The Tampa Bay Buccaneers believed they got a steal when they drafted Central Arkansas outside linebacker in the fourth round of April's draft. They will have to wait another year to find out if they were right.
After practice on Monday, Head Coach Todd Bowles confirmed that Walker has a torn ACL and will need reparative surgery. He will be placed on injured reserve and will not be eligible to play in 2025. Walker suffered the injury during the team's third training camp practice last Friday.
"He was making a big impact early," said Bowles. "Obviously, we were counting on him doing a lot of things, but other guys are going to have to step up. I told him he has to look at this like a redshirt year. It's unfortunate. It didn't look like it was too much on film, but it ended up being that."
Walker was a standout during the team's OTA practices and minicamp in May and June and was expected to be a significant part of the Buccaneers' edge rush rotation in 2025. After interior linemen Calijah Kancey and Vita Vea led the team in sacks in 2024, with 7.5 and 7.0, respectively, the Bucs made an effort to create more pressure off the edges with a handful of roster moves in the offseason. That included the selection of Walker with the 121st overall pick in the 2025 draft, as well as the signing of Haason Reddick in free agency.
Walker played one year at Southern Arkansas and three at Central Arkansas, and across those four seasons he accumulated 39.0 sacks, 82.5 tackles for loss, six forced fumbles and eight passes defensed. He was a consensus All-American in each of his three years at Central Arkansas and was the United Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year in both 2023 and 2024.
The Buccaneers still have a top-four edge rotation of Reddick, Yaya Diaby, Chris Braswell and Anthony Nelson. The loss of Walker could open up opportunities for the likes of Markees Watts and Jose Ramirez.
