Operation Sports Forums - Javon Walker flip-flopping on retirement

Quote:

Raiders receiver Javon Walker's troubled career took another enigmatic turn Thursday when he told team officials he wanted to retire, only to change his mind one day later.

Walker declined to discuss the specifics and wondered out loud what all the fuss was about.

"That's a done issue," Walker said after training camp practice Saturday in Napa. "I'm not sure what happened, but that's a done issue."

Raiders coach Lane Kiffin isn't so sure.

The team signed Walker, 29, to a six-year deal worth up to $55 million in March. The idea was for Walker to bring star power to the passing game as the No. 1 receiver.

Five months later, after little more than one week of training camp, he offered to return $11 million of guaranteed money and walk away from football, ESPN.com reported Saturday morning.

"I worry a lot about it," Kiffin said after practice Saturday night in Napa. "For someone to discuss retirement, and then to come back and change his mind a day later, I'm worried a lot about it.

"I'm worried about where he's at mentally, because these things happen sometimes and they come back up again. Maybe they come back and it isn't necessarily for the right reasons."

According to Kiffin, Walker came to him Thursday to say retirement was a "direction he may want to go." Kiffin told him to give it some time, talk to people close to him and then referred him to owner Al Davis.

Davis apparently persuaded Walker to return, and the player told Kiffin on Friday morning he wanted to "keep going."

"When that was going through his mind, as you guys noticed, he was not working as hard as he had been," Kiffin said, "because he was obviously distracted with a lot of different thoughts."

Walker's career proved just as troubled during previous stays in Green Bay and Denver, where he kept getting knee injuries and eventually asked his way out of town. He was with Broncos teammate Darrent Williams when Williams was shot and killed hours after the 2006 season ended.

In June, Walker was robbed, assaulted and left unconscious on a Las Vegas street. He was hospitalized after the attack and won't discuss the incident with reporters.

Kiffin said the retirement talk "caught me off guard." He had concerns with Walker's well being during several offseason conversations with the receiver, but didn't see this coming.

"It seemed like there might be something going on," Kiffin said. "I think there are a lot of things going on with him, in his mind. A lot has happened ... signing another big contract, Las Vegas, and I'm sure he's disappointed in his play out there."

Again, Walker said he doesn't know what the big deal is.
"I'm in a great frame of mind," Walker said. "Why wouldn't I be? I'm with a new team, a great bunch of guys. As far as being young, that's a done issue.

"I'm looking forward to going into next week and trying to put everything together as a team and an offense."

Walker made it through an entire two-a-day practice Saturday for the first time this camp, but his struggles didn't stop. On one play, he failed to put his hands up for a pass over the middle, which DeAngelo Hall nearly intercepted from behind.

He continues to work with the first-team offense.
"We're going to communicate with him and push him out there on the field and get him better," Kiffin said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...SP0A12466M.DTL