Coming Tuesday: Dolphins’ DeVante Parker (and ‘nephew’) as you’ve never seen him before
The Dolphins’ quietest player will soon have a new (and presumably louder) voice:
A nephew you never knew he had.
DeVante Parker — known by to his fellow receivers as their “uncle” — is launching a cartoon series on his social media accounts, including Instagram, Tuesday morning.
The title: #UncleVante.
The series, which premieres at 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, will feature a fictitious nephew named PeeWee Parker (who already has his own Twitter account). Hijinks will undoubtedly ensue.
Not a ton is yet known about the web series, but it’s a safe bet that PeeWee will by the yang to DeVante’s stoic yin.
While popular with the players — he and Jakeem Grant are particularly close — Parker is famous for saying little. That has been the case since his high school and college days.
If this sounds strangely familiar to anyone born before 1985, it should.
It’s not only Nike’s wildly popular “Lil Penny” ad campaign, featuring a miniature puppet side-kick to then-Orlando Magic star Anfernee Hardaway, who like Parker, largely let his play do the talking for him.
Parker’s new initiative comes as his star has never been higher. The former first-round pick had a breakthrough 2019 season, catching 72 passes for 1,202 yards and nine touchdowns for the Dolphins.
His confidence has grown with his production.
In May, he feuded on Instagram with Saints receiver Michael Thomas after Parker insisted that it was easier to catch a pass thrown by Stephon Gilmore than it was to break up a pass while guarding Thomas.
Parker, who signed a four-year, $40 million contract extension in December, is set to report with the rest of the Dolphins’ veterans to training camp next week.
