FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. – Even Vance Walker’s biggest supporters will tell you his 6-foot-2, 307-pound frame is not what gets scouts and coaches excited.
Drills in shorts and the kind of tests players perform at the NFL Combine are not exactly Walker’s forte.
Maybe that’s part of the reason why the rookie defensive tackle out of Georgia Tech fell to the seventh round, 210th overall, after being projected in some mock NFL drafts as a first-rounder before his senior year.
It’s when Walker dons the pads that football professionals take notice. And so far that’s been the case with the Falcons, as Head Coach Mike Smith, without being prompted, singled Walker out for praise in the first week of camp on multiple occasions.
“He’s got a pretty good pass rush, got pretty good explosion off the ball,” said Falcons defensive line coach Ray Hamilton. “So he caught our eye with a few things.”
That Walker is having a strong training camp is no surprise to his former coaches at Georgia Tech. They say Walker is physically skilled, tough and smart -- he entered Tech as a biology major but realized football would not allow him the time for lab periods so he switched to management. Because he did not take a red-shirt year, Walker is two semesters short of graduating, but said he plans on finishing up.
When the Falcons were doing pre-draft research, Smith spoke to Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson about his former player. Smith and Johnson know each other from Smith’s many years at Tennessee Tech and Johnson’s at Georgia Southern.
“Vance is a smart guy, so he’s going to pick up on what they’re trying to do,” Johnson said. “And he’s got good leverage and I think he just has to be consistent and stay healthy. That’s the big thing. If he can do that I think he can probably help.”
Hamilton has noticed Walker’s football IQ.
The veteran coach and NFL player said the team has a “pretty smart defensive line” and the staff teaches those players a variety of concepts from the offense’s perspective, such as formations and down and distance.
“He’s picked that up pretty good,” Hamilton said. “A lot of guys can’t quite pick up all the offensive side of the stuff immediately.”
For his part, Walker said adjusting to playing against NFL competition is not easy.
“Man, they’re a lot better from college,” he said. “From college, I can honestly say that I could beat a guy just by running around him with my hands behind my back. [In the NFL] it’s like game mode. I have to use everything that I learn from knowledge to speed to power in every single play. And the moment that I slip up or that anybody slips up, they’ll find that advantage -- the offensive lineman or whoever you’re going against. You have to put together everything you learn and do it consistently and great for the most part.”
Georgia Tech defensive line coach Giff Smith also is the school’s recruiting coordinator. He said Walker was a late bloomer, mostly recruited by I-AA schools, before Tech found him at South Carolina’s Fort Mill High School. After Walker committed, Giff Smith said, Tech had to ward off the likes of Virginia Tech and others.
He remembered telling former Yellow Jackets standout linebacker Eric Henderson, most recently of the Cincinnati Bengals, about Walker when Walker was a freshman.
“I said, ‘Watch this kid, I think he has a chance to be a heck of a player,’” the line coach recalled. “And after the first day of doing the D-line drills in shorts, Eric came back and saw me and said, “Coach, are you sure about that?” I said, ‘I’m tellin’ you, he’s a player.’”
As preseason practices wore on, Walker was working with the No. 2 defense. Giff Smith said the team’s starting offensive linemen could not block him, so the Yellow Jackets, under then-head coach Chan Gailey, played Walker as a true freshman.
He had a sack in his first game as a collegian and went on to finish 15th in Georgia Tech history with 13 sacks, including 8.5 in 2007.
Walker’s performance tailed off at the end of 2008 -- most likely affecting his draft status -- because he played with a high ankle sprain from the 10th game of the season on.
“He… couldn’t push off of it,” Giff Smith said. “For a big man who really relies on power and quickness, it really hindered him. To his credit he tried to gut it out in every game. He’s an extremely tough kid. But I think it limited him and he wasn’t healthy when he went to the Senior Bowl so he wasn’t really able to showcase what exactly he could do.”
From the North Carolina game in mid November to the Senior Bowl on Jan. 20, Walker said his body never had time to recover for the NFL Combine on Feb. 20. At the Combine, he pulled his hamstring running the 40-yard dash, an injury he blames on the totality of being banged up over those months.
That combination of factors led to Walker’s being picked in the seventh round.
“I do feel like I would’ve gone earlier,” Walker said. “But at the same time I really don’t have control over all those things. I know I did things the best of my ability and I couldn’t really ask for anything more. That’s why I don’t regret anything.”
Hamilton said at the start of camp that a draftee’s practice time essentially is predicated on where the team picks him. Walker, happy that he is finally 100 percent healthy, is working out with the third team.
But once preseason games begin, players can earn more practice time depending on how they play.
“What happens to guys, especially younger guys, is you teach them a lot of things in camp, technique-wise and stuff like that, and sometimes a younger guy when he gets in the game he reverts to just pushing and stuff like that,” Hamilton said. “So we want to see a guy get in the game and do the techniques we’ve been talking about and we’ve been teaching.
“The younger guys who get in the game and do that stuff, who try the techniques, those are the guys who catch our eye. He seems to be a pretty good technique guy so we’ll see how he does in the game on Saturday night.”
Georgia Tech’s Giff Smith saw Walker just before the Falcons started camp. He said Walker was excited about the opportunity with the Falcons and is bullish on his former player’s chances.
He said Walker only needs one thing to succeed in the NFL.
“Opportunity,” he said, “in my honest opinion. Given a fair opportunity I think he’ll make the team and keep progressing. I think him going in the seventh-round is a steal. Being from Atlanta myself, I’m excited that the Falcons got him.”
Day 10 -- Monday, Aug. 10, 2009
8:30 a.m./3:45 p.m. Practice
@FalconsJMoore "Words of the Day"
- TRANSCRIPT: Head Coach Mike Smith briefs the media after practice
- BLOGS: J. Michael Moore's blog posts from Aug. 10, 2009
- FEATURE: Walker looks to make most of opportunities
- VIDEO: Head Coach Mike Smith | White | Booker
- PHOTOS: Images from Day 10 at training camp (Flickr)
