speed he would face on Sundays.
- 04
Role dependency
if the return job goes to someone else, there is no receiving floor to fall back on, which leaves him with no path to a roster spot.
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Samford | — | 14 | 62 | 0 |
| 2019 | Samford | — | 28 | 405 | 3 |
| 2020 | Samford | — | 27 | 406 | 4 |
| 2021 | Samford | — | 61 | 855 | 9 |
| Career | — | — | 130 | 1728 | 16 |
Receiving and rushing lines come from ESPN's college splits for Samford. He also caught a touchdown as a true freshman in 2017 that ESPN records in its scoring category without a receiving line, so the career receiving total shown here covers 2018 through 2021 only. Return production is not part of this table but is substantial: ESPN credits him with 303 punt return yards in 2019, 200 in 2020 and 265 in 2021, plus 620 kick return yards and three return touchdowns as a senior. Games played by season are not published in the sources consulted and are left blank rather than estimated.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Return specialist who holds a job for a few seasons on special teams alone with negligible offensive production.
Small, explosive returner who turns the third phase into real offensive snaps and a defined role.
Gadget returner whose grip on a roster spot disappears the moment the fumbles start.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The return job never held. Washington played fifteen games as a rookie in Denver with 32 punt returns for 271 yards and eighteen kick returns for 340, but he fumbled and fair-caught his way out of the coaching staff's trust and caught only four passes for two yards. Denver waived him at the 2023 cutdown.
Kansas City signed him to the practice squad two days later, promoted him in September, waived him in October and kept him around the building long enough that he was part of the Super Bowl LVIII roster. Then came the loop every fringe returner knows: reserve/futures in February, waived in August, practice squad, released in December, re-signed eight days later. The Giants signed him in February 2025 and released him in August, the UFL's DC Defenders took and cut him in 2026, Houston signed and released him inside a week, and he landed on Edmonton's practice roster in the CFL that September. Four NFL seasons produced 706 return yards and two receiving yards.