How does fresh, healthy Kenneth Walker feel about new Seahawks’ offense -- and his contract?
Kenneth Walker appears to be entering a perfect situation for the final year of his contract.
He’s healthy again. He’s the lead running back in a remade offense.
And his head coach hired a play caller while giving that new offensive coordinator a clear mandate: Give Walker the ball to run more in 2025.
More opportunity to do what he does best. More chances to make more money, be it in Seattle or somewhere else in 2026.
Yet the Seahawks’ number-one running back insisted seven practices into the final training camp of his rookie contract he’s not seeing it that way.
Wednesday the News Tribune asked Walker, still just 24, how much his future and his contract, his chance at his first huge payday in the NFL, is a factor to him right now.
“Yeah, with that part, honestly, I just want to be positive, and keep my mind on football and not contract and all that,” Walker said. “I really just want to make a positive impact on my team and go out there and play to the best of my ability. And that’s what I’ve been wanting to do since my rookie year to now.
“So I’m gonna just keep that same mindset and not worry about everything, like contract and everything.”
As for the part about new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak’s vow to run the football, which ultimately means more chances for Walker to earn more money for next year and beyond, Walker conceded more is better for him right now.
“I feel like that’s just more opportunities, you know, me to show what I can do on the field. Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” he said.
Walker said Seahawks general manager John Schneider, who received a four-year contract extension through 2030 on Wednesday, has not talked to the running back’s agent about a possible new contract to stay in Seattle beyond 2025.
“No,” Walker said, “not that I know of.”
Fresh, healthy Kenneth Walker
Walker ended last season with what all running backs fear, and what happens to most of them: Getting hurt. He missed six of 17 games in 2024, including the final two weeks, with an injured ankle.
He’s also had calf and abdominal issues in his first three NFL seasons with the Seahawks. He’s yet to play a complete season. He missed two games in each of his first two seasons. Schneider and then-coach Pete Carroll drafted him in the second round of the 2022 NFL draft, out of Michigan State.
This winter and spring, Walker listened to his dad and improved his diet. He began eating “cleaner” food, he says. He began ensuring he got eight hours of sleep each night, going to bed at 10 p.m. instead of 1 a.m.
This spring, coach Mike Macdonald and Kennedy Polamalu, Walker’s running backs coach — one of the only returning offensive coaches this season — mostly rested Walker. He did not do team scrimmaging, even in shorts and T-shirts, during organized team activities in May and June plus Seattle’s mandatory minicamp last month. Walker walked behind his offensive linemen to visualize the run fits by his blockers in Kubiak’s outside-zone running game new to the Seahawks for 2025.
Yet from the first practice of training camp last week, Walker has been full go. He was in full pads as the lead back in team scrimmaging Monday, the Seahawks’ first in shoulder pads this summer. Coaches did give Walker a rest day Tuesday, as they do routinely throughout camp with veteran starters.
Walker being full-go in this camp has been noticeable. There have been many previous camps he’s been limited, or paced, to preserve him for the regular season.
But now he has to learn his new quarterback, Sam Darnold. He has to learn the timing with his offensive linemen, three of which may be new on the five-man line this season. He has to learn the mesh points with their blocks in Kubiak’s new scheme. He can’t do that mothballed, watching.
Walker’s task this training camp: Perfect the new timing of outside zone. The system requires linemen to “run off the ball,” the phrase Kubiak and Macdonald recite like mantra. The blockers don’t block the first man they see but run laterally, to an assigned area. The ball carrier must time his run to and cut off those blockers quickly. The linemen aren’t at the point of attack long before they move on to blocking linebackers down the field.
Walker has often hesitated, waited and changed directions in the backfields that have been full of opponents through Seattle’s porous line the last few seasons. That — the hesitation and Seattle’s porous offensive line — must end for Kubiak’s new offense and thus the Seahawks to succeed in 2025.
“I think Ken could fit in just about any style,” Kubiak said. “He’s a talented player. “So I’m really excited about him in this zone scheme. But I’ve seen Ken, in all schemes, play really good football. I’ve seen the guy catch the ball well out of the backfield, which I think is really important for our backs that we utilize them.
“Obviously, whatever we can do to get him touches, throwing him routes out of the backfield, throwing him screens, get the ball in their hands...looking forward to him in this scheme.”
Then, Kubiak added: “We’re going to ask a lot out of him.”
So far, so really good for Walker.
If that continues, the contract situation will take care of itself. And him.
“He looks great. He’s in a great spot, mentally,” Macdonald said. “Just awesome seeing him do all the things that we wanted him to do from the get go. I know he’s really excited about what’s going on.
“Great (start) with Ken.”
This story was originally published July 30, 2025 at 5:22 PM.
