Tag: philip walker

Panthers QB P.J. Walker’s preseason TD pass wasn’t supposed to happen

Panthers backup quarterback P.J. Walker threw a nice touchdown pass on a play that wasn’t even supposed to happen.

Panthers backup quarterback P.J. Walker has had quite the pro football journey. The Colts signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2017 out of Temple, and he bounced off and back on the practice squad until he was released in 2019. A good word from Andrew Luck to Luck’s father Oliver, Commissioner of the reborn XFL, had the Houston Roughnecks signing Walker in time for the 2020 season. Walker led the XFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns before COVID shut the league down in March, 2020. The Panthers took a flyer on Walker with a new contract — a move that would reunite him with head coach Matt Rhule, Walker’s head coach at Temple from 2013 through 2016.

In his 2021 preseason debut, Walker showed both good and bad. While he forced a couple throws he probably shouldn’t have made, he also showed a nice ability to improvise and make big plays outside the pocket to evade pressure. There was the 60-yard throw to receiver Terrace Marshall, but for the purposes of this story, let’s focus on Walker’s touchdown pass to tight end Tommy Tremble with 1:56 left in the first half.

A nice Mahomes-esque dart to his target after rolling out of pressure. No doubt about that. But in the structure of the drive, that play was not supposed to happen.

According to Rhule, Walker wasn’t supposed to snap the ball at all — the idea was to try and draw the Colts’ defense offside.

“I heard a whole bunch of things in my headset, and I heard him yelling from the sideline,” Walker said of Rhule.

Once the play was run, receiver Omar Bayless was supposed to be Walker’s target, but Walker saw Tremble as the guy who would get him six points.

“It worked,” Walker recalled. “I saw Omar’s guy stopped covering him, and once he broke in, I saw Tommy running full speed across the field, and he was the one who happened to get hit in the chest with the ball.”

Sometimes, coaches have to accept that their players will do things they did not expect. Hopefully, those instances will bring positive results. If this play isn’t in the Panthers’ playbook, perhaps it should be.

Secret superstars of the preseason: Week 1

P.J. Walker. Rhamondre Stevenson. Alton Robinson. DeAndre Houston-Carson. Here are the Secret Superstars of Week 1 of the 2021 NFL preseason.

If you want to build a championship team at the NFL level, you’d best have your entire roster together. Because more often than not, it’s the bottom third of your roster that saves you in the dog days of the season. It’s the little-known special teams guy who forces two return fumbles in December. It’s the fifth cornerback who can play safety in big nickel who will come up with a key interception to help sew up a division title. It’s the swing tackle who replaces the injured starter and keeps your quarterback safe for three straight games when things could go the other way.

Coaches and executives look at the preseason as a buffet line for these types of players — the guys who, based on their preseason performances, prove that they’re ready to help out by any means necessary.

Now that the first week of the 2021 preseason is in the books, here are the Secret Superstars who might be on their ways to unexpected roster spots… or perhaps even starting spots.