Kenneth Walker is the EPA leader already

Seahawks have a decision to make on Walker's contract if this continues

Well, it took all of four quarters for Kenneth Walker to completely change the narrative about Kenneth Walker from last week to this week:

Walker started Week 2’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers (despite ultimately getting outsnapped by Zach Charbonnet, 36 to 23) and ran for one yard on the first play of the game.

But then he ran for 13 yards on his next attempt.

When Walker returned to the field for Seattle’s third series, he ran for 9 yards on his next carry. Then 3 yards, then he caught a 13-yard pass on third-and-14.

Charbonnet took the next series, but Walker returned to the backfield for the first Seahawks possession of the second half:

• 9 yards

• 15 yards

• (Charbonnet, -1 yard)

• 5 yards

• 5 yards

With Walker as the running back, the Seahawks scored a touchdown on their first drive of both halves. His contribution to those results is debatable to a degree because just like Charbonnet in Week 1, Seattle’s offensive line and play calling may have benefited Walker a little bit more this week.

But that debate was erased when Walker — not Sam Darnold, not Klint Kubiak, and not even Charles Cross — ran for a 19-yard touchdown on third-and-Goal to seal a Seahawks win in the fourth quarter. Give credit where credit is due, Seattle’s offense was better because of Kenneth Walker on Sunday.

That doesn’t mean that Charbonnet is a detriment or a bad complement to Walker. It just means that Walker’s highest gears are on another level — which we’ve known about him since his early college days — and weeks like this are in his wheelhouse:

Walker went way, way, way above every other RB in EPA this week:

And seven days after some were calling for his benching, Walker is the NFL’s overall leader for rushing EPA (estimated points added) by a running back through two weeks:

• Walker, +4.7 EPA

• Javonte Williams, +3.6

• Jacory Croskey-Merritt, +2.7

• James Cook, +1.2

When we talk about Seahawks getting extensions and then shy away from Walker because he’s a running back, there’s reasonable hesitation there just as there would have been for Abe Lucas given his injury history. But Walker is not Rhamondre Stevenson. He’s not Chuba Hubbard. Walker has an extremely high ceiling and while we won’t get to see that every week, no running back is ever that consistent…

Derrick Henry had 11 carries for 23 yards on Sunday.

A couple of days ago, some people didn’t think Walker was worth a bag of magic beans. If Seattle waits it out, or if Walker ends up on another offense, he’s potentially a top-3 running back in the league and getting paid as such.

Will the Seahawks strike before the iron gets too hot, or get burned waiting for a cooling off period?

We had over 100 comments in this week’s post-game Seaside Joe! Let’s review some of them together and talk about Seattle’s past, present and future.

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Seaside Joe comment tip of the day!

IdahoFred: If you didn't already know you can download a game book with all the stats and plays. Go to the NFL page and click on the the Seattle-Pittsburgh score. It's not up yet but it should be soon. At the bottom of the game page is a game book link. Click on it and it will download and you have all the game information except snap counts. Go back the day after a game and redo it and it will have the snap counts. The game wasn't on in Idaho where I am so I will have to read about how awesome it was.

And here’s a direct link to the Seahawks-Steelers game book. One of the coolest features here is getting the quarter and half statistics, which you won’t see in a box score unless you calculate it yourself. You can also really tell how much the Seahawks dominated this game despite it being close in the second half with numbers like this…

15+ yard plays:

• Seahawks, 10

• Steelers, 3

Explosive plays win football games.

The Steelers had eight drives in this game in which they were trailing when they had possession, which is six more drives than the Seahawks. Yeah, I kind of think Pittsburgh might be a bad team, but at least Seattle went on the road and overwhelmed that bad team.

Thanks for the tip, IdahoFred. A good reminder to all that there are great pieces of information to be found in our comments section!

Danno: Jay H could be special teams coach of the year if the improvement continues.

We’ve gone 180 degrees on Jay Harbaugh, Cooper Kupp, and Kenneth Walker III. Who’s next? ANTHONY BRADFORD???

Stu Wilson: Loved Hall and Jobe. Woolen is playing himself to the sidelines.

