Already the last season for a fan favorite?

How likely is it that Seahawks will part ways with a 25-year-old starter?

Do you know who got the most first place votes for the 2022 Offensive Rookie of the Year award? It wasn’t winner Garrett Wilson. It was runner-up Kenneth Walker III.

Walker doesn’t lose many races but he lost that one and to date 2022 is still his only career 1,000-yard season. Although Walker has improved in some respects (2024 saw a career-high in catches and receiving yards despite playing in fewer games) and he’s had a decent start in the Klint Kubiak era, gaining at least 80 rushing yards on three occasions, even fans like me who have been promising a breakout season have to admit it:

Kenneth Walker is really good but if the price to keep him is over $10 million per season, it could be in Seattle’s best interest to hit the reset button at running back in next year’s draft.

Walker’s 2025 season

Through six weeks, Walker ranks 18th in rushing yards per game (60.7), 17th in yards per carry (4.7), 22nd in first down runs (17), and 34th in success rate (46.2%). Just compare Walker to 7th round rookie Jacory Croskey-Merritt:

• Walker: 78 att, 364 yards, 3 TD, 4.7 YPC, 46.2% success rate

• Croskey-Merritt: 60 att, 344 yards, 4 TD, 5.7 YPC, 65% success rate

Yeah they are different players on different teams. Croskey-Merritt may not be having the same success in Seattle as he’s had in Washington. But if the Seahawks would save $9 million in 2026 by letting Walker leave in free agency, turning the reins over to Zach Charbonnet, and drafting another back, is that a safer bet than re-signing or franchise tagging Walker?

To this point, Seahawks fans have experienced all the familiar highs and lows of the Walker experience in 2025:

• 13 carries for 105 yards in Week 2, 10 carries for 86 yards in Week 5

• 10 carries for 20 yards in Week 1, 10 carries for 34 yards in Week 6

The thing that I love the most about Walker is that he’s got the best ball security of any running back in the entire league. If memory serves, Walker didn’t fumble a single time in college (it was one at most) and he has only fumbled twice in 47 career NFL games.

Turn that around on Kyren Williams, who the Rams recently extended for $11 million per season, and he’s already fumbled twice this season. His fumble against the 49ers in Week 5 directly led to a loss.

What would you pay for that kind of ball security? Well, lucky for Seattle, Charbonnet has zero career fumbles on 382 career touches.

Even if Charbonnet’s season appears to be underwhelming at 2.6 yards per carry, it is not necessarily an “either/or” situation that only impacts the future of Walker. The Seahawks do not have to pay Walker because they’re afraid of starting Charbonnet; there are many other options out there besides just Charbonnet.

Do you trust Zach Charbonnet?

Where is Walker in the 2026 RB market?

If Walker is treated like he’s a pretty good starting running back, the apparant salary floor is D’Andre Swift at $8 million AAV with a ceiling of Josh Jacobs at $12 million AAV. There are players below (Najee Harris at $5.25m) and above (Jonathan Taylor at $14m), but I’m looking directly at a non-biased evaluation of Walker’s career-to-date:

He’s not bad. He’s also not great. Harris had four straight 1,000-yard seasons with the Steelers and he had almost no serious suitors.

If you’re not personally attached to Walker like I am—this is a guy who I spent many days researching and admiring in the 2022 offseason—then how confident are you that Walker is still ahead of his best seasons as an NFL player? If I’m being totally objective, I see a running back who over his last 17 games has had:

• 937 rushing yards

• 4.1 yards per carry

• 360 receiving yards

• 45% success rate

• at least one serious injury that we know about

The Seahawks obviously don’t fully trust him on third down and goal line situations. He’s scored 11 touchdowns (10 rushing) since the start of 2024. He can break off a huge run, his burst is as impressive as anyone’s, but through four years we’ve rarely (if ever) seen the Kenneth Walker III who was so unstoppable at Michigan State in 2021.

Barring a breakout happening in the next 11 games+playoffs, I don’t see how Walker can be prioritized by the Seahawks. I don’t see a running back who will necessarily be the first phone call on the free agent market either. Here are the pending 2026 free agents at running back:

• Breece Hall (11th in rushing)

• Javonte Williams (4th in rushing)

• Rico Dowdle (5th in rushing)

• JK Dobbins (7th in rushing)

• Travis Etienne (6th in rushing)

• Nick Chubb

• Isiah Pacheco

• Najee Harris

• Kenneth Gainwell

Off the jump, you see that four of the top-7 backs in rushing yards are pending free agents, and Walker is probably no better than the 5th or 6th-best running back in the class. This order could and will change a lot between now and the end of the season, but it’s not like these other options are slouches: Hall was drafted over Walker; Etienne was a first rounder; Williams and Dobbins were second rounders; what Dowdle has done in the last two games is remarkable.

