Devin Duvernay wants to be ‘ultimate team player,’ sees nothing but Carson Beck’s upside

Devin Duvernay isn’t go to stop returning kicks and punts in Year 7 of his NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals, but he doesn’t want to limit himself as a one-dimensional specialist of any kind.

“Finding a role on offense, earning the trust of my teammates, my coaches is definitely the goal, but I plan on doing all of that, helping any way I can, being the ultimate team player,” Duvernay said Thursday on Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke.

The 2020 third-round draft pick by the Baltimore Ravens had a career-high 61 total returns (40 kicks and 21 punts) last season in his lone campaign with the Chicago Bears. In a year that Duvernay was leaned on most for his special teams prowess, he also produced a career-best kick return average (26.7 yards), featuring five returns for 138 yards (27.6 yards per return) in Chicago’s two playoff games.

For how much his talents in one phase of football haven’t fallen off, Duvernay said he expects to be involved in the Cardinals’ passing game, which has been well-received thus far with first-year head coach Mike LaFleur pulling the strings.

“For sure. Yeah, I expect to continue doing that at a high level,” Duvernay said.

He enters a wide receivers room with the likes of Michael Wilson, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Kendrick Bourne. If you expand that to pass catchers, Trey McBride enters the chat in a big way and No. 3 overall pick Jeremiyah Love is also viewed as someone that could get a few targets a game.

There are so many mouths to feed on paper, but with no clear-cut quarterback among Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew and third-round pick Carson Beck and training still weeks away, Duvernay recognizes there’s a lot to be decided.

“Rolling into training camp, I feel like that’s really where you find your identity,” Duvernay said. “(You) kind of find out who people are, what this team is going to be about. And obviously you’re not a finished product. You’re still kind of climbing and growing.”

Duvernay racked up 90 receptions and 880 yards in his first three seasons as a Raven. His most recent three yielded just 17, as the 5-foot-11, 200-pound veteran made two total starts as a wide out.

He has surefire hands despite the low use, however, with only four drops in his career.

The former Bear signed a one-year contract with Arizona in March. Duvernay’s deal was made official less than a week after his cousin and former Cardinals signal caller Kyler Murray agreed on a one-year deal with the Minnesota Vikings.

Devin Duvernay is complementary of Carson Beck

It’s still very early, as Duvernay acknowledged, but the 2021 All-Pro selection has been pleased with everything he’s seen from Beck, the former Miami quarterback.

“His maturity has been standing out. He knows what he’s doing from what I can tell,” Duvernay said. “I think the sky’s going to be the limit.

“You can obviously tell (he’s got) the physical attributes. He’s tall, a bigger guy, strong arm, so looking forward to what he’s able to produce, especially in training camp, in preseason.”

As Brissett, who started 12 games last season, has still not reported for any offseason team activities, Beck will continue to share valuable reps with first-team players alongside Minshew.

Monday, Tuesday and Thursday marks the third session of voluntary team work before mandatory minicamp for both veterans and rookies runs from June 8-10.

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