P.J. Walker — once the fourth-string QB — has been spark the Panthers needed (2024)

When the Panthers stepped on the practice field Wednesday, Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold — taken first and third in the 2018 draft — were both back after missing time with high ankle sprains.

While Mayfield and Darnold were relegated to running the scout team, P.J. Walker — undrafted out of Temple in 2017 and until recently the scout-team QB — took all of the reps with the first-team offense.

It was hard to argue with the role reversal. Walker helped spark the Panthers’ 21-3 upset of Tampa Bay and Tom Brady last weekend, prompting interim coach Steve Wilks to say he was sticking with Walker regardless of the availability of Mayfield and Darnold.

After Terrace Marshall dropped Walker’s first pass against the Bucs, Walker completed his next 11 throws. He ended the half with a 137.8 passer rating and a 91.7 completion percentage, the fourth-best mark in the first half of a game in franchise history.

It was quite a turnaround for a player who entered training camp No. 4 on the depth chart. In fact, if third-round pick Matt Corral hadn’t suffered a season-ending foot injury in a preseason game at New England, Walker likely wouldn’t have made the team.

But the easygoing New Jersey native said he never worried about getting cut.

“The opportunity is gonna present itself,” Walker said Wednesday. “Whether I was getting four reps at practice (or) five reps, those had to be the best four or five best reps I took throughout the day. And just staying after practice, as well, getting that extra work in, it helped.”

Walker started two games his first two seasons in Charlotte but will make his third consecutive start Sunday at Atlanta. Panthers players are excited to see Walker get an extended opportunity after being overlooked for much of his career.

“We just respect P.J. as a person. He’s our brother. He’s a leader in here,” linebacker Shaq Thompson said. “And he never changed, regardless of his situation, regardless of how all the quarterbacks panned out. He always kept his energy high. He always kept his self-esteem high and his confidence high. That’s what we respect about P.J. He comes out here and works and we love him.”

Running the opponent’s plays each week can be a thankless job for members of the scout team. But Walker attacked the role with vigor, which did not go unnoticed by the defensive starters — or by Wilks, who was the secondary coach before replacing Matt Rhule in Week 6.

“You could really see his arm strength and the ball placement and those kind of things. You sometimes question, OK, he’s performing and doing it off (play) cards. Can he really sit there and see the (defensive) rotation and what we’re doing exactly?” Wilks said.

“And to me, you saw that in the game this past week. The different looks that (Tampa Bay coach) Todd Bowles gives you, different pressures — I thought he did a great job in really getting us in the right call and making the right throws.”

Reserve safety Sam Franklin, who played with Walker at Temple, said defensive players had to be on their toes when Walker was running the scout team.

“P.J. was making the right reads and always putting the ball where it needs to be. He wasn’t just out there (like), ‘Oh, these are just scout-team reps, they don’t mean anything,'” Franklin said.

“We really had to focus and be detailed because if not, we knew P.J. was gonna come out there and rip us apart. And now we’re getting yelled at by coaches cause it’s like, ‘Why y’all letting him do this?’ Well, we’re not letting him do it. He knows what he’s looking at.”

Franklin said it got to the point last season where the defense had to disguise its coverages to try to disrupt Walker’s rhythm and timing with the scout team. Walker took the same approach this season, almost treating the reps against the first-team defense as if it were a game.

“He was dropping dimes over there,” said center Bradley Bozeman, who worked with the scout team while coming back from an ankle injury.

“We were going through the whole thing. We’d be communicating, change protection when we need to. We were over there grinding. It wasn’t just your typical: Look at the card, execute the card. We were doing our thing.”

Brian Burns, the Pro Bowl edge rusher, said facing Walker in practice only confirmed what he already knew.

“I knew he could throw,” Burns said. “I don’t know if it opened any of the coaches’ eyes or not, but I knew he could throw since I met him.”

Walker has spent much of his football life trying to open the eyes of various coaches and scouts. Despite a prolific high school career capped by a state championship (when Walker led Elizabeth on a game-winning, 98-yard drive in the final minute) and Offensive Player of the Year honors by The (Newark) Star-Ledger, Walker drew minimal interest from Power 5 schools.

