GREEN BAY – Rasheed Walker can’t recall exactly which game it was, but before it, he woke up feeling relaxed and in a good state of mind, and he didn’t want anything to disrupt that.
“So I changed my pregame routine,” Walker said after the Packers wrapped up their season. “I used to do too much. I used to overthink a lot, be studying a lot before the game and trying to do a bunch of pass sets.
“It got to a point I just didn’t do (anything). I’d just sit in my locker until the game, and not listen to no music. Just chill, relax.”
The second-year pro credited that better mental state to his improved play at left tackle as the 2023 season wore on. There’s an argument to be made Walker, who appeared in just one game for all of four special-teams snaps as a rookie in 2022, was the most improved player on the entire roster this past season.
So much so the former seventh-round pick from Penn State might be the Packers’ left tackle of the future, as David Bakhtiari‘s injury history and massive salary cap charge for 2024 leave a lot of uncertainty as to his return.
Walker’s play certainly makes it easier for the Packers to move on from the five-time All-Pro should they choose to, but the 6-6, 324-pounder is taking nothing for granted.
“It’s never enough,” he said. “Always gotta do more. But as long as I’m on the field, I’m gonna do what I’ve gotta do.”
That was his approach throughout a 2023 season during which Walker didn’t know exactly where he stood at different times.
He got his first NFL start in Week 2 in place of Bakhtiari and held the job until being replaced by Yosh Nijman in the middle of the Week 8 loss to Minnesota. Nijman started the following week vs. the Rams but got hurt, so Walker was back in, and then the two rotated during games for a little over a month.
By Christmas Eve in Carolina, Walker was back to taking all the snaps at left tackle, locking down the gig. He called the benching and rotating a learning experience in the ultra-scrutinized world of the NFL.
“You just gotta perform,” he said. “Production-based business. You can have a million excuses, but at the end of the day, you gotta perform.
“It was definitely a good lesson, like, stuff not going your way, every action has a consequence. My whole thing was I just wasn’t going to quit. I could have had a bad attitude, and been like, ‘Man this is BS, I shouldn’t have…
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