There’s a case to be made that Quay Walker should be facing higher expectations in 2023 than De’Vondre Campbell, his higher-paid and, to this point, much more successful NFL teammate.

Campbell has been undeniably successful in the NFL. To last has long as he has is a big win in and of itself, and to make an All-Pro team means he’s received one of the highest honors to which a non-QB can really aspire.

Walker, though, should be expected to have a higher ceiling than Campbell. As gifted as Campbell is, Walker surpasses him in nearly every way. He has athletic abilities the likes of which few can match.

Here’s an entirely unfair comparison: Think about what Quay Walker looks like on a football field. Think about how he moves and runs relative to other NFL athletes. There were times in 2022 when he made veteran NFL players look like college sophomores, rag-dolling them with ferocious hits. I don’t recall many players — if any — in recent Packers history who could be said to do the same.

Compare that to a guy like 2023 undrafted free agent Jimmy Phillips. Phillips currently sits at the bottom of the Packers’ linebacker depth chart. Despite his long college career, the odds are stacked against him making an impact in the NFL. Why? Well, he’s not small for a human being, but he’s small — and, for that matter, relatively unathletic — for an NFL linebacker. He’d kill to have the kinds of physical attributes Walker does.

Walker has everything you could ask for from a physical perspective. But can he harness it? That’s the question for 2023.

Walker enters this season off an up-and-down rookie year. Was he great? No. Was he bad? Sometimes. Was he terrible? With the exception of a couple of incidents, not really. There was a lot to like in 2022. Speed. Range. Athleticism. Power. You can see what prompted the glowing scouting reports we all read heading into the 2022 NFL Draft. It’s easy to see why people were excited about his potential.

But there were some bad — if not terrible — things, too. For one thing, Walker committed the cardinal sin of the linebacker position far too often last year: he guessed. And once opposing teams figured out that Walker would guess rather than read and react, he got suckered a few times. Teams took advantage of his willingness to guess where plays were going and sent him off on one wild goose chase after another.

And then there are the ejections. Two ejections in a given season is two too many, regardless of why you got kicked out of a game. Some have gone a bit too far in their criticism of Walker, but the bottom line remains the same: Walker got kicked out of two NFL games because he reacted rather than thought, and his reactions cost the Packers significantly. 

All of that serves as a backdrop for 2023. The athleticism, the power, the guessing, the indefensible moments of non-thinking. All of it is a part of the Quay Walker picture. And Walker is supposed to be a key part of this Packers' defense both now and in the future. 

De’Vondre Campbell isn’t getting any younger; even if he has another down year, it’s arguably less of a surprise — and less of a problem — than Walker misfiring again. But Walker needs to show why he deserved to be a first-round pick in 2022, in addition to dispelling all of the doubts he raised last season. The pressure isn’t high yet, but it soon will be.

For more on the Packers linebackers, check out Episode 666 of Blue 58.