Who is Rasheed Walker? Second-Year Tackle Makes Moves in Training Camp
Given how much an NFL roster moves at this time of year, it’s hard for anything you see in a preseason game to be much of a surprise. Seeing Rasheed Walker start at left tackle comes pretty close.
If you’ve forgotten about Walker, do not trouble yourself; there’s very little to forget as far as his NFL career goes. A 2022 seventh-round pick, Walker made the initial 53-man roster out of training camp but did very little, appearing for but four snaps in the one game for which he was active. He spent the rest of the season as more of a concept than a player, much like his defensive counterpart Jonathan Ford.
The Packers haven’t forgotten about him, though. In fact, head coach Matt LaFleur seems to want to take a closer look.
“Rasheed had a really good week of practice and we wanted to see him,” said LaFleur postgame. “I talked to Coach Belichick throughout the week and had a pretty good indication that they were going play their 1s and wanted to see how he would respond in that situation.”
Laying aside the obvious questions as to why the Packers would want a look at Walker with the starters instead of, say, Yosh Nijman (could a trade be in the works? Is Nijman not a lock for the roster despite his second-round tender status?), let’s take a look at Saturday’s starter. Here’s a quick refresher on Rasheed Walker.
Decorated but not dominant in college
A four-star recruit out of high school, Walker landed at Penn State, where he redshirted his first year on campus before ascending to the starting lineup as a redshirt freshman, garnering high praise after spring practices in 2019. He started 13 games for the Nittany Lions that fall and played well, citing practice reps against elite opponents as evidence for his unexpected comfort level as a first-time starter.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Walker entered his redshirt sophomore year as the presumed starter at left tackle with high expectations for himself and mostly delivered, putting up some of the best grades of his college career per Pro Football Focus. He wasn’t dominant, per se, but played well enough to get an honorable mention all-conference nod in the Big 10, producing one, uh, highlight-worthy play along the way.
Unfortunately, despite returning to Penn State for his redshirt junior season, he was unable to build on the success of his honorable-mention season. His PFF grades dipped, and he missed the final three games of the 2021 season due to an illness (which, somewhat surprisingly, doesn’t appear to have been COVID-19).
Why did Rasheed Walker last until the seventh round of the draft?
His lack of dominance down the stretch was a big reason why Walker fell in the 2022 NFL Draft. In their pre-draft reporting, Pro Football Focus dinged his 2021 season significantly, and other outlets echoed those sentiments. Walker also chose not to test at either the 2022 NFL Combine and Penn State’s pro day, a curious choice for someone whose athleticism pops up in just about every scouting report you read.
Walker did have plenty of fans in the pre-draft process, though. Despite their tepid praise, Pro Football Focus ranked him as the 121st best player in the draft class, projecting him as a mid-fourth-round pick. NFL.com’s scouting report projected him as a third-rounder, and The Athletic’s Dane Brugler thought he could go somewhere in between, ranking him as the 10th best tackle in the class.
It’s not clear from that profile exactly why he’d end up going late on day three. Plenty of players choose not to test for a whole host of reasons, and it’s not like Walker wasn’t successful in college. The exact reason he lasted until the seventh round may never be known, but according to Wikipedia’s positional designations, he was the 24th of 25 offensive tackles selected in the 2022 NFL Draft.
What can Rasheed Walker do with the Packers?
Regardless of where he was drafted, though, Walker has an interesting opportunity in front of him in Green Bay. Clearly, the coaching staff thinks highly of him, and looking ahead to 2024, the tackle position seems wide open. Of the players getting reps at either tackle spot ahead of Walker right now, only Zach Tom seems to be a lock to be with the Packers in 2024. If Walker can clean up the little details that pushed him down the draft board in the spring of 2022, he might enter next season with a real shot at a starting job in Green Bay. If nothing else, he looks to be in the mix at tackle for the foreseeable future.