Josh Jobe seems to have played himself into starter territory and Mike Macdonald says that both Devon Witherspoon and Nick Emmanwori have a chance to practice this week and return to face the Saints. Witherspoon would not necessarily need to practice, according to Macdonald, but Emmanwori would.

Week 1 snap counts:

• Woolen, 100%

• Jobe, 80%

Week 2 snap counts:

• Jobe, 97%

• Woolen, 95%

We know that Witherspoon’s injury necessitated more playing time for someone, but was it Jobe or Woolen? We’ll find out if Witherspoon returns this week.

Rusty: I hope by mid-season the Oline works out the kinks. Still too much inconsistency. They make a great play, then let someone into the backfield untouched.

If we’re getting one offensive lineman who is having himself a start, it’s Charles Cross.

When a team drafts a player in the top-10, especially slower-developing positions like tackle, patience is of the utmost importance. Will Cross become a top-5 left tackle, if he’s not already? That’s still up in the air. But when you draft a tackle in the top-10 and are patient with him and upgrade his coaching support, such ceilings are possible.

It’s also fair to be high on Grey Zabel’s start, although he has been more inconsistent than Cross.

Chris H: Abe Lucas did not have a great day. I'm not sure what he'll grade out, but Watt was beating him to the outside repeatedly. There were a number of jail breaks inside too. But Sam hung in there, and limited additional mistakes in the second half. Abe had Bosa last week, and Watt this week, so he's in tough for sure. I can't be too critical of him.

Not gonna say he should be way behind the 8-ball either, but instead of getting the experience of learning how to play against top-tier pass rushers in the past two seasons, Lucas instead missed 21 possible starts.

As you note, really good tests here right off of the bat and hopefully he’s finally learning what the right counterpunches are in the future.

Paul G: “A.J. Barner caught the first touchdown of the game.” Horton, wasn’t it?

I stand corrected, I got my opening drive touchdowns flipped. The Seahawks not only ended their streak of not having an opening game touchdown drive, they also scored a touchdown on their first drive of the second half. That one was to Barner.

Stephen Pitell: The pass rush was the difference between winning and losing this game, and most playoff games, and usually, the winner of the SB is the team with the better pass rush. We might have one of the best pass rushing teams in the NFL. Tight coverage of the receivers contributes to allowing the pass rush to get to the QB. We saw that today, and all the DB's played quite well today it seemed, given the camera angles don't show everything that's going on.

Although he doesn’t have any sacks to show for it, Derick Hall’s 9 pressures ranks in a tie as the seventh-most in the NFL through two weeks according to Next Gen Stats. That’s a pressure rate of 21.4% (9 pressures, 42 pass rushes) and that mark is in the top-10 in a very young season. Hall’s holding penalty drawn was essentially as good as a sack.

Boye Mafe has eight pressures and no sacks, a pressure rate of 18.2%.

DeMarcus Lawrence played fewer snaps than Mafe but more than Hall. Lawrence has 5 pressures and a rate of 11.9%. I don’t have an exact number to represent this, but Lawrence was signed more for run defense so that’s presumably what keeps him on the field over Hall.

But nobody in that area other than Leonard Williams has been more impactful than Byron Murphy II:

• 53 pass rushing snaps

• 8 pressures

• 15.1% pressure rate from the defensive tackle position!

• 1.5 sacks

• 4 QB hits

Cross has the potential to be a top-5 left tackle and Murphy has the potential to be a top-5 defensive tackle and both have played up to their draft positions through two weeks of this season. I wouldn’t say you have to have high draft picks to build a good team, but it helps a lot when you have those picks and they start to hit.

Stephen LeGrand: Sam Darnold had such a strong second half that now I feel guilty about doubting him. I also think K.K started to dial it in. Gotta love the tight end direct snap TD and also Robbie Ouzts just being out there.

I feel like we all made a silent agreement to give all the new offensive pieces at least a few weeks to find their footing, if not the entire first half of the schedule. If the Seahawks can score 24 offensive points on the road this early in the season, maybe we can cut that patience time in half!

