Eagles' Joe Walker trying to hammer down a roster spot

Officially, the Eagles have five players on their training camp roster who have participated in Super Bowls: running back LeGarrette Blount (two with New England), wide receiver Torrey Smith (one with Baltimore), defensive end Chris Long (one with New England) and safeties Malcolm Jenkins (one with New Orleans) and Chris Maragos (one with Seattle).

Unofficially, there's a sixth guy on their roster with Super Bowl experience.

Linebacker Joe Walker.

No, Walker never actually has played in a Super Bowl. In fact, he hasn't even played in an NFL regular-season game yet. The 2016 seventh-round pick out of Oregon spent his entire rookie season on injured reserve recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

But five years ago, Walker was part of the crew that built the stage for Beyonce's halftime show at Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans.

A torn labrum in his shoulder during his senior season at Palos Verdes (Calif.) High School scared away any Division I schools that had expressed interest in Walker.

He enrolled at a local junior college — Los Angeles Harbor College near Long Beach — and "grayshirted" for a year while rehabbing from surgery. He took a part-time carpentry job for a company his dad, Brett, worked for that built concert stages.

"It was a great company,'' Walker said. "It was very cool. I liked it. But I like this [playing football] a lot more. I think working there made me realize how much I loved football.''

He played one season at LA Harbor and played well enough to draw the attention of then-Oregon coach Chip Kelly, who offered him a scholarship.

Walker led the Ducks in tackles as a senior, but the NFL wasn't particularly impressed. He didn't even receive one of the 300-plus invitations to the predraft scouting combine last year.

Then he ran a 4.56 forty and jumped 37½ inches at Oregon's Pro Day, and scouts went back for another look at his game tape.

Last year, the Eagles ended up using the third of three seventh-round picks on him. He was the 251^st selection in a 253-pick draft.

But the two-time Academic All-Pac-12 selection picked up Jim Schwartz's defense quickly. He was having a solid training camp and seemed to be positioning himself for a season-opening roster spot when his left ACL snapped in the Eagles' second preseason game against Pittsburgh.

"I felt it pop,'' Walker said. "I had never had a knee injury before, but I knew it probably was [the ACL]."

Less than 12 months later, the 6-2, 236-pound Walker is back on the field, trying to earn a roster job with the Eagles.

The knee has looked as good as new in the early training camp practices. It will get its biggest test Tuesday when the Eagles hold the first of three live-contact practices before the first preseason game at Green Bay on Aug. 10.

"You see him out there?" an impressed Jordan Hicks said. "He looks strong, man. He looks strong. He's fallen a couple of times. He's had to jump for a few balls. You'd never know he tore his ACL last summer."

Walker said he has fully recovered – both physically and mentally – from the injury.

"I feel good out there,'' he said. "My body feels good. Mentally, I feel good. I'm not thinking at all about my knee when I'm out there. So that's huge. I'm running around full speed, which is huge.''

The door to a roster spot is open for Walker and some of the other young linebackers in camp, including Villanova product Don Cherry, rookie fifth-round pick Nathan Gerry and Kamu Grugier-Hill. Beyond their three starters – Hicks, Nigel Bradham and Mychal Kendricks – the Eagles have precious little experience at linebacker.

The other six linebackers in camp have played a grand total of 233 defensive snaps. Two hundred thirty-two of them belong to veteran Najee Goode, though he's played only 39 defensive snaps the last three seasons.

Last year, Hicks and Bradham both played 16 games. Kendricks, who played only 27 percent of the team's defensive snaps because of all the nickel the Eagles used, played in 15 games. The chances of the starters staying that healthy two years in a row? Slim.

Schwartz said special teams will be "a big part of the equation'' as far as which linebackers the Eagles keep beyond the starters.

"League-wide, 65 to 70 percent of the game is played out of three wide-receiver [formations] now,'' said Schwartz, whose defense was in two-linebacker nickel packages about 70 percent of the time last season.

"Those young guys, they've got to find a way to be productive [on special teams].''

Walker understands that and is ready for the challenge. He played on all four special teams at Oregon.

"We have a lot of really good linebackers, and a lot of good ones who are really good on special teams," said Cherry, who spent last season on the Eagles' practice squad, where he taught himself how to play the WILL and SAM spots.

Most of the linebackers in camp have the versatility to play all three spots. The Eagles kept six linebackers on their season-opening roster last year – Bradham, Hicks, Kendricks, Goode, Grugier-Hill and Stephen Tulloch.

"I'm just trying to get back into football shape right now," said Walker. "It's awesome to be back. When you can't play for a year, it makes you realize how much you really miss it. That's happened to me twice now.''

Hicks has been very impressed by Walker, both on the field and in the meeting room.

"He's a pretty even-keeled guy; very poised and just picks up on everything very quickly," the Eagles' middle linebacker said. "I'm very excited wit his progression.

"He's looked good, which is nice. Because we're going to need him."