Kenneth Walker is the modern version of a good running back

Splitting the backfield isn't a negative, it's the norm

Maybe it’s because I don’t play fantasy football (I am helping Seaside Jay with her office league this year, a rare step outside of my rule) that I don’t understand the perception that Kenneth Walker is having a “bad” season. The Seahawks don’t play fantasy football, they play real football, so I never once question the fact that Mike Macdonald/Klint Kubiak have deferred to Zach Charbonnet and even sometimes George Holani at the goal line.

Ummm, if that’s the way to score, then score. It does not mean ANYTHING to me if that ball is going to Walker, Charbonnet, or Holani. Just get the ball into the end zone.

Walker may not be having the 1,600-yard seasons that some of us dreamed he could have when Seattle drafted him as a second round picking coming off of a 1,600-yard season with the Spartans, but he’s also not playing in a bygone era. This is not just about the NFL passing more often (nobody passes less often than the Seahawks), it’s about longevity.

If Walker played in the 90s — same person, different decade — we might be talking about him as a Hall of Famer. Yes, as a Hall of Famer.

I’ll explain:

In Emmitt Smith’s fourth season with the Dallas Cowboys, he rushed for 1,486 yards in 14 games. (Smith had held out of the first two games for a new contract.) Walker probably isn’t going to come close to that in his fourth season and he gets 17 games. But Smith wasn’t sharing the ball.

Smith ran for over 100 yards in eight games that season, including the Super Bowl when he had 30 carries for 132 yards. The fewest amount of carries that Smith had to reach 100 yards was 19 carries and he had 104 yards.

The MOST carries that Walker has had in a game this season is 19. That’s the most. Imagine if Emmitt Smith was never allowed to carry the ball 20 times in a game. Would he ever reached 1,200 yards in a season?

Dating back to the start of 2023, Walker has carried the ball 20+ times in three of 35 contests. He hit 100 yards in two of those. How do we know that Walker wouldn’t rush for 1,800 yards if a team dared to try?

These days, most teams don’t want most running backs to carry the ball 20 times. Walker is averaging 13.3 rushing attempts per game, which is barely more than the 11.8 attempts that Charbonnet gets. I would hardly call that a “backup”.

Yes, Smith blew our minds with his longevity and durability, carrying the ball a record 4,409 times in 15 seasons. But we’ll never know what a running back like Smith could actually achieve in modern times. We do have Derrick Henry, but even Henry was splitting the backfield with DeMarco Murray for three seasons. Henry would still need another 1,900 rushing attempts to catch Smith.

I know, maybe Walker wouldn’t have a long career if he got 300 carries per season. Maybe Walker won’t have a long career anyway. But he IS “modern running back”. Even Jonathan Taylor only averages 18 carries per game, the most in the NFL. His 32 carries last week was an anomaly and that used to be the norm.

Walker may not be as good as Smith and Taylor. He’s as good as he’s allowed to be.

Now will he be a Seahawk next season? Let’s go to the questions!

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Eduardo: With such a dominant defense, it’s hard to pick out any soft spots, but we have been susceptible to good TE play (and I believe middle of the field as well?). I am interested to see how Nick Emmanwori plays into remedying this. Are there any numbers that reflect if his presence has shored up this weakness, to some/any extent, since he’s been on the field?

As you mentioned in your post, Trey McBride just had a field day against the Seahawks with Emmanwori. Because the two teams have already played twice, no player has more catches (16), yards (179) or EPA (+16.2) against the Seahawks than McBride. In fact, he’s been targeted 24 times against Seattle’s defense, 14 more than any other player.

However, McBride could be this season’s first-team All-Pro tight end. He leads all tight ends with 61 catches and he’s second at the position in yards and touchdowns.