“When I used to go on all my visits — like when I went to Rutgers — Rutgers was like, ‘Yeah, we’re looking at P.J., but we’re looking at him for safety,'” said Panthers defensive back Myles Hartsfield, another New Jersey native who was two years behind Walker.

“So P.J.’s been going through a lot to try to solidify that he’s a quarterback,” Hartsfield added. “And he knew back then that he was gonna be a quarterback. ‘I’m not playing safety, none of that.'”

Walker arrived at Temple before Rhule’s first season and was the Owls’ starter by the middle of his freshman year. He beat Penn State in Philadelphia in 2015 and nearly knocked off the Nittany Lions in State College the following year when he threw for 286 yards in a 34-27 defeat.

By the time he was done, Walker was Temple’s career leader in every major passing category while becoming the first quarterback to lead the Owls to multiple bowl games.

While scouts liked Walker’s leadership and poise, some had concerns about his size (5-foot-11, 210 pounds) and arm strength. After signing with Indianapolis as an undrafted free agent, Walker was with the Colts practice squad and played in a couple of preseason games over two-plus seasons. But by the fall of 2019, he was out of football.

“At one point I was home and watching football, getting ready for the XFL. And I said to myself, when I get another opportunity, you’ve gotta make the best of it,” he recalled. “From there on, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

With the XFL rebooting in 2020, Walker landed with the Houston Roughnecks, helped by a plug former Colts quarterback Andrew Luck put in with his dad, Oliver, who was then the XFL commissioner. Walker’s athleticism and improvisational skills played well in the spring league, and Walker led the league in passing with 1,338 yards through five games.

With the Roughnecks 5-0 at the season’s midpoint and preparing to face New York, Houston coach June Jones thought Walker’s best was yet to come. And then the pandemic hit.

“After having him for those five games, I just wanted to finish the year because he was finally coming into his own. Because it’s a whole new system, a whole new way of playing,” Jones said. “I think he led the league in every category. He really was playing off his talent.

“And the last game and the last couple practices before the COVID closed us down, I couldn’t believe how P.J. threw the ball in practice those couple days. I remember going into the coaches’ meeting and saying: ‘You guys, this is gonna be unbelievable. I’ve never had a guy practice like this.'”

Jones watched Walker’s two starts with the Panthers this season, beginning with a 24-10 loss to the Rams in which 12 of Walker’s 16 throws were at or behind the line of scrimmage, with only one pass attempt longer than nine yards.

The Panthers responded well against Tampa Bay when coaches let him throw downfield more. But Jones believes Walker can do even more in the passing game.

“I think if they just let him play — he threw 22 times (against Tampa Bay),” said Jones, the Falcons’ coach from 1994-96. “If they let him play the game like the other guys played that started before him, where they throw 35 to 45 times, there’s no telling what he might do.”

Maybe that happens this week against Atlanta, which has the league’s worst pass defense and is allowing 306.6 yards a game through the air. The Falcons are expected to be missing three of their four starters in the secondary Sunday due to injury. Walker has struggled with interceptions in the past when he’s tried to do too much, but he’s had a pair of turnover-free games since replacing the injured Mayfield.

And for a team that desperately needed some positive energy after the Rhule firing and Christian McCaffrey trade, Walker has provided it.

“Guys identify with his leadership, guys identify with his toughness, just resilience,” Wilks said. “I do, as well.”

Hartsfield said Walker has been proving people wrong his entire life.

“It’s literally been since high school. It’s crazy. And he’s done it with class,” he said. “Not complained about it, not really told people about it. But just done it behind closed doors, being a professional everywhere he’s been.”

Given Walker’s journey, it would seem natural if he were to take a moment to soak up the love he’s received on social media — a place not generally known for that sort of thing — or in person. And while Walker said it’s cool when fans ask him to pose for a selfie — as one did Wednesday on his way to practice — he’s staying grounded.

“It’s always good to have that love around. But for me it’s just move on, get ready for the next week,” he said. “You can’t continue to just celebrate one weekend of success when you’ve still got a lot of football left.”

(Top photo of P.J. Walker: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)