After becoming a star in the XFL, former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Phillip “P.J.” Walker is reportedly signing a one-year deal with the Carolina Panthers, per Diana Russini of ESPN.
Walker initially joined the Colts in 2017 as an undrafted free agent out of Temple. He stayed in the quarterback room seeing playing time only during the preseason while leading the practice squad during the regular season.
He was waived before the 2019 season in favor of Chad Kelly and eventually made his way to the XFL, which was rebooted in 2020. He became a star leading the Houston Roughnecks.
In five games, Walker led the Roughnecks to a 5-0 record while throwing for 1,338 yards, 15 touchdowns, four interceptions and a 104.4 passer rating.
The Denver Broncos reached out to the Houston Roughnecks to inquire about star XFL quarterback P.J. Walker.
The Denver Broncos reached out to the Houston Roughnecks to inquire about star XFL quarterback P.J. Walker, according to ESPN’s Stefano Fusaro. The Broncos are likely doing their due diligence on Walker as a potential backup quarterback candidate.
Walker (6-0, 207 pounds) led the XFL in passing yards (1,338) and passing touchdowns (15) this spring. He led the Roughnecks to a 5-0 record before the league closed down due to coronavirus concerns.
After breaking nearly all of Temple’s major passing records in college, Walker signed with the Colts as an undrafted free agent in 2017. He spent two seasons on Indianapolis’ practice squad before entering the XFL’s draft last October.
The NFL has not yet given teams permission to sign XFL players because those players are still under contract with the upstart league. Once the NFL grants permission, Walker will likely be one a coveted target.
Denver waived Joe Flacco on Thursday and the team plans to start Drew Lock this season with Jeff Driskel serving as his backup. Walker might be a candidate to either serve as the No. 3 QB or compete with Driskel for backup duties.
Last year, Broncos general manager John Elway signed two standouts from the Alliance of American Football: cornerback De’Vante Bausby and nose tackle Mike Purcell. Denver plans to bring back both players in 2020.
Bausby was given a one-year contract and Purcell received a second-round tender. Other teams will be allowed to negotiate with Purcell but the Broncos will have the option to match any offer he receives. If a team makes him an offer that Denver doesn’t match, that team would have to give up a second-round pick for Purcell.
The Broncos’ willingness to give opportunities to a pair of AAF players might be a sign that the team would be willing to do the same with an XFL player. Walker is an intriguing QB for fans to keep an eye on.
The Browns found help from the AAF last year and can find more in the XFL in 2020
The XFL is in full swing and unlike its 2001 predecessor, it appears here to stay. But like the 2001 version, there are actually a ton of players that will be given an opportunity to play in the NFL. Last season the Cleveland Browns gave a few Alliance of American Football stars a chance, and a couple landed on the final roster including Garrett Gilbert and D’Ernest Johnson.
The XFL looks to be full of even more talent. Here is one player from each positional group that would be a great addition to the current Cleveland roster.
Walker went undrafted in 2017 after having an extremely productive college career at Temple and leading them to their first back to back double-digit win seasons in school history. He bounced back and forth from the practice squad to active roster for the Indianapolis Colts from 2017-2019 and after his latest release decided to take his talents to the XFL.
Most people have been focused on Cardale Jones and his season has been more statistically impressive, but Walker is younger at only 24 years old, has less talent around him and has a more similar playing style to Baker Mayfield. Walker also had an uphill battle to even start in the XFL as Connor Cook was slated to be the team’s poster boy. Through two games, Walker has completed over 60% of his passes for 449 yards, seven touchdowns and just one interception.
De’Veon Smith, RB, Tampa Bay Vipers, 5-11, 223 pounds
It was not surprising that Walker went undrafted in 2017, but Smith going undrafted was shocking. Smith has the resume of a mid-round selection as a productive back coming from Michigan and the size to take on an NFL workload, but his vision was rough. Smith was with the Miami Dolphins for a short time in 2017 and the Washington Redskins for a period in 2018, but that was the end of his NFL road. Despite being signed by the Orlando Apollos of the AAF, he joined the team deep into the season.
Smith is on one of the worst teams in the XFL and has very little help in front of him, but has managed to carry more than his share and be extremely productive with 27 carries for 125 yards and a solid average of 4.6 yards per carry.
