ALAMEDA, Calif. — The Oakland Raiders expect new receiver Javon Walker to be ready for training camp when he recovers from injuries incurred during a robbery in Las Vegas last weekend.
Raiders coach Lane Kiffin finally spoke to Walker by phone on Wednesday morning, more than two days after Walker was discovered unconscious and beaten on a back street near the Las Vegas Strip following a night of partying. Walker was released from a hospital after treatment for a concussion and facial injuries.
“The info that I have is he’s going to be fine,” Kiffin said. “Training camp won’t be an issue. … But until our guys look at him, I don’t want to say (the extent of Walker’s injuries).”
Kiffin said Walker was scheduled to fly to Oakland on Wednesday evening in time to attend the final session of the Raiders’ organized team activities today, though he obviously won’t suit up with quarterback JaMarcus Russell and his new teammates. Oakland opens training camp July 25 in Napa.
“We are aware that Javon Walker was the victim of a robbery,” Raiders spokesman Mike Taylor said in a statement. “We have been told that he will make a full recovery in the near future and resume his preparation for the 2008 NFL season.”
A Las Vegas police spokesman said a large amount of cash and expensive jewelry were taken from Walker, who was photographed earlier in the fateful evening spraying a nightclub crowd with champagne. His agent, Kennard McGuire, said Walker was “recovering in a private environment” on Wednesday.
Walker signed a six-year, $55 million deal with the Raiders after the Denver Broncos released him in February. The 29-year-old former Packers star has participated in some offseason work with Russell, though Kiffin said two weeks ago that Walker was “a little heavy” for workouts.
Details of Walker’s party night still were sketchy, and the Raiders weren’t expected to make Walker available to the media on the final day of workouts, with today scheduled to be closed to reporters.
But Walker knows the dangers of nighttime partying better than most athletes.
On Jan. 1, 2007, a still-unidentified gunman targeted a car carrying Walker and several Broncos teammates in a drive-by shooting outside a downtown Denver nightclub. Darrent Williams, a defensive back, died in Walker’s arms in their rented limousine after an apparent altercation between a handful of athletes and other partygoers.
BENGALS: Receiver Chad Johnson is expected to be fully recovered from ankle surgery when Cincinnati opens training camp next month.
Johnson had his troublesome right ankle cleaned out. He is expected to be ready for the start of training camp on July 27.
The ankle bothered Johnson last year, and the team recommended surgery when the season ended. Johnson declined, and the ankle became an issue at the team’s mandatory minicamp last week. The Pro Bowl receiver said he couldn’t practice because the ankle was bothering him.
Johnson has been lobbying for a trade since the end of last season. The Bengals refused, and Johnson has threatened to sit out the season if he’s not dealt to another team.
TITANS: Tennessee linebacker Ryan Fowler denied he had taken performance-enhancing drugs, less than two weeks after his lawyer said Fowler received a letter from the NFL saying he was under investigation and faced a possible suspension.
Asked if he could definitively say he had never done steroids, Fowler replied, “I can tell you that.”
“I’m really not thinking of that (suspension) as a possibility. I think it will all get cleared up before then,” Fowler said after a mini-camp practice. “My reputation my whole life has been as a good guy. I hope that this one accusation doesn’t taint my reputation that’s been pretty clean.”
Fowler was linked to convicted steroids dealer David Jacobs, who was found dead with a female companion in his Plano, Texas, home earlier this month. Police say Jacobs killed himself and his girlfriend.
Before his death, Jacobs told The Dallas Morning News that he supplied Fowler with performance-enhancing drugs before and after the 2006 season.
CARDINALS: Arizona running back J.J. Arrington was among five people arrested after a fight at a nightclub in North Carolina.
Police in Rocky Mount said an off-duty officer called for assistance around 1:30 a.m. after the fight broke out at the D&I Center nightclub. The 25-year-old Arrington was charged with disorderly conduct.
Nash County sheriff’s Sgt. T.R. Lamm said a magistrate later ordered Arrington held for 24 hours for contempt of court.
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