Dowdle’s last 2 games are what I’ve been waiting to see one time from Walker.

If free agency opened tomorrow, I would be shocked if Walker was a “plan A” for teams on the market for a running back.

In Walker’s defense

Please consider the source: I am a HUGE FAN of Kenneth Walker.

In spite of that adoration, even I have to question if the Seahawks are a good fit or not. Is Walker’s average production since 2023 a product of poor health, bad system fit, mediocre run blocking, or opposing defenses stacking the box to stop the run?

The answer is usually a combination of all answers, right?

One of the most fascinating numbers to come out of Next Gen Stats this week is this:

Kenneth Walker and De’Von Achane are tied for the NFL lead with 27 runs of 15+ MPH. No other player has more than 22 and no other running back has more than 20.

(Justin Fields, Patrick Mahomes, and Josh Allen have 21-22 such runs. Jahmyr Gibbs is next at 20 runs.)

Walker’s lack of great rushing numbers does not appear to be a lack or depletion of speed and athleticism.

Where he goes wrong

On 27 runs inside the tackles, Walker has averaged 4.1 yards per carry and has just 3 runs of 15+ MPH. On 51 runs outside of the tackles, Walker is averaging 5.0 YPC and has 24 runs of 15+ MPH. Unsurprisingly, Walker can get up to speed when he is tasked with hitting the edges. Inside the tackles, Walker is often criticized for “dancing too much” and taking bad angles.

Whether that’s a narrative or has empirical data to support it, I don’t know. But it is abundantly clear that Walker’s strengths as a running back are LIMITED.

Compare those numbers to All-Pro Jonathan Taylor, a running back I really, really wanted Walker to emulate one day:

• 64 runs inside the tackles: 5.3 YPC

• 51 runs outside the tackles: 5.2 YPC

For a running back to be considered worthy of a lucrative extension, you would expect him to stay on the field for third down. You would expect him to get the all inside the 10. You would expect him to be valuable on calls inside and runs outside. You would expect him to create some yards and first downs absent great run blocking.

It does not seem like Seattle trusts or can trust Walker to do any of those things consistently.

Although Walker is averaging 11 attempts per broken tackle, according to Pro-Football-Reference, that number is merely good and ranks 17th. Walker has never averaged better than 10 attempts per broken tackle, but this season you have rookies like Omarion Hampton and Ashton Jeanty at 7.0 or better.

They were first round picks, but Croskey-Merritt is at 8.6.

Walker has consistently been a good running back, certainly someone who helps Seattle more than he hurts them, but the bar to be “irrepleaceable” at running back is potentially higher than it is at any other position. Teams constantly let free agents hit the market (Williams, Dowdle, and Dobbins are all cheap free agent signings) and that makes it harder to keep players like Walker than it does make it scary to let them walk.

Given that the Seahawks drafted Charbonnet a year later and that John Schneider knows how many available options there are going to be in 2026, fans have to be prepared for this being Walker’s Seattle swan song.

How much would you miss Kenneth Walker?

Will Seahawks draft a running back in 2026?

As I noted last week, the Seahawks may be in a unique position to draft without any positional needs whatsoever simply because of how many starters are signed through 2026 at least. Could Seattle end up debating a running back with their first pick, same as the Raiders taking Jeanty and the Chargers taking Hampton?

Here are Mel Kiper’s top-10 backs for 2026 and if you hate that name for some reason, don’t worry about the order…this is just 10 names to know:

At NFL Draft Buzz, Love is the only running back ranked in the top-60 prospects overall, and he’s 10th. Local product Jonah Coleman of Washington is second on that list. That implies that unless Seattle does something crazy with Jeremiyah Love — there’s very little chance of it, so don’t get too worked up — this gives Schneider something to think about on day 2.

It may only take a great combine or pro day for another name to get consideration in the first round, but it would seem out of character for Schneider to over-draft a running back with Pete Carroll now down in Las Vegas.

That being said, it may not be that surprising if the Seahawks part ways with Walker, sign a free agent, and let a battle play out between Charbonnet, George Holani, the free agent, and someone drafted on day three. Maybe day two.

As we get close to the middle of the season, unfortunately nothing we’ve seen from Walker suggests a second contract. That’s a shame, but not as big of a shame as it would be to spend salary cap on nostalgia for the past.

Seaside Joe 2417