Smith is currently second in the league in rushing and has clearly worked on his biggest weakness, which should result in an NFL team taking another chance on the 25-year-old. Cleveland should be taking a deep dive into the Ohio native’s film.
Dan Williams, WR, Tampa Bay Vipers, 6-2, 215 pounds
“Tha Threat” had a statistically spectacular collegiate career at Jackson State and followed that up with an equally impressive pro day, where he ran his forty at 4.51. However, he failed to get drafted and received a shot with the New York Jets. He likely went undrafted due to his lack of explosion in his cuts and this has also been the reason he has struggled to stick in the league.
In addition to having a cup of coffee in New York, Williams spent time in Washington and was actually in Cleveland for a month in 2019.
Like the players listed above, Williams is still young at only 25 and has obviously put in serious work to make himself a more explosive and agile weapon on the perimeter. Williams has nine receptions for 145 yards through two games and has accomplished that despite the quarterback position already in flux for Tampa Bay.
Current XFL star quarterback Phillip “P.J.” Walker had a turn in the NFL before, but this might wind up being his big break.
On August 31, 2019, one week after Andrew Luck shocked most of the NFL by retiring from pro football, the Colts released quarterback Phillip “P.J.” Walker, leaving the team’s quarterback room with just one guy — eventual starter Jacoby Brissett. Walker, a four-year starter at Temple from 2013 through 2016, had bounced on and off the Colts’ roster and practice squad for three years before his final release, joined the XFL to find a better chance at a starting role.
However, it wasn’t the last time the NFL took a look at him — the Steelers asked the XFL for permission to sign Walker for a week, as they saw Walker as a similar player to Lamar Jackson, and Pittsburgh wanted Walker for a one-week contract to help them get ready for the Ravens’ offense with Walker as the sub.
XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck, Andrew’s father and a former NFL quarterback himself, nixed the deal.
“Once you’re under contract with the XFL, you’re under contract, regardless of position,: Luck told Thomas Bassinger of the Tampa Bay Times last December. “We’re not trying to be a development league for the NFL. That’s not our raison d’être. Having said that, I hope that every one of the [Tampa Bay] Vipers players has a chance to go to the NFL after our season because that means we’ve done our job in terms of playing good football. Bust your butt, play hard, have a chance to get great game tape and you’ll get a shot in the NFL. We are a league of opportunity.”
Part of Walker’s opportunity in the XFL came from Andrew Luck, who told his father to make sure his former Colts teammate was in the new league. Walker wound up with the Houston Roughnecks, coached by longtime run-and-shoot advocate June Jones.
Jun 12, 2018; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Indianapolis Colts quarterback Brad Kaaya (9) and quarterback Andrew Luck (12) and quarterback Phillip Walker (5) talk between drills during minicamp at Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center. (Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports)
“June had the list of quarterbacks. He and (personnel director) Randy (Mueller) had scouted him. I was delighted they wanted P.J.,” Oliver said. “Ultimately, that’s the kind of guy that’s perfect for our league and perfect for June because he fits June’s system so well and has a chance to play and prove himself.”
So, while Colts head coach Frank Reich and general manager Chris Ballard couldn’t reconcile Walker’s NFL potential, it’s interesting that Andrew Luck could. It’s an even more interesting story now, because two weeks into the XFL’s inaugural season, Walker is not only tearing the league apart statistically, he’s looking very much like the model of a modern NFL quarterback in many ways. Through two games, he’s completed 43 of 69 passes for 442 yards, seven touchdowns, one interception, and a league-high passer rating of 108.5. Only Washington’s Cardale Jones has more completions of 20 or more air yards than Walker’s five, and his performance under pressure in the pocket has been a pleasant surprise.
If you want a guy who can complete passes sidearm, like Patrick Mahomes? Well, Walker can do that.
And if you want a quarterback who can square his shoulders and throw on the run? Yep. He can do that, too, as he showed on this touchdown pass to receiver Cam Phillips.
Of course, there’s more to the oeveure for any NFL quarterback. And there are things Walker needs to work on. In the 2019 preseason for the Colts, Walker completed just 50% of his passes — 32 of 64 — for 349 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions, six sacks, and a quarterback rating of 53.4. His mechanics in the pocket were inconsistent at best, leading to precision issues that led to rogue incompletions…
…and interceptions that just aren’t a good look at the NFL level.
