Walker was thought to be a first rounder before his last year, when technique issues seemed to derail him. He was then Hurt and that continued into a late start in camp and looked, frankly bad, initially, with the 3rd string. Then he seemed to click/get properly healthy just before the last game.

He came out and really surprised pretty much everyone in that game., playing RT. He then got rostered, to the surprise if most, and sat. This year he started camp quietly, he was behind Jones, but again seemingly just came on and found form about the time Jones got hurt. They like Jones too, as LaFleur said this week, so whether they saw Walker as better is unclear, but his performance last week was impressive.

So he had it last year for a game and has built in it this year. Looks like just a very smart pick. It may be that he and Jones are the reasons they seem willing to move in from Nijman despite questions over Bakh’s health and future.

Of course Nijman may just be in someone’s bad books. In the mean time they prefer not to challenge Myers and to have 3 capable tackles on the bench as things stand. Possibly all of them similarly capable to Tom at RT. Sadly, none profile to C.