Get your popcorn, because the Kenneth Walker III revenge game is going to be absolute cinema on Sunday Night Football. The Seattle Seahawks face the Kansas City Chiefs in prime time, and the former is about to realize how badly they messed up in letting their Super Bowl MVP walk in free agency.
Head coach Mike Macdonald met with the media Thursday and sounded just a tad envious of the fact that one of the best rushers in the league is no longer on his roster.
"Ken’s playing really great football,” Macdonald said in an interview on SirusXM NFL Radio. "I think it’s a combination of, you see the stats and you’re like, man, that’s a lot of stats. And then you turn the tape on and see how they’re playing and how he’s playing and you’re like, ‘That makes sense. No one has tackled this guy yet.’ It’s the things we knew about Ken, that he does really well. He’s so strong, he’s decisive, he’s got great vision. He’s also come alive in the pass game. They’re doing a great job with him. He’s playing probably at the highest level in the league right now.”
Walker currently has 665 rushing yards on 106 carries and six touchdowns this season, which is on pace to break Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson's record for single-season rush yards (2,105) and Chris Johnson's record for single-season scrimmage yards (2,509). The Seahawks' cumulative rushing total (nine different players) is 643 yards.
Seahawks are ruing the day they failed to re-sign Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker
Seattle is sitting at a disappointing 3-3 and having to navigate multiple injuries to its running back room. Zach Charbonnet, once Walker's backup and expected to be this year's starter, still has yet to take his first touches of the season as he recovers from a torn ACL. Rookie Jadarian Price suffered a chest injury in Week 2 and is still on IR.
Kansas City, on the other hand, is undefeated — and largely because of Walker's efforts, as the injury bug has taken down most of QB Patrick Mahomes' receiving corps. Walker is responsible for 36 percent of the Chiefs' offensive yards and 34 percent of the team's total points scored this season. That's the definition of MVP impact.
And the Seahawks could've had him back and avoided the post-Super Bowl slump. Walker signed for just over $43 million this offseason, locking him down in Kansas City for three years. It's unclear if Seattle wasn't willing to play ball at that kind of price point or if Walker simply wanted a change of scenery after winning it all. Whatever it was, Macdonald knows he needs to prepare for a potential revenge game on Sunday.
“It’s got to be a team effort on defense,” he added Thursday. “It’s gonna take waves of Seattle defense to eliminate those explosive plays he’s been able to create.”
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