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Analysis
Kenneth Walker Is Two Yards Behind Seattle’s Entire Backfield
Kenneth Walker III has 537 rushing yards in four games with Kansas City. Seattle’s running backs, every one of them combined, have 539 in six, per Ari Meirov’s count. One man is two yards behind an entire position group, and next Sunday he brings that math to Lumen Field on Sunday Night Football.
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Yards between Kenneth Walker’s four-game total with Kansas City (537) and the six-game total for Seattle’s entire running back room (539).
The Super Bowl LX MVP comes out of the Chiefs’ bye second in the NFL in rushing yards, and SI has him on pace for 425 touches. “It was good to have a bye week, get time off, and just chill,” Walker said Friday. Seattle spent its Thursday losing 17-14 in overtime in Denver. Nobody chilled.
Help is coming, and it has deadlines. Zach Charbonnet has to come off the PUP list by Thursday, Oct. 22, or he stays there for the rest of the season. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler gave him “a legitimate chance” to debut against Kansas City. Jadarian Price can’t come off IR until Week 8 against Chicago, and Macdonald told Brock and Salk that “we should be looking at a sooner rather than later return after this [Kansas City Chiefs] game.” So the rookie Seattle brought in to replace Walker gets back the week after Walker leaves town.
I’ll defend March for exactly one sentence: paying running backs is how good teams end up in cap jail. That was my sentence. It gets hard to keep defending it while a stat graphic argues the other side all over your timeline. The best answer is the defense that just held Denver to 168 total yards, plus a Sunday night where Walker’s first carry at Lumen runs into Byron Murphy II. He plays the 0-5 Chargers first, so that 537 will be bigger by the time he lands.
SOURCES →
AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Elijah Arroyo is still getting imaging and tests on the shoulder he hurt in Denver, and his status for Kansas City is up in the air. Brian Fleury’s offense loves shifting two tight ends at once. We may get to see the one-tight-end version. SI
Rashid Shaheed’s lost fumble in Denver came after he’d rolled over the tackler, when the defender’s knee knocked it loose before Shaheed was down. He also dropped a fourth-quarter punt and recovered it. At this point the turnovers are getting creative. NBC Sports
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Myles Garrett played the Rams’ opener in Australia without a tackle or a sack, had arthroscopic knee surgery, and has now missed four games on injured reserve. On Tuesday, Sean McVay decided not to open his 21-day practice window this week either. Los Angeles sent Jared Verse and three premium picks to Cleveland for him. So far that works out to an infinite price per tackle. The Browns are winning that trade without playing in it.
NINERS
Nick Bosa is out Monday against Washington, the fourth straight game he’ll miss with a calf he hurt in practice. The 49ers never put him on injured reserve, partly because they already have so many players there. Their IR is so full it has a waitlist, and there’s a five-time Pro Bowler on it. Kyle Shanahan said “another week will help.” That’s also the trainers’ plan for the whole receiver room.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
Seattle took this Ole Miss receiver 64th overall, the last pick of the second round in 2019, and in his second season he caught 83 passes for 1,303 yards. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
DK Metcalf. Those 1,303 yards set the franchise single-season record at the time, passing Steve Largent’s 1,287 from 1985.
THIS DAY IN SEAHAWKS HISTORY
1987
October 18, 1987
Largent Crosses the Line, Catches 15 in Detroit
In the middle of the 1987 players’ strike, Steve Largent was one of five Seahawks who crossed the picket line. Against mostly replacement Lions, in front of 8,310 people in Pontiac, he caught 15 passes for 261 yards from Jeff Kemp in two and a half quarters, and Seattle won 37-14. Kenny Easley, the team’s player rep, and Largent had no real relationship for decades afterward.
Got Something to Say? Say It Here.
Questions, complaints, run-game conspiracy theories, the thing you yelled at your TV in overtime Thursday. Send it in. The Rooster reads all of it and answers the ones that hurt the most.
Seven days until Walker. Somebody find the run game. — The Rooster