Kenneth Walker III free agency

The Seahawks should franchise tag Kenneth Walker III and that's it

There’s a clear logic to placing the franchise tag on a running back because if you love the player but you fear the threat of a devastating injury then you’re paying for exactly one more year of service. In 2023, Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, and Tony Pollard all received the franchise tag, presumably proving that this is the way for teams to go. Except for one flaw.

Barkley isn’t a Giant, Jacobs isn’t a Raider, and Pollard isn’t a Cowboy.

All losing teams, by the way. All teams that weren’t even supporting a running back. The Seahawks are not a losing team and they could support a running back, but maybe that player won’t be Kenneth Walker III.

As I’ve been saying, I had to pre-write some newsletters to go on a trip and of course the first one I wrote was about Walker’s free agency and of course I said that I would expect him to get tagged. Seattle isn’t quite a “we like to tag free agents” team though and according to a report by Adam Schefter they won’t break that for Walker.

So what will happen?

Programming reminder: Seaside Joe went out of town for almost two weeks, but the newsletter streak continues unfettered! If news breaks while I’m away that alters the points in the article, I apologize for that. I hope to be able to do updates while I’m on vacation, but just in case that’s why I might not be 100% updated. It just means everything to me to stick to the commitment I made to you to post about the Seahawks every day.

The upside

Projected at $14.5 million for a running back, putting the franchise tag on Walker would allow the Seahawks to control his rights for 2026 and hold off on an extension that would be twice as expensive.

James Cook, drafted the same year and round as Walker, signed a four-year, $46 million extension with the Bills in 2025 that paid $30 million guaranteed.

Cook only has a $5.8 million cap hit in 2026, then $13 and $13.5 million in 2027 and 2028, then $14.3 million in 2029. From that perspective, it could make sense for Seattle to offer Walker the same deal and then he will never have a cap hit higher than the franchise tag in 2026.

That’s the upside to extending Walker, strictly from a contractual point of view: He’d be an All-Pro caliber player for a low-ish cap hit next season.

Walker doesn’t fumble, his legs are fresh, and he’s super talented.

The downside

The downside to an extension is that if Walker suffers a major injury in 2026, as running backs are prone to having, the Seahawks are going to be on the hook for twice as much guaranteed money. And it’s a contract that simply isn’t necessary unless:

• A) Walker is being very easygoing and wants to return to Seattle for the lowest reasonable amount possible

• B) The Seahawks want to use the franchise tag on somebody else (they don’t’)

The first part would be surprising because Walker just won Super Bowl MVP and has made $8.4 million over four seasons and he’s got heat on him. This is likely the only major pay day of Walker’s entire career. If Walker becomes a free agent, it’s reasonable to expect that a team would make him the highest-paid running back in the league.

Not because he’s better than Barkley or Christian McCaffrey, but because he’d be available.

It is “availability” and not just “ability” that makes players the highest-paid players at their position.

For part two, the Seahawks haven’t tagged anyone since Frank Clark in 2019 and that was just so they could trade him and it sounds like that streak will continue.

It’s hard to imagine that Walker would return next season and just stink at football. Seattle has hired Brian Fleury as offensive coordinator, a coach with a specific tilt towards the run game, so it feels like the Seahawks are a great opportunity for a running back. Maybe that’s also why Schneider doesn’t want to allocate so much money to the position no matter who the player is.

The ultimate question

There’s really only one question that John Schneider needs to answer here: “Are there any circumstances in which you would you pay a running back $14.5 million?”

If there is ANY circumstance for it, then it’s probably a 25-year-old Super Bowl MVP who does not fumble the ball, hasn’t had any major lower-body injuries, and doesn’t have any off-field issues.

If the Seahawks do not tag or re-sign Walker, then it means that Schneider would never pay a running back significant money. (The last time he did, Marshawn Lynch signed a 2015 extension and then played seven more games before he was released.)

If the Seahawks would pay Walker, a tag carries the least amount of long-term risk but also does the most damage to what Seattle can do with their available cash and cap in 2026.

Prediction: Let him test free agency and give chance to match

It is not easy to predict a franchise tag because it almost never happens (this newsletter’s daily streak started the same week that Clark was tagged) but I thought the perfect storm had brewed here for the Seahawks fourth tag since 2005. I guess not.

If Walker re-signs, I wonder if Schneider convinced his agent to accept a deal that’s more in line with the player he was for most of the season, not the player he was in the playoffs, and “does your client want to win another Super Bowl?”

Well, if I was Walker’s agent, I would balk at that. “Pay my client for winning Super Bowl MVP, not for being half of a duo.”

That’s what agents are supposed to do!

I really don’t like the idea of the Seahawks losing Walker, but there’s a lot of apparent momentum building here for him to hit free agency and find a team that really needs to sell some entertainment to fans next season. So is that the Giants? The Moons? The Texans? The Jaguars?

Seattle will probably say “Go try and tell us what they’re offering and we’ll see what we can do” but if Walker hits the market he’s probably not coming back.

Seaside Joe 2544