Packers-Panthers Inactives: Huge Quay Walker Status Update

Standout Green Bay Packers linebacker Quay Walker is active and will play on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.

Walker suffered a calf injury and did not practice on Thursday. He was limited participation on Friday.

Walker has played 98.3 percent of the defensive snaps and is tied for 12th in the league with 64 tackles. He’ll have a key role against Carolina’s strong rushing attack.

The Packers’ six inactives are:

Receiver Dontayvion Wicks will miss a second consecutive game with a calf injury.

Defensive end Lukas Van Ness will miss a third consecutive game. He suffered a foot injury when he sacked the Bengals’ Joe Flacco in the team’s last home game.

The other four are healthy scratches: kicker Lucas Harvrisik, interior linemen Jacob Monk and Donovan Jennings, and rookie defensive tackle Warren Brinson.

The Panthers’ inactives include center Cade Mays. Veteran Austin Corbett will start in his place, meaning the Panthers will have their seventh offensive line combination in nine games.

Standout right tackle Taylor Moton (knee) is active but the Panthers say former Packers lineman Yosh Nijman “is expected to start.” With right guard Brady Christensen placed on injured reserve this week, Chandler Zavala was activated from injured reserve on Saturday and will start in his place.

https://x.com/Panthers/status/1985023929002373621

Teams love to talk about Year 2 jumps, but Walker in Year 4 is playing his best football. Defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley credited linebackers coach Sean Duggan for having Walker seeing the game faster.

“I think he’s playing faster, he’s playing more confident,” defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said on Thursday. “You talk about confidence – there’s a time last year when everybody, it was ‘Quay Walker’s not playing well. Is Quay Walker good enough?’ That was the reality of maybe last year at this time and he probably feels that, too, but right now, just like the rest of these guys, he’s got great confidence and he’s not wavering from that and he’s playing like that.

“I cannot say enough about how well that guy’s playing and how much I appreciate the hard work that he puts in, the extra meetings he comes and sees me. We go over the call sheets. We talk about what he likes, what I like, why. I just love the guy.”

Walker’s not just the team leader in tackles. He was voted a team captain by his peers and wears the green-dot communicator helmet.

“The things I’m putting on him right now that I did last week in that game, the way he communicated the calls and got in and out of things based on our conversations, he wouldn’t have been able to do that last year,” Hafley continued. “I think he’s taken a step that way.”

On the final injury report, Van Ness, Wicks and linebacker Nick Niemann were out. Walker and kicker Brandon McManus (right quad) were the only players who were questionable. McManus, who missed two field goals at Pittsburgh last week but made his final four kicks, will get the call again.

“I feel like he’s back to some degree, better than he’s been,” special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia said on Thursday. “I thought he had a real good day yesterday and anticipating having a good day tomorrow.”

With Wicks out, expect another big workload for Christian Watson, who caught four passes and played 36 snaps in his season debut last week.

“It’s really just be able to have a big-time performance in a big-time game,” Watson said this week. “The goals and where this team envisions ourselves a couple months from now, we’re going to need to have big games in big-time games. Just got to keep that ball rolling and stack those weeks.”

Watson said the knee was not on his mind, even on the questionable Pittsburgh turf.

“I definitely thought I was going to get a little bit less snaps than that, but I told him at the end of the game that I was fine, I was feeling really good, so I wasn’t worried about anything,” he said. “Normal game soreness afterward but I’m feeling good right now, for sure.”

Niemann ranks fourth in the NFL in tackles on special teams, so that will be a loss. The Packers promoted Wisconsin native Kristian Welch from the practice squad on Saturday.

“He was real smart and had a lot of different skills,” special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia said this week. “We moved him all over the place. We put him in a lot of different positions, not only on kickoff but on punt return and what we were doing on kickoff return, as well. We’ll see how long and when and it’ll be a loss for this week, for sure.”