Chris Mortensen of ESPN reports that Raiders receiver Javon Walker told the team on Thursday that he plans to retire.  He also was prepared to return his $11 million signing bonus.

Per Mort, owner Al Davis persuaded Walker to stay with the team.

Walker reportedly has been frustrated with his performance during training camp.  We previously heard that Davis regards Walker as the key to the team’s fortunes in 2008.

His career has been bizarre, to say the least.  After a few so-so seasons upon entering the league as a first-round pick of the Packers, he had a breakout year in 2004.  And then he wanted to be paid like an elite wideout, threatened a holdout, caved under pressure from quarterback Brett Favre, tore an ACL in Week One of the 2005 season, was traded to the Broncos in April 2006, had a solid initial season in Denver, witnessed on the night after the finale the shooting death of Darrent Williams from sufficiently close range to have possibly been hit by the bullets, missed significant chunks of 2007 with ongoing knee problems, somehow landed a huge deal with the Raiders in the offseason, and then was abducted and beaten up after a weekend of champagne-spraying in Vegas.