Managed all Seahawks season, Kenneth Walker surges in biggest games of his life
Kenneth Walker is running for more than to get to the Super Bowl.
He’s running for a job.
He’s still just 25 years old. His rookie contract ends as soon as this Seahawks season does.
He’s playing like he doesn’t want either one to finish.
Harnessed in a job share the first four months of his contract season, Walker is running wild at exactly the time Seattle needs him to — and at the time he needs to earn a new deal. The team’s second-round draft choice from 2022 has had three of his four best rushing days of his season during the Seahawks’ four-game push into the NFC championship, Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field (3:30 p.m., FOX television, Channel 13 locally).
Walker had his second 100-yard rushing day of the season Dec. 18 in the Seahawks’ rally win past the Rams. He plowed for 97 yards Jan. 3 at San Francisco, as Seattle won the NFC West and earned the No. 1 playoff seed.
Rested coming off the top-seed bye, Walker went Shaun Alexander on the 49ers in the divisional-playoff rematch. Walker ran over San Francisco for 116 yards on 19 carries Saturday night. He tied the Seahawks postseason record Alexander set in 2004 by rushing for three touchdowns in his team’s 41-6 beat-down of the 49ers last weekend.
“It means a lot,” Walker said of joining the team’s NFL MVP from the mid-2000s in Seattle playoff lore.
“We worked at it all season. I just got to give the credit to the O-line. They had the holes there. And all I had to do was hit it.”
NFL NextGen Stats says Walker gained more yards per carry than expected Saturday, based on where tacklers were, on 63.2% of his runs. He had 34 yards over expected. His average of 6.1 yards per rush was the league’s highest in the four divisional playoff games.
On one of his plows, in the third quarter, Walker’s fellow offensive linemen picked him up and pushed him more than 5 additional yards, in a rugby-like scrum.
Coach Mike Macdonald showed that play to his team in its film review of the game early this week.
“That was awesome,” Macdonald said. “Every yard matters.
“Guys were fired up to watch that one.”
The coach said it was the most decisive Walker has run this Seahawks season. It’s his first in new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak’s 50% run, largely outside-zone scheme.
“It was a heck of a performance,” Macdonald said.
Walker’s third touchdown Saturday night against San Francisco gave Seattle a dominating 34-6 late in the third quarter. After he scored he hopped twice. He flipped the football, like he was shooting a basketball, into the first rows of the stands packed with bouncing, roaring fans behind the south end zone.
It was a relative Las Vegas-like display of gaudy showmanship for the normally understated running back.
Yet Walker is practical, too.
“Shoot, I would do it more,” he said of throwing the ball into the stands to celebrate scores, “but I’ll get fined for it.”
There’s a reason he’s minding his pennies.
Kenneth Walker’s contract
Walker is two wins, in the NFC championship then Super Bowl 60 Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California, or one Seattle loss, from being without a contract. He is becoming eligible for free agency.
It is the first time since early in his years at Arlington High School in Tennessee, a half hour from Memphis, the former Michigan State Spartans star doesn’t know where he’s going to be playing his next football season.
Seahawks general manager John Schneider at the end of last season declined to address Walker’s ending contract with his agents. His history of injuries at the sport’s most injured position is a large reason why.
This week, Walker tried a different tack.
The running back left his previous representation at SportsTrust Advisors. He signed Monday with the Florida-based Aura Sports Group, The News Tribune confirmed from a league source Tuesday.
The new agents’ first task is to get Walker a new contract — with Seattle or another team.
The Seahawks are the only team by league rules that can negotiate with Walker’s new agents between now and free agency beginning in mid-March. After that, he would be on the market for the first time. The more bidders he commands, the higher it would be for the Seahawks to retain him.
The team’s calculus might have changed this week. Zach Charbonnet, the No. 2 back Walker has job-shared this season with, suffered a “significant,” season-ending knee injury against the 49ers Saturday night, Macdonald said Monday. The coach said he thinks it’s an anterior cruciate ligament tear. Charbonnet, signed for one more season beyond this one, is heading to knee surgery. He will have a long recovery that will likely last into next summer and Seahawks training camp.
The rushing options behind Walker for the NFC title game Sunday are fifth-year veteran Velus Jones Jr. and former Rams lead back Cam Akers. Both are on Seattle’s practice squad. Macdonald said there is a chance George Holani returns to practice this week off injured reserve. In order to play Sunday, Holani would have to get added back onto the active roster. He could go into the spot the team could create by putting Charbonnet on injured reserve.
