“The only interest I have in tackle football is seeing them in full pads and in a competitive environment.”
That response was Rick “Doc” Walker‘s when Kevin Sheehan asked him on Friday’s podcast what he thought about the Commanders after their OTA workouts last week.
Ask anyone else in the media and their likely first response has been Jayden Daniels and the assembling by head coach Dan Quinn of an impressive coaching staff.
Who else but Doc Walker would downplay the OTA workouts because they were not in full pads and true football contact? But that is “Doc,” and he is not going to change now.
There is some shtick to Doc; of course there is. But there is also something fresh about Doc that I have loved for years. He knows football is so much a contact sport. The contact affects so much of what goes into a player’s mind, how he plays with pain, how he reacts to contact. For Doc, it’s almost as simple as, “as long as they are only in their gym clothes, they are not yet playing actual football. So, let’s discuss it when they are playing actual football.”
Walker clarified, “Oh, I like them, but what do you want me to do? The guy won the Heisman Trophy. Am I supposed to be excited that he can throw a ball in practice?”
“I am positive about everything I have seen and heard to this point…I was high on Dan Quinn before they hired him.”
But what about Quinn’s team losing in the Super Bowl after holding a 28-3 lead? “His failure was in the Super Bowl. If that is your form of failure, I’ll take it.”
Walker did state he is very impressed with some of the new people hired by the Commanders “because you really do need good character people to be successful in any business.”
“I like this group, I really do. I would be surprised if this group fails…I don’t think they are going to fail miserably like that last group. This is a group that has really good intentions. If they stay healthy I do think they will be pretty hard to beat.”
Leave it to “Doc” to remind us that football isn’t football until players are in pads and making full contact.
Touching the brakes a bit to slow us down, keeping it real, that’s Doc. Thanks, Doc.
