With injury behing him, Walker gets his chance

The Journal Sentinel staff

Green Bay After a month and a half of inactivity, Sammy Walker couldn't wait to play football again, so much so that he concocted an ingenious plan to get back on the field.

Placed on injured reserve on Aug. 28 with a number of nagging ailments, Walker felt ready to return by mid-October. The only problem was that the rules say once a player is placed on injured reserve, he can't join that team's active roster the rest of the year.

"I was really pestering them," Walker said. "I was telling them stuff like, `OK, you cut me and I go to Canada for two weeks and then come back, and I'll play for you.' I was bugging them pretty bad.

"Finally, (general manager) Ron Wolf had to sit me down and show me the rules that said I couldn't come back if they cut me off injured reserve. There was no gray area in it. He sat me down and told me to just go home."

That was then, however, and Walker would just as soon concentrate on the future, which he hopes includes a starting position in the Packers' defense.

During the minicamp this week, Walker has been the No. 1 man at left cornerback, filling a position once held by Terrell Buckley.

Walker is still fighting rustiness and an extra 10 pounds he picked up during his season of inactivity. But he's thrilled to be back at a position he thought could have been his had he not been derailed by an Achilles' tendon strain and a dislocated elbow during training camp.

"I'm going through that Michael Jordan syndrome," Walker said. "I'm expecting a lot of things out of myself and I'm mad that I can't do the things I could do before. But it takes time. Maybe I'll have one of those 55-point games coming up soon here."

Walker's presence was one of the reasons why the Packers didn't hesitate in parting ways with Buckley, their No. 1 draft choice in 1992. Despite all the injuries, he showed enough promise at the position for the Packers to grant him the starting job.

Walker, who was picked up off waivers from Pittsburgh in 1993, likes the idea of being a starter, but he's smart enough to know there are no guarantees. The draft is coming up in two weeks and the Packers could easily grab a defensive back in the early rounds.

But finding someone with Walker's size (5-11, 200 pounds) and aggressiveness won't be easy. Given the way that Buckley was pushed around by bigger receivers last year, Walker's addition should be welcome.

"Right now, he's the guy in the left corner spot," defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur said. "His long suit is that he's a very competitive, tough, tough individual. He brings a lot to the game. I think guys who compete like that physically at that position do some things that set the tempo for the defense."

Weighty matters: Packers offensive line coach Tom Lovat received a pleasant surprise when offensive tackles Joe Sims and Paul Hutchins stepped on the scale at the start of minicamp.

Sims, who is the team's starting right tackle, weighed in at about 300 pounds, which is 15 to 20 pounds lighter than his playing weight last season. Sims did not participate in workouts this week because he is a free agent.

Hutchins, meanwhile, weighed in at 350 pounds, about 10 or 15 more than what he played at last year. Lovat said Hutchins, who has attended a diet and nutrition clinic for the second consecutive year, has plenty of time to lose the weight before training camp starts.

Special teams: The Packers fell from fourth place overall in 1993 to 18th place in 1994 in a Dallas Morning News survey of 19 special teams categories. Green Bay ranked 24th in 1992.

The Cleveland Browns' special teams, coached by Superior native Scott O'Brien, were No. 1. Detroit, which lost special teams guru Frank Gansz to Atlanta in January 1994, crashed from seventh to 28th.

Elsewhere in the division, Minnesota was eighth, Chicago was ninth and Tampa Bay was 15th.

Notebook: Packers coach Mike Holmgren confirmed that the reason the club has pulled away from pursuing free agent wide receiver Haywood Jeffires was his post-operative knee. "There was nothing about him that we did not like other than the fact he hurt his knee," Holmgren said. . . . Defensive tackle Bob Kuberski, a seventh-round pick in '93, was told he would have to honor his five-year commitment with the U.S. Navy. "At one point I thought he was going to be available to us," Holmgren said. "The Navy on occasion will change its mind." . . . Defensive tackle Roosevelt Nix and defensive end Matt LaBounty played well in the week-long minicamp that ended Friday.

Copyright 1995
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