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Baseball, Branch Rickey once said, is a game of inches. Then there's football, the game of ifs.
Take Javon Walker, for instance. If he's healthy, he's just what the Broncos need, a big, physical wideout who can stretch the field on one play and make a tough third-down catch on another. If his right knee holds up, he could become the Broncos' most significant offseason acquisition of the post-Elway era. If he's the player he was with the Packers, he could be the difference between the Broncos making the playoffs and winning the Super Bowl.
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If, if, if.
There's no way around it. When you blow out your anterior cruciate ligament, you become a questionable commodity. The good news for the Broncos is, while Walker's future is uncertain, the exclamation points following his name far outnumber the question marks.
"We think he's one of the top receivers in the league," Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said. "If he's the top one, time will tell."
Whoa, whoa, whoa. The top one, as in the best in the business, the head of the table, the top of the food chain?
"He's got a chance," Shanahan said. "We wouldn't have signed him unless we had a lot of confidence in him. You don't give up a second-round draft choice unless you think a guy is going to be on your team for a while."
In late April, Walker couldn't fully extend his right leg. With the first workout of Camp Shanahan 2006 scheduled for Friday at Dove Valley, the Broncos are confident Walker will be healthy and productive. But the top wideout in the league? Walker says he can get there.
"That's definite," Walker said. "My Pro Bowl year (2004), I'm trying to get back to that level. I'm not going to live on the hype. That's why I'm here every day working. I can't let what I've done in the past dictate what I'm going to do. I want to come out and be better than I was. I want to give people a chance to say, 'You know what, that was a great move."'
This much is certain before he breaks his first sweat in training camp: Acquiring Walker was a move the Broncos didn't hesitate one second to make. When the Packers ceded to Walker's trade demands and made him available for the 37th pick in the draft, Shanahan and his staff jumped at the opportunity.
"How they pulled that off, I don't know," said Mike Heimerdinger, the Broncos' de facto offensive coordinator. "I was as shocked as everybody else. We all had a vote and it was unanimous. I was like, 'Heck, yeah.' It was kind of a no-brainer."
Heimerdinger was the Broncos' receivers coach from 1995-99, when he oversaw the development of Rod Smith and Ed McCaffrey into one of the NFL's elite pass-catching tandems. McCaffrey caught 101 passes and Smith 100 in 2000, a production level Heimerdinger said he believes Walker and Smith can match.
"You would hope so," Heimerdinger said. "I think you can do that. Because of our run game, we're always going to get pretty good matchups with the wide receivers because people are going to play an eight-man front. That's what you want, one-on-ones. We should be able to get those matchups, so I'm hoping those guys can get those kinds of numbers."
http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_4084083
Javon Walker...What if ...
Javon Walker...What if ...
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