Walker showed off his lightning quick get-off in the Bucs minicamp practice on Tuesday and overall is feeling great about his recovery from the training camp ACL tear that landed him on injured reserve for his entire rookie season. Prior to that injury, the fourth-round pick out of Central Arkansas was opening eyes on the practice field and apparently locking in a prominent spot in the edge rush rotation.
"Yeah, I feel good," said Walker after the second and last practice of minicamp on Wednesday. "I've just got to trust the movements and trust what the coaches are asking me to do right now.
"When I first got back on the field [I felt good]. When you get back to doing certain movements, 'Okay, I can trust that a little bit,' and it just progressed and progressed. And the staff man, the training staff, did a really good job of tending to my knees, and when it's hurting to back off a little bit. We're just looking forward. Honestly, I'm big in my faith. As soon as I got injured, I knew that God didn't bring me this far [just] to bring me this far. I was down for a little bit, but I was like, 'Man it's time to attack this rehab like I do everything else.' So the process was really long but I got to learn so much, just being in the room with the guys and still being around the team. So I'm looking forward to this year."
Head Coach Todd Bowles noted this week that in recent practices Walker has started to look very much like the player that was turning heads in the spring and summer last year. Still, the second-year player with zero games under his belt knows that he still faces a lot of competition to get on the field. Including the names listed above the Bucs' edge rush group also includes holdovers Anthony Nelson, Chris Braswell and Mohamed Kamara and undrafted rookies Yasir Holmes and Jack Pyburn.
"I love competition," said Walker. "I feel like that's what's going to make us better, just competing against each other. The coach is going to play who's showing the most production. I'm just here to do my part, if that's special teams are whatever. If he feels like I deserve to be in, he'll put me in.
"For me, it's just staying in my lane, controlling the controllable. I'm going to go out there, and when I get in I'm going to try to do the best I can do and not try to look to the left or the right to compete with the next guy. Just doing what I can do. If the coaches see that and they see the production, they're going to play who they're going to play."
Walker was an outstanding edge rusher at the collegiate level, where he amassed 39.0 sacks and 82.5 tackles for loss across three seasons. In April of 2025, the Buccaneers felt like they got something of a steal after landing him in the fourth round, and his early work on the practice field seemed to back that up. Now Walker is hoping to work his way onto the field in the regular season, and if he is able to do so he thinks it will be as part of a much more impactful edge rush unit.
"We're excited to rush," he said. "Bowles, he's going to put trust in us. He's going to let us do our thing and I'm excited for y'all to see it."