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The Super Bowl MVP Was the One Guy Who Didn’t Show
The Seahawks handed out their Super Bowl LX rings Thursday night at a private ceremony in Seattle, and per reports, exactly one member of the 2025 championship roster wasn’t in the room: Kenneth Walker III. The Super Bowl MVP. The guy who ran for 135 yards on that exact stage. He was, reportedly, the only one who skipped it.
135
Rushing yards Walker put up in Super Bowl LX, the game that made him MVP — on the same turf he’ll return to in Week 7.
You can read this two ways, and I’ve spent the morning bouncing between both. The clean read: he’s a Chief now, it’s June, training camp is around the corner, and flying back to collect hardware in a building you no longer work in is a weird ask. Players miss things. Life happens.
The other read is the one that lingers. Walker told Mike Florio months ago that he knew during the 2025 season his time in Seattle was ending. He played anyway, he won anyway, and earlier in the spring the framing was that he’d come back for the ceremony. Then the ceremony came, and he didn’t.
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He told us he knew during the season. He came back for the ring once already. The second time, he just didn’t.
Here’s the thing nobody can take from him: the ring is still his. He earned it carrying the ball in the biggest game this franchise has played since February 2014. Whether it gets mailed to a locker in Kansas City or handed over in some quieter moment, it’s got his name on it. He just wasn’t there to feel the room go quiet when they called it.
And there’s a sequel already booked. Walker comes back to Lumen Field in Week 7 against the Chiefs, Sunday night, the whole country watching. He skipped the party. He doesn’t get to skip that.
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Camp Looms
The Rings Are On, and the Cameras Are Coming
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The storylines write themselves, which is exactly why the NFL picked Seattle. Zach Charbonnet got light on-field work at minicamp, which on a normal ACL calendar he has no business doing five months after February surgery. Tory Horton is tracking toward an early training camp return from the shin injury. The right guard battle between Anthony Bradford and rookie Beau Stephens is unresolved. And somewhere in there, a renovated VMAC is sprouting an 80,000-square-foot addition while everyone tries to act natural.
The quiet part of June is here. Soak it up. By August this place turns into a soundstage.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Charbonnet is moving. He got light on-field work at minicamp, five months removed from February ACL surgery. Macdonald keeps calling him a great worker and refuses to name a timeline. Read between the lines: a back who has no business being on the field is on the field anyway. Seahawks.com
Tory Horton’s clock moved up. Macdonald’s spring framing of ‘maybe some stuff late’ became ‘early training camp return’ by the time minicamp wrapped. The shin that ended his rookie year in Week 9 is healing on schedule, and Seattle quietly gets a deep threat back before the cameras roll. Seattle Sports
Leonard Williams is an extension candidate. He’s entering the final year of his deal, turns 32 later this month, made second-team All-Pro, and PFF flagged him as one of its 2026 extension names. The interior of this defense was the best in the league last year. You don’t let the anchor walk for free. PFF
Witherspoon’s deal still isn’t close, and that remains fine. Training camp is the operative deadline, the shared-agency tangle with Christian Gonzalez is the working theory, and Seattle has roughly $25M in room. No number has leaked, so there’s nothing to panic about. Yet. ESPN
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Los Angeles spent the spring insisting the Myles Garrett trade made them the team to beat. Then their starting left tackle, Alaric Jackson, was reportedly arrested on suspicion of felony domestic violence, the kind of thing the league’s personal conduct policy can act on without waiting for charges. The pizzazz budget is fully spent and the bill keeps arriving in forms nobody put on the spreadsheet.
NINERS
San Francisco was so moved by its perfect voluntary attendance that Kyle Shanahan canceled mandatory minicamp as a reward, a whole week off for showing up to the practices that didn’t count. Meanwhile Seattle ran three days of football and handed out championship jewelry. Nice work if you can get it, and the 49ers can apparently always get it.
CARDINALS
Arizona told Jacoby Brissett in March he’d be the 2026 starter, which Brissett heard as ‘you have leverage’ and used to skip the offseason program while seeking a raise. Asked about his depth chart at the end of minicamp, rookie coach Mike LaFleur shrugged that it’s June and he isn’t worried about it. Nothing says contender like the head coach actively not thinking about who plays quarterback.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This bruising Seahawks strong safety, nicknamed ‘The Enforcer,’ was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1984 and made five Pro Bowls in just seven seasons before a kidney condition forced him into early retirement. Who is he?
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Kenny Easley. He racked up 32 interceptions in seven seasons, was a three-time first-team All-Pro, and finally earned his Hall of Fame induction in 2017, decades after his career was cut short.
Got a Question for the Mailbag?
It’s June, the rings are out, and we’ve got two months of nothing but speculation to fill. Help me out. Send your questions, your wild theories, and your worst NFC West takes, and I’ll work the best ones into an upcoming issue.
One Seahawk skipped the ring. The rest of us are still wearing the season. Go Hawks. — The Rooster