I remember people saying Huard was "injury prone" and then a bunch of folks went ballistic and "proved" Huard wasn't really injury prone and had a long career because he went to Indy and never got hurt. Of course, he never took a snap in Indy because he was behind Manning, but he did have a nice lengthy career as a backup QB.
I think Walter's best chance of lasting a long time is to find a similar gig. Maybe he can be Earl Thomas or Richard Sherman's backup. He'll never see the field, and will have a long career.
I love the guy's talent. Feel bad that he's always hurt. I actually spoke with one of the most well known orthopedic surgeons in the west as he was operating on my ankle for the third time. He does surgeries for the pro teams in the region as well as BYU, the University of Utah, Utah Valley University, Weber State, Utah State, and many others. He said that some guys ARE injury prone, and those who tend to tear ligaments, have lots of muscle strains/pulls/tears, etc. frequently have what he told me were "hypermobile joints".
This may have been his dumbing it down for a layman. He explained that some guys have knees and the like that are strong enough that no brace will help them and the steel brace would bend or even break before any bone damage would happen, but because their joints move so much that they suffer damage to the soft tissues after the joint moves too far since they move easily in and out of socket basically.
Was he pulling my leg (no pun intended)? I am not quite sure.... but I was told by both he and another surgeon that my joints functioned the same way, which was why I could pop my shoulders out and have a doctor pop them back in and keep playing. It is also why some players suffer what looks to be a catastrophic injury to their knee (where it looks like everything just explodes), but they are playing the next week. Their joint has that much 'play' in it, and as long as nothing tears they are fine after the swelling and initial pain subsides.
It would be akin to being double jointed, but the joint is able to essentially hyperextend in all directions. How might this apply to WT3? Well... in the NFL, those little extra hyperextensions become full on disaster type injuries due to the speed, size, and strength of opponents doing the hitting. Instead of the knee just moving out and popping back in, it just keeps going and the ligament tears instead of doing a "booooing" and popping back into the right spot.
Could he get past this? I guess it's possible. But there is obviously an issue with the number of ligament, tendon, muscle injuries he has sustained. He may just be more likely to suffer them. He may not be preparing properly with his training. Breaking a bone when you have strong bones can be considered flukey. I think continual injuries to ligaments and other soft structures means something is up. It could be random, but then why aren't Lane and Maxwell suffering the same injuries? They took more hits last year than Walter did and played in 14 or 15 more games. I think at this point you have to assume the guy is just going to suffer another injury and plan as such.
Hopefully he comes back and never gets hurt again. But how many of you would say that Bob Sanders was injury prone? Was that also a fluke? It doesn't matter. The fact was that he was always hurt even though he was one of the top 5 defenders in the league and the Colts had to give up. He went to San Diego and was hurt yet again. It just happens to some guys unfortunately.