Anthony Walker done with school, should re-join Colts soon

Through the Colts’ first four OTA practices, rookie linebacker Anthony Walker has yet to be able to participate due to NFL rules.

The NFL requires rookies to finish up their semester at school before joining their team for offseason workouts, which puts players from schools like Stanford and Northwestern at a disadvantage, since they don’t end until later. But Walker has finished up his final semester, meaning that he should be able to join the Colts shortly.

It’s unclear when exactly Walker will re-join the Colts, but Chuck Pagano today said that, “I think he’s close to being here in the next couple days.” Whether that means this week (the Colts practice on Thursday and Friday) or next week is unclear, but the bottom line is that Walker should be with the team soon enough.

That will be a good thing for both the Colts and Walker, as it will add another very interesting player to the mix at inside linebacker - an area that is wide open for Indianapolis. It will be valuable for Walker to get those reps in practice this offseason and into training camp, and with the competition at the position he could even have a chance to work his way into some playing time. But it’s hard to do that if you’re not there, so the first step is Walker re-joining the Colts for OTAs with school done.

He was able to participate in the team’s rookie mini-camp and impressed there as he saw a lot of reps and also got experience calling plays, and soon he’ll be able to get reps with the rest of the team in practices too.