Two years ago, the Broncos used a second-round pick to select DeMarcus Walker out of Florida State. Today, the defensive end may be on Denver’s roster bubble.
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Walker appeared in ten games for the Broncos as a rookie, but saw the field just three times in 2018. At one point, the Broncos tried to jumpstart his career by moving him to outside linebacker before shifting him back to defensive end, but, so far, nothing has worked.
Ordinarily, a team would stick things out with a young second-round pick like Walker, but Walker finds himself buried in a defensive line group that also includes Derek Wolfe, Adam Gotsis, Shelby Harris, Zach Kerr, and third-round pick Dre’Mont Jones. To make the 53-man cut, he’ll have to leapfrog at least one veteran while staving off the rest of the pack on the 90-man offseason roster.
If Walker doesn’t stick with the Broncos, you can expect him to immediately draw interest on the waiver wire. The 6’4″, 280-pound defender compiled 16 sacks as a senior at FSU and had the attention of several teams heading into the ’17 draft. In fact, before selecting Walker at No. 51 overall, the Broncos pondered a trade up to land him.
You got your facts wrong. The Broncos isn’t change Walkers position to OLB from DL to “jump start” his career. The truth is that Barrett, Shane Ray, another other Edge or OLB started last years training camp injured, so instead of doing the right thing and signing replacement OLB or Edge temp fill-in players, a decision was made to have Walker lose 30 to 40 pounds to perform as OLB. After losing weight, Walker got sick, possibly food poison, and lost an additional 20 pounds, down to appx. 225 pounds.
He then fell into VJ doghouse because VJ demanded the number 4 LB play on special teams. In his weakened state, after the loss from 280 pounds to 225 pounds, the weakened Walker was physically unable to play special teams.
This is where Walker fell into VJ dog house. The rest of the year, Walker was mostly relegated to non activated duty the rest of the year.
Of all the things I dislike about VJ, this blatant attempt of trying to destroy a players character is the worst abuse of power displayed in VJ short attempt as Denvers HC.
I hope Walker gets a fail shake this summer, balls out, and makes the team.
Just one of many horror stories from the Vance Joseph nightmarish attempt at mismanagement displayed by the former HC of the Broncos. I wish Vic Fangio would hear of this disgrace by a totally unprepared HC candidate in my 6 decades as a committed Denver Broncos fan.
Okay, but he’s more of a 4-3 fit so that’s pretty irrelevant info.