That being said, tight ends are generally giving the Seahawks more issues this season than receivers and backs, which is especially relevant against a Rams team that uses tight ends more than any other team in the NFL. Whether or not Emmanwori can specifically remedy this himself is difficult to say and he’s been frequently targeted in the passing game:

• Emmanwori has faced 35 targets in 5 games (Week 1 doesn’t count)

• He’s been blamed for 23 catches, 218 yards, 2 TD

• The only Seahawks player targeted that often is Josh Jobe (44 targets in 8 games)

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Emmanwori is a liability in coverage or anything even close to that. It could be that his matchups were just the most favorable at the time and also harder to defend because they’re shorter throws, so I would not say I’m “worried” about it. He’s 21-years-old. 21! Whatever susceptibility Seattle has on defense it’s really up to Mike Macdonald to fix it, not so much relying on a single player.

Also, the Seahawks are about to face an elite offense. If they have a mediocre game on defense, it’s probably not time to panic just yet. Be prepared for anything.

Grant: Is K9 a more affordable second contract now than he was in the preseason? He’s a long way from an elite running back statistically, but he’s also had to share the load with Charbs pretty evenly. What are the odds we re-sign him at this point? Would he even want to play for us again knowing that Charbonnet will still be here next season? What should the Seahawks offer him and would he accept it?

To guess if Kenneth Walker would have made more money if he had signed before the season is to assume that the Seahawks ever made Walker a contract offer at all. If the Seahawks never negotiated with him, then he has never gained or lost anything. Even if the question is only theoretical because if the team wasn’t willing to extend him or trade him then Walker’s only value was 0.

-Walker rushed for 573 yards last season and he missed six games.

-Walker has not missed any games this season and he’s averaging more yards per game. (Pace: 1,018 yards)

By those markers, Walker should at least feel better about his prospects on contract #2 now than he did a few months ago.

I think any decent GM realizes that Walker is not in a situation that is necessarily conducive for putting up huge numbers. Even if Walker is not as good as Jonathan Taylor, he could still be sold as “the next Javonte Williams” on the free agent market and that’s great news for him. Going from the Broncos to the Cowboys, Williams has seen his YPC jump by 1.5 yards (3.7 to 5.2) and he leads the NFL in first down runs.

Almost every team needs a running back and quite a lot of teams will need a starting running back in 2026. Imagine if the Ravens think Derrick Henry’s a little old and they want to add Walker as insurance/future. That seems like an appealing arrangement for both sides.

He’s not going to have a hard time finding suitors and as I wrote a month ago that could make Walker too expensive to keep when there are cheaper, younger alternatives. But it’s only midseason. Walker is capable of monster games and just imagine a world where he rushes for 300 yards during the playoffs. It could happen.

All that being said, I do not expect the Seahawks to roll with Zach Charbonnet and George Holani alone next season. Either bring back Walker or make a significant addition, either in the draft or free agency. This is nothing against Charbonnet, but they could be just as quick to move on from him in 2027.

West Seattle Tim: Biggest concern for the Hawks for the Rams matchup? I worry less about Jones being out this week than I would have before last week, so my new concern is Olu at center and what that means for the passing game? I saw MM credited him for the run game blocking increase, but how much of a downgrade is he compared to Sundell in the pass blocking? I feel we will need our pass game more than our run game against the Rams.

Whatever the case may be, this is what the Seahawks have to figure out because Jalen Sundell is definitely out and Olu Oluwatimi is definitely starting. Oluwatimi didn’t face the Rams in Week 9 last season, but for what it’s worth he didn’t allow any pressures to L.A. in Week 18 when the Rams didn’t have anything to play for.

The situation at center doesn’t worry me because Klint Kubiak is getting the whole week and there’s no question about who is starting. Olu also isn’t a rookie, he’s a very experienced player for a backup in his third season, including an extensive college career. That doesn’t necessarily make the situation ideal, but I think just having an answer for the Rams’ 13 personnel and being able to stop Kyren Williams on the ground is a bigger concern.

Williams is not athletic for an NFL running back but he’s shifty and he gains a lot of yards after contact.