Then again, a lot of the missteps that happened for Walker in Indianapolis had something to do with a rotation of receivers he hadn’t developed a chemistry with. So, this is where Walker gets to prove that he can do it at a starting level. Yes, it’s against second-level defensive personnel running relatively vanilla schemes, but it’s the job of every NFL coach and personnel executive to isolate a player’s traits and attributes as much as possible outside the complications of opponent and teammate strebgth.
It could be that Walker is one of the 2020 XFL players who give the NFL that opportunity in a different way. If that’s the case, perhaps that Andrew Luck guy has a future in scouting.
Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar previously covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”
At this time last year, the Indianapolis Colts had a quarterback room that consisted both of starter Andrew Luck and a work in progress of Phillip “PJ” Walker. One year later, Luck has retired and Walker is leading an XFL offense.
Even though Luck hung up his spikes and Walker was cut before the 2019 season, there was still a connection. They spent roughly two-plus seasons in the same quarterback room after Walker was signed as an undrafted free agent following the 2017 NFL draft.
That connection helped Walker get a starting gig in the XFL with Luck’s hometown team, the Houston Roughnecks.
“June had the list of quarterbacks. He and (personnel director) Randy (Mueller) had scouted him. I was delighted they wanted P.J.,” Oliver said. “Ultimately, that’s the kind of guy that’s perfect for our league and perfect for June because he fits June’s system so well and has a chance to play and prove himself.”
Walker never saw actual game action with the Colts. The Temple product worked mostly on the practice squad when he was being the subject of multiple transactions each week.
Though both have moved on, Luck in his off-field life and Walker to the XFL, it is a neat story that former teammates still have a connection in the game of football—wherever that may be.
Phillip Walker is finding some success in the XFL.
The XFL officially started their season on Saturday, and former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Phillip Walker made his mark in a big way for the Houston Roughnecks.
Walker led the Roughnecks to their first win of the season over the Los Angeles Wildcats, 37-17. Walker finished the game completing 23 of 39 passes for 272 yards, four touchdowns, one interception and a 103.8 passer rating.
Walker spent two-plus seasons with the Colts. He was initially signed as an undrafted free agent out of Temple following the 2017 NFL draft. He worked with the Colts on their practice squad for the first two seasons of his career but was released before the 2019 season.
Walker had intriguing arm strength with the Colts despite his size but showed during the preseason games that his accuracy was simply too erratic to trust on an active roster. But the Colts stuck with him hoping to develop his traits.
Walker must have learned something during his time with the Colts because he found some extreme success during his debut for the XFL, which is led by former Colts quarterback Andrew Luck’s father, Oliver.
It will be interesting to see how this league fares, but Walker has gotten himself off to a hot start in Houston.
The XFL is still seven weeks from launch, but don’t expect any of the players under contract with the league to change between now and then.
The XFL is still seven weeks from launch, but don’t expect any of the players under contract with the league to change between now and then.
Commissioner Oliver Luck spoke at length with the Tampa Bay Times roughly two months from kickoff and defended the league’s policy on not releasing its players from their contracts if an NFL team is interested in-season.
The Detroit Lions inquired with the XFL about quarterback Josh Johnson in November, but Luck & the XFL said the LA Wildcats player would be held to his contract ahead of December mini-camp.
Luck said, “In the game of football today (…) your quarterback play is determinative. (…) we said, ‘No, we’re keeping him. He’s ours, he signed a contract. He’s committed to us.”
Luck said he also turned down releasing quarterback Landry Jones and Phillip Walker after Ben Roethlisberger’s season-ending injury.
The commissioner explained that in order for the XFL’s relaunch to succeed, stability is key, saying “Once a player signs a contract (…) then he’s under contract with us. We won’t release that player to the NFL until after our season. We need certainty. We can’t just have guys peeling off.”
Two quarterbacks that fans will *not* see in the XFL are polarizing former football stars Johnny Manziel and Colin Kaepernick.
Johnny Football was in the XFL’s draft pool, according to Luck, but scouts and coaches, “didn’t think he was going to help their team.”
Of Kaepernick, Luck said, “I think his salary demands are way out of our ballpark. He was never really a viable option.”
