The talk heading into the NFL offseason was that the Kansas City Chiefs needed to add weapons for quarterback Patrick Mahomes. With Travis Kelce's NFL career heading toward an end — likely after the 2026 season — and the team's attempts to find wide receiver help (mostly) coming up empty, KC needed to figure something out to help get the team back to the Super Bowl. Mahomes is still an elite quarterback, but he's in his early 30s now. He needs more help than he did earlier in his career.
Enter Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker. The former Seattle Seahawks running back heads to Kansas City this offseason and looks to radically change the way this franchise operates. Mahomes hasn't had a running back as good as Walker before, so what can Chiefs fans expect out of this move?
What Kenneth Walker brings to the Chiefs
Walker arrives in Kansas City after four seasons with the Seahawks, rushing for over 1,000 yards in two of those campaigns and finishing with over 850 scrimmage yards each year, even factoring in a six-game absence in 2024. Last season, Walker averaged 4.6 yards per carry; Chiefs leading rusher Kareem Hunt, for comparison's sake, averaged 3.7 last season and hasn't averaged over four yards per carry since 2021.
So right away, you see that the Chiefs are getting a running back who is capable of producing yards in a way that the 2025 cast of backs in Kansas City were unable to.
Part of why Walker is able to average almost a full extra yard per carry over Hunt is his elusiveness. Walker led all NFL running backs in juke rate last season and was third in breakaway runs and sixth in evaded tackles. The Chiefs theoretically had a guy in Isiah Pacheco who could break tackles, but not someone who could avoid them.
Player | 2025 Positional Rank In Avoided Tackles |
|---|---|
Kenneth Walker | 6th |
Kareem Hunt | 42nd |
Isiah Pacheco | 59th |
We still have to see if Walker can keep up this efficiency in a larger role, as he played under 50 percent of Seattle's regular-season snaps due to splitting touches with Zach Charbonnet, so it's possible there's a dip in yards per carry, but even a slight drop there wouldn't negate the fact that the Chiefs are getting a running back capable of doing things with the ball that their previous backs just couldn't do.
Mahomes hasn't had this kind of running back before
The Chiefs have been very reliant on the passing game during the Mahomes era. I won't say it's at the expense of the run game, because the Chiefs have tried to fix their run-game issues, including using a first-round pick on the position in 2020. The issue has just been that Kansas City has struggled to actually bring in guys who are actually, well...good?
Season | Leading Rusher |
|---|---|
2018 | Kareem Hunt |
2019 | Damien Williams |
2020 | Clyde Edwards-Helaire |
2021 | Darrel Williams |
2022 | Isiah Pacheco |
2023 | Isiah Pacheco |
2024 | Kareem Hunt |
2025 | Kareem Hunt |
Now look: I don't actually think these guys are bad football players. I just don't think they're the kind of players who should be the No. 1 running back for a team, and for the last few years, they weren't, as Pacheco and Hunt traded off those duties. The problem was that they were flawed players in some way, and they limited what the team could accomplish when they were on the field.
Mahomes has had to shoulder extra workload in Kansas City because he didn't have a top-level running back to fall back on. The team's big swing at finding him that kind of guy — using a first-round pick on Clyde Edwards-Helaire — blew up fairly fast, and I imagine played a role in the team basically going searching in the value bin for running backs over the past few years. Pacheco was a late-round pick. Hunt was a former Chief who returned because the team needed a body, something we've seen a few times in regards to skill position players during Brett Veach's tenure as general manager.
Projecting what the 2026 Chiefs offense looks like
With Walker in tow, what can we actually expect the Chiefs to look like in 2026?
While Mahomes hasn't played with a top-10 running back in the league, head coach Andy Reid has coached guys like that before. He had four seasons paired with Jamaal Charles in Kansas City, and the Chiefs won 11 or more games three times while ranking top 10 in rushing yards and touchdowns in the first three seasons that the duo was together.
But that was with an elite running back and a not-elite quarterback. We have to go back to his Eagles years to find examples of his team ranking among the best teams in both passing and rushing, and that was with a prime LeSean McCoy. I don't think Walker is prime LeSean McCoy. Ultimately, then, it's hard to find a direct comparison in Reid's past to what we'll see in 2026. So, it's time to speculate!
One thing I'd expect to see is balance. Not, like, full balance, but the Chiefs threw the seventh-most passes last season while having the eighth-fewest rushing attempts. The team will be able to lean on the run more often, and I think when they lean on the run will be important here.
I'm not saying the Chiefs will go with some old-school approach of running on first down every series, but I do think the team will have more confidence in giving Walker the ball in situations where in previous years, Mahomes would have kept it. Of course, we don't totally know how true this will be until we see what the Chiefs do in the NFL Draft — if KC drafts a wide receiver with one of its two first-round picks, maybe that changes things. However, I don't think you sign a guy like Walker if you're not going to give him a sizable role in the offense.
Are the Chiefs Super Bowl contenders with Walker?
Now for the big question: does Walker make the Chiefs into title contenders?
I think the answer has to be "yes," but with the caveat that any team quarterbacked by a healthy Mahomes should be a contender. 2025 was a weird year, but assuming Mahomes is ready to go at the start of the 2026 season, Kansas City should be battling for the AFC West crown again.
What adding Walker does is it gives the Chiefs a higher floor and ceiling. Drives won't necessarily end as quickly due to Hunt or Pacheco being stuffed on third down (though getting rid of the penalty machine that is Jawaan Taylor might be a bigger advantage to keeping drives alive), allowing Kansas City more opportunities to score and, thus, increasing its chances of winning games.
So while Walker alone isn't the reason the Chiefs might walk away with a 2026 championship, he's a big part of the equation. This move allows Reid to really open up the Chiefs' playbook in a way he hasn't been able to do with the team's recent mix of running backs.