Speaking of Ouzts, here he is laying out two linebackers with one block:

And that’s why you draft a fullback in the fifth round.

zezinhom400: On NFL.Com's website this morning, there's a piece called "Six early-season surprises". #1 surprise on their list: SEATTLE'S DEFENSE! Made my little heart go pitter pat.

That is a welcome bit of praise for the Seahawks by Judy Battista, but really…she’s surprised by the defense? Seattle hired the #1 defensive coordinator in the NFL to be their head coach in 2024, they ranked 11th in scoring defense and 5th in points per drive allowed last season, they returned something like 13 of their top-15 players on defense from last year, and they became a completely different run defense unit with the Ernest Jones addition at midseason…

There are surprises on the Seahawks, I would have never guessed that it’s supposed to be their defense. We were pretty sure that Seattle had relatively decent odds to be the number one defense overall.

Hey everyone, don’t forget we have a live game chat every week when the Seahawks are on. Join us next week!

Hawkdawg: That play Darnold made to spin around under pressure and convert a third and 9 to Barner while deep in his own end was next level. He was also accurate on crossing routes over the middle into tight windows. Overall, I like what he showed today a lot, definitely more than last week.

And the Vikings should regret letting Darnold walk more than they would have ever regretted letting Kirk Cousins walk. I understand that once you draft J.J. McCarthy in 2024, you kind of set yourself up to make a change in 2025, but once they had all the information going into free agency, I think Minnesota should have adjusted the plan:

Instead of going to year 2 with Darnold on a Super Bowl-contending team, you’re going into year 1 with McCarthy with a team that only contends for the Super Bowl if the QB is a) good and b) healthy. They couldn’t guarantee either with McCarthy and not only has he played poorly, he’s going to miss 2-4 weeks with a high ankle sprain.

By not re-signing Darnold, the Vikings allowed the Seahawks to pivot and give Klint Kubiak a quarterback who he knows can run the offense he wants to run. Sometimes you have to get lucky on the market, same as getting lucky in a game setting.

Mike McD: I thought and think Sam Darnold is fine. He made some really bad plays. His first pick is very bad and should never happen. His second pick was also bad in that it gave the Steelers free yards on the pick and I’m not sure what he was trying to do.

On the second interception, he had a wide open tight end on the other side of Cam Heyward. If he loops it over Heyward on fourth down, he gets a first down pass and is the hero. If he takes a sack, it’s a turnover. He’s not expecting that a batted ball will definitely result in an interception. It was an attempt that Darnold would like a do-over on for sure, and Heyward is a borderline Hall of Fame player, but I think we all know what he was trying to do.

Shaymus McFamous: I certainly hope all the teams did NOT learn a lesson about the new kickoff rules today, because that rule has been around since before I learned what football was back in 1980. Kickoffs have always been live balls, whether touched by the returning team or not. Nothing has changed about that with the new rules.

I think what’s confusing most people is the fact that there is now a “landing zone” between the 0-20. In the past, you would have never thought to let a ball bounce if it was going to land at the 5. Conversely, the kicking team would have never thought to kick it short of the end zone on purpose.

A lot of brains — including my own — have been muddled by this “landing zone” that essentially encourages teams to avoid touchbacks because they don’t want to give up the ball at the 35 when they can possibly keep teams to the 20-30 instead. Clearly a lot of brains were muddled on Sunday.

Tim McConnell: The NFC West is undefeated against every other division.

This is true, although I have thought about this:

• Cardinals have beaten the Saints (terrible) and Panthers (terrible)

• Rams have beaten the Texans (???) and Titans (last year’s worst team)

• 49ers have beaten the Saints

• Seahawks have beaten the Steelers

Saints and Panthers potentially competing for the number one pick in 2026. I think you have to respect what the Titans have looked like early this season, but they could also be one of the worst teams in the league. I have my doubts about the Texans and Steelers.

Next week, the Cardinals and 49ers face each other (so neither of them will break the streak) and the Rams face the Eagles. The Seahawks will be the third team to face the Saints.

Essentially the first big test of the division this year is Rams-Eagles. I think we know where most Seahawks fans’ rooting interests lie in that game.

Seaside Joe 2387