Free agent TE Delanie Walker said during an interview with Sirius XM NFL Radio that he is looking to sign on with a contender this year and be more of a complementary piece on offense.
“I feel like it’s got to be a team that’s a contender,” Walker said. “A team that has a quarterback that’s going to throw the ball, that’s got a complement with a running back, and some receivers that’s going to help. I don’t want to go into a team and do pretty much what I’ve been doing my whole career, is fight to be great, for that team to be good — and be the only person that’s that spotlight on that team. That’s going to be tough, obviously, me being an older player. So I want to go to a team that I can complement everybody and not be ‘that guy,’ but complement the offense and the team and be a leader that I know I can be.”
Walker previously mentioned that he expects to catch on with a team around the start of training camp.
“My goal is just to try and get in the best shape I can possibly get in because I know that opportunity is going to come where someone is going to need a tight end for training camp, and that’s where my opportunity is going to come,” Walker said, via Pro Football Talk. “But for right now, I couldn’t tell you who I will be playing for or what teams are looking at me. They talk to me, but at the end of the day I feel like they think that the ankle is a problem, and my age, so teams are really not trying to give me a good deal I feel like. We’ll see what happens in a time of need, when they really need a tight end.”
The 49ers hosted Walker for a visit last month, but he left without a deal.
Walker sat out the 2020 season.
Walker, 36, is a former seventh-round pick of the 49ers back in 2006. He spent seven years in San Francisco before signing on with the Titans for the 2013 season.
Walker was entering the final year of his three-year, $19.075 million contract when he agreed to a two-year, $17 million extension that included an $8 million signing bonus and $12.76 million guaranteed in 2019.
He was set to make a base salary of $5.4 million in 2020, but the Titans released him going into the offseason.
In 2019, Walker appeared in seven games for the Titans and caught 21 passes for 215 yards receiving and two touchdowns.
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