David Walker is a National Football League linebacker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. His time away from football last season, however, made him realize that he is so, so much more.

Go back to the third day of last year’s training camp, when the 2025 fourth-round pick suffered a torn ACL forcing him to be sidelined for the entirety of his rookie season. For an undersized pass rusher who made a living getting to the quarterback across three seasons at small school Central Arkansas, losing valuable reps against the best football players the world has to offer was less than ideal, to say the least.

Now nearly a year to the day removed from the devastating injury, Walker is healthy and carrying a new appreciation for the game he loves the most. And in speaking with the media at the AdventHealth Training Center on Sunday, Walker was open about his faith and how it has helped him navigate through the past calendar year.

“I just wanna thank God,” Walker said. “The injury was big. The whole time I knew that he didn’t bring me this far to bring me this far. I knew I had to attack rehab. I knew I had to do those things. I’m here, and I’m back to playing the game that I love. It’s exciting.”

Walker, a standout at Southern Arkansas before transferring to Central Arkansas in 2022, amassed 39 sacks in college, named the recipient of the Buck Buchanan Award (most outstanding defensive player in FCS) as a senior in 2024. Walker was expected to compete for playing time in 2025 alongside veteran Anthony Nelson and then second-year player Chris Braswell.

Unfortunately for Walker, he never got the chance to contribute as a rookie. Walker now has to make up for lost time and show that the bump up in competition is nothing he can’t handle. Furthermore, Tampa Bay’s outside linebacker room is now stocked with 2026 first-round pick Rueben Bain Jr. and free agent signing Al-Quadin Muhammad, to go along with Yaya Diaby, Nelson, Braswell, and others. It’s a crowded room, meaning Walker has his work cut out for him to carve out a role.

But if the beginning of training camp is any indication, Walker will find a way to get on the field in 2026. With a sack of quarterback Jake Browning on Sunday, Walker has now reached the quarterback in each of the Buccaneers’ four training camp practices.

“It’s definitely a confidence booster,” Walker said. “Coming off an ACL injury, you normally don’t have the bend that you used to have. Just seeing the bend, just seeing the little stuff I used to have, it’s very confidence boosting.”

Monday, the pads will come on. It’ll be another milestone for Walker, as will be Tampa Bay’s first preseason game against the New York Jets on Aug. 14. It remains to be seen if Walker will be dressed out at MetLife Stadium, though he made it clear where he stands when it comes to preseason action.

“They haven’t said anything yet, but I’m excited,” Walker said. “I want to play. I hope to play.”

The Buccaneers certainly have high hopes for Walker in 2026. Walker, guided by his faith, hopes to prove they were right for taking a chance on him in April 2025.

“When I first got here, I got into the community right away. The people outside that are important to me that were saying, ‘you’re more than just a football player,’ like, those are the things you need to hear because this game’s gonna be over one day,” Walker said. “I wanna lean on my faith, and I want that to be the thing that carries me through all this. … [I’m] more than a football player, 100 percent. First, I’m a man of God, and then family comes, and then football. That’s the way that things should go.”