Since McVay starting mixing in Blake Corum a few weeks ago, he has added an explosive element to L.A.’s ground game. The Rams have rushed for 300 yards in the last two games so for me Ernest Jones’ availability will be a big deal. L.A. has gained at least 30 first downs in each of the last two games, which is really hard to do (the Seahawks have hit the 30 mark twice since 2020).

Offensively, I do ask myself if the Seahawks can keep Sam Darnold off of the ground. Darnold has been sacked 10 times this season but he was sacked 9 times by the Rams in one game last year.

We don’t want to see Darnold panicked and forced into errors, which does go back to your original point about Oluwatimi. However, the matchups between Charles Cross and Abe Lucas against Byron Young (9 sacks) and Jared Verse (34 pressures) could be even more crucial. Verse isn’t having the second season that most expected but his bull rush against Lucas has me a little concerned.

Grant: Speaking of our centers, why’d they put in Cabeldue at the end of the game last week? Is it just a precaution to make sure Olu is healthy for the Rams?

Yeah, I would agree that it just seemed like a precaution. Don’t put it past Grey Zabel to be Seattle’s center of the future, something we knew was possible when the Seahawks drafted him and hasn’t gone away just because he’s played guard so far. Ideally Zabel would stay at guard, but his rookie season hasn’t been so consistently successful that we can rule out a change.

Bob: I know it was sooo two weeks ago but, in the Commanders game, the heavy hand of Pili caused a fumble while playing on the Special Teams kick off squad. That was so cool! I have somehow overlooked (duh) the use of really big dawgs on special teams? It makes sense though. Why go around blockers when one can just go through’m like Godzilla goes through power lines in Tokyo right? Have the kick off rules changes altered the tonnage vs speed ratio on special teams?

Who are the “Commanders”???

You ask interesting questions about the new kickoff rules. Isaac Punts is a great special teams YouTube channel, maybe he will address this for us some day? I can say that Jay Harbaugh has been a revelation. He gives me confidence that if there’s a wrinkle to take advantage of, Seattle has it.

Burgdawg: There was so much talk prior to the start of the season about Stafford’s injury status and the likelihood he’d be at least a little hobbled as the season got started. Not much evidence of that. Curious if there is any discussion coming from the Rams about those earlier concerns or if it was just some misdirection. Also, appreciate your thoughts on whether Darnold will outshine Stafford this week.

I don’t think teams have the luxury of misdirects when it causes the quarterback to miss 90% of training camp. Matthew Stafford has a back injury. Not had. He has one. Maybe they’re shooting him up every morning. Maybe he wakes up in immense pain. Maybe he doesn’t.

I certainly did overestimate the likelihood of Stafford missing games this season. This is one of those cases where it might actually be benefitting the Rams to have a quarterback who is NOT mobile. Stafford doesn’t run, he doesn’t scramble, he barely even moves inside of the pocket. Whereas Jaxson Dart is getting a concussion every week, Stafford’s on a mission to touch the football for as little time as possible.

He barely gets sacked (4.32% rate is as low as Darnold) and he never gets “tackled”. In other words, his back is never whacked.

This does not take him out of the woods — every doctor who commented on the matter said that his back injury will linger for the entire year regardless of how many hits he takes — because it only takes one. But obviously his age and his back are not as big of issues as I erroneously made them out to be.

The Darnold-Stafford debate will be touched on when I write up “5 most important players” for Saturday!

Danno: I was actually not bothered by the Eagles win to take the number one seed. We control our destiny in the division and control our destiny as the number 2 seed. The number 2 seed will play at least two home games in the playoffs, and possibly a third if the one seed loses in the divisional round.

It’s always fun (and exceedingly rare) to see the Seahawks in the top spot of the NFC standings, but ultimately meaningless until it’s actually locked up for sure. If the Seahawks beat the Rams, there’s little holding them back from being the biggest threat in the NFC. If the Seahawks lose to the Rams, not being in first place right now is even less important.

So…beat the Rams!

Seaside Joe 2447