P.J. Walker was on the Colts’ preseason sideline in 2019 when Adam Schefter broke the news that starting quarterback Andrew Luck was retiring. Backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett walked over and whispered to Walker, “12 is retiring.”
But Walker was so confused he didn’t even think of Luck at first. “I had no idea who he was talking about,” Walker said. “Maybe like Tom (Brady) or somebody.”
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The news was shocking, but Walker could appreciate Luck’s reasons for leaving the game. Just the previous season, in 2018, Walker questioned whether he wanted to keep playing football too. In his second season in the NFL, the Colts released Walker from the practice squad eight times. Indianapolis would typically cut him on Tuesday or Wednesday and then sign him back to the practice squad on Friday or Saturday, just in time to be the third quarterback to travel to games. He’d miss most of the week of practices and meetings.
“It was tough,” Walker said. “Just not being able to go out there and practice, not being able to go out and get reps, not being out there with the guys, those things was like affecting me. Not in a good way either because I was really disappointed about it. My competitive edge was just like, Come on, I want to be out there with the guys, but it just wasn’t going that way.”
While he was away from the team during many weekdays that season, Walker worked out on his own and tried to stay in the best shape possible, but it was an isolating experience because he couldn’t use the Colts facility or even talk to any of the coaches. The Colts needed him, but they didn’t need him every single day, so Walker lived in that gray area for the season.
“By like the third or fourth week I was pretty much over it,” Walker said.
And that frustrating season is what pushed him to the most exciting stage of his career: The XFL 2.0. Walker decided he’d rather get real playing experience than keep living in the NFL’s transactional gray area, so he signed with the Houston Roughnecks in 2020, where he lit up the league (first in passing yards and touchdowns) before the season shut down abruptly when COVID-19 arrived. “Being on a practice squad the past two years, I was just ready to go out there and play football no matter where it was,” Walker said.
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That showing landed him a contract in Carolina, where he’s spent the past two seasons and is 4-3 as the Panthers starter.
Welcome to QB2, my miniseries for The Athletic focused on my favorite players in the NFL, the backup quarterbacks. The term QB2 is loose, as these guys are constantly shifting up and down the depth charts, and every move is another story for them to tell. Walker started off in training camp at Carolina’s QB4, then became the QB2, then the QB1 for five games, and is now the QB2 again.
On this episode, Walker talks about his favorite XFL rules change, what it was like when head coach Matt Rhule was fired midseason, how the Panthers quarterback room could function with three guys who knew they could start and win games, and why Steve Wilks deserves the Panthers head coaching job permanently.
This episode was recorded on Dec 16 during Week 15. You can watch the first three episodes of QB2, featuring Jets quarterback Mike White, Texans quarterback Kyle Allen, and retired quarterback Charlie Whitehurst at The Athletic’s YouTube channel, or listen on The Athletic Football Show.
On his favorite XFL rules change:
“The no extra point. That was by far my favorite. It was a couple of times I’ve actually ran out there like running off the field after a touchdown, thinking we’re about to kick an extra point but got to run back out there because we got to go score on offense again. So I actually I actually liked that part.”
On the strategy behind going for one point from the two-yard-line, two points from the five-yard-line or three points from the 10-yard-line:
“I think it was based off the teams we were playing because we actually went for three points in the XFL a couple times on my team. We were a pass-heavy team, though. Like we threw the ball a lot. So for us, it was any time we saw a team that played like any type of split safeties down there, you know, we were attacking. We were throwing the football down there and we wanted to have that space, so we would go for three points. You know, we would try to spread the field out and try to just get people to run as much with the space that we had. You know, it was more space for us to go out there and convert and make those plays.”
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On how the Carolina quarterback room functioned with Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold, two former first-round picks, and bouncing between all three of them starting games this season:
“I was just talking to one of the guys in the locker room about this. I’ve never been around a group of guys that was as unselfish as the group that we had in that QB room at the time.
We all knew we can go out there and contribute playing on Sundays and go out there and win games for this for this program, for this team, for this organization, you know, but only one guy can go out there and play on Sundays, so for us it was to support whoever went out there and played on Sunday. And I thought that’s what we did really well. Each guy had each other’s back, and we were out there competing with each other.
And the decision that was made going into the week to see who was playing was the decision. We ran with it and we fed off each other. We helped each other. We got each other better throughout the week. And that helped us and it made our transition every week easier, because if it was anybody that was going to show any anger or anything like that, it probably would affected the room. But all the guys, they stayed humble, stayed mellow and whatever happened happened. They went with the flow of the decision that was made.”
On whether Steve Wilks deserves the Panthers head coaching job:
“Absolutely. Yeah. You can you can you can see the guys bought into- it’s not even buying in, we’ve been bought into what he’s been he’s been preaching to us. And it’s one thing to have a group of guys that play for you, but it’s one thing to have a group of guys that really love you as a person and want to play for you. And I think the guys around in his locker room, that’s how they feel about Coach Wilks. You couldn’t ask for a better guy for the position.”
(Photo: Grant Halvorsen / Getty Images)
Kalyn Kahler is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the NFL. She previously worked as a staff writer for Defector and at Sports Illustrated, where she worked her way up from editorial assistant and personal assistant to Peter King. She is a graduate of Northwestern University.
