Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III is a unique talent when healthy as one of the most explosive rushers in the NFL. The health part, however, has been the biggest struggle, missing a combined 10 games during his three seasons in the league.
Last season, Walker was the least effective he's been in his career, even when he was on the field, picking up just 3.7 yards per rush to post a career-low 573 rushing yards and seven touchdowns. Walker, still just 24, is only two years removed from a 4.6 yards per attempt average and 1,050 yards on the ground in 2022.
Fantasy Life's Ian Hartitz released a graph that charted yards after contact per carry in conjunction with tackles avoided per carry, illustrating just how unique Walker is with the ball in his hands. Walker was on an island of his own, dodging by far the most tackles per carry of any ballcarrier last season with at least 120 rushes.
To simplify the visual: The bottom left is bad, and the top right is good. Walker was in the middle of the pack in yards after contact, but avoided tackles at a rate more than 5 percent higher than the next closest player. In practice, this is because Walker was regularly getting hit behind the line of scrimmage and picking up a few yards after shaking would-be tacklers.
However, it didn't actually result in a higher success rate. While the offensive line is to blame for much of Walker's struggles, backup running back Zach Charbonnet stepped in and rushed 135 times for 569 yards (4.2 yards per carry) and eight touchdowns. Charbonnet is a more decisive runner, following his blocks and generally lingering behind the line of scrimmage less than Walker.
As a rookie, Walker led the NFL (in a bad way) with a 14.47 percent tackle for loss rate, per Sumer Sports. Last season, he had the fourth-highest rate in the league at 13.07 percent — an improvement, sure, but far from emblematic of an effective run game.
Walker's explosive play rate plummeted 11.84 percent as a rookie (13th in the NFL) to just 7.19 percent in 2024 (43rd). He consistently tries to bounce runs outside, but the successful attempts are becoming less and less frequent, especially when he isn't fully healthy. Thus, he's breaking tackles and picking up yards after contact, but it isn't translating to actual raw production.
Two things can be true: Walker needs to become a more disciplined runner, and the offensive line must be more consistent to open up lanes for the fourth-year rusher. Only then will the Seahawks be able to see what his true ceiling is in the NFL, and his athleticism suggests it is high.