“George is an option, yeah,” Macdonald said Monday of the second-year reserve from Boise State. Walker’s running is taking on more importance with Pro Bowl quarterback Sam Darnold into his second week of managing an oblique injury on his left, non-throwing side. Darnold threw only 17 passes against the 49ers Saturday night. The Seahawks played with the lead the entire game and rushed 33 times for 175 yards.
So, yes, Walker is more valuable to the Seahawks right now than he’s been all season.
In more ways than one.
He is earning $1.86 million in this final season of his rookie contract as the 41st-overall choice in the 2022 draft.
“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, before this season began. “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.”
Sportrac.com estimates Walker’s market value to be a four-year contract worth up to $33.6 million, an average of $8.4 million per year. That’s 15th among NFL running backs.
That was before Charbonnet’s injury.
Walker’s value is rising by the game.
“Yeah, I think Ken has done a heck of a job,” Macdonald said. “ I think you’re seeing the results in the past X amount of weeks now of result of like — we always use the term, but — really stacking all those reps.
“I thought this was the most decisive he’s (run) up to this point,” the coach said of Walker against the 49ers Saturday. “And as expected.
“You just keep getting better and finding ways to improve, especially in the run game.
“He’s done a great job.”
Kenneth Walker’s unique season
This has been a unique — and uniquely managed — season for a guy seeking a new contract.
This is the first regular season of his four-year career he played in every one of Seattle’s 17 games.
Walker ended last season with what all running backs fear, and what happens to most of them at the sport’s most attrited position: Getting hurt. He missed six of 17 games in 2024. He ended last season on injured reserve with a high-ankle sprain.
He had calf and abdominal issues in his first three seasons with the Seahawks. He missed two games in each of his first two seasons.
Last winter into spring, Walker listened to his dad: He 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.
In offseason practices last spring Macdonald and Kennedy Polamalu, Walker’s running backs coach — one of the only returning offensive coaches for the 2025 season — mostly rested Walker. He did not do team scrimmaging, even in shorts and T-shirts, during organized team activities and minicamps in May and June. 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.
He was noticeably full go as training camp began in late July into August. Then his foot began bothering him. He sat out chunks of time later in camp and the preseason. This season began with the Seahawks training and coaching staffs managing Walker’s workload to get him through the season.
Charbonnet spent most of the season with a higher percentage of the offensive snaps. Charbonnet, not Walker, got most of the short-yardage, red-zone and 2-minute-offense snaps. Charbonnet, not Walker, scored 12 rushing touchdowns. Charbonnet, not Walker, became the first Seahawk to score 10 touchdowns in a season since Marshawn Lynch in 2014, Seattle’s last time reaching the Super Bowl.
Walker had 105 yards rushing on just 13 carries with a touchdown in Week 2 when Seattle won at Pittsburgh.
He also had games of 38 yards (New Orleans), 34 (Jacksonville), 29 (Atlanta) and 17 yards (Indianapolis last month). The Seahawks won all those games. They’ve won almost all games. They are 15-3. They’ve won 12 of their last 13 games and eight in a row. They are in their first conference title game in 11 years.
Walker’s plowed on, mostly between the 20-yard lines while Charbonnet got the chances near the goal line. Walker’s three-touchdown breakout last weekend came after Charbonnet got hurt in the first half. Walker had five rushing scores in the first 17 games before that.
Plus, late in the season, Walker’s position coach left the team. Polamalu remains on a leave of absence for unspecified personal reasons. A report out of Houston last week said the Seahawks had parted ways with Polamalu, the long-time college and NFL running backs coach who joined the team before the 2024 season. A league source told The News Tribune last week nothing has changed with the team and Polamalu, that officially he remains on leave from the Seahawks.
Run-game specialist and assistant offensive line coach Justin Outten plus assistant Michael Byrne took over as Walker’s position coaches last month.
Now, in the biggest Seahawks games in 11 years, the managing of Walker’s workload — and him remaining quiet and steady throughout it — is paying off.
It might literally pay off for him in the coming months.
“I know he was working through his foot over the course of the offseason. That was frustrating for him, because of the amount of work that he was putting in,” Macdonald said.
“Hopefully he realizes the dividends that’s paid, that work he put in to really get himself in a good spot up to this point. I’ve seen a guy that’s gotten better through the season.
“You can’t say that about all runners, so that’s a tribute to him and how he’s taking I have taken care of his body.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2026 at 12:48 PM.
