Deciphering The Seahawks Backfield: Still The Kenneth Walker Show?

Analyzing The Seahawks Backfield: Kenneth Walker Still The Running Back To Draft In 2023 Fantasy Football?

When Rashaad Penny left the Seahawks in free agency, Kenneth Walker’s 2023 fantasy football outlook was shining bright. But not even two months later, the Seahawks baffled us all when they selected Zach Charbonnet in the second round. It was a classic Pete Carroll move but none of us saw it coming. It was maddening to see both Walker and Charbonnet’s fantasy football values take a hit with that one swing. Now the question heading into the start of training camp is how will this Seahawks backfield play out? Did they bring in Charbonnet to create a true committee with Walker? Or is this Kenneth Walker’s team and Charbonnet is just an expensive handcuff?

The reality likely falls somewhere in between. Our mission today is to dive into the mind of Pete Carroll and the skill sets of these two running backs to figure out how we should be valuing both Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet for 2023 fantasy football.

Related: Deciphering The Eagles Backfield

What We Know About Kenneth Walker

Kenneth Walker entered the NFL as a second round pick last year. He began the season working behind the veteran Rashaad Penny who had finished strong the year prior. But when Penny broke his leg in Week 5, all eyes turned to Walker. Walker was productive from the start. He proved to be a quality runner who can rip off big plays at any moment. In fact, he ranked No. 8 in percentage of runs that went for 15 yards or more (7.5%). He wasn’t picking up chunk plays just because the offensive line was opening up wide running lanes, either. He was creating on his own. Walker was top-20 in yards created per touch and top-12 in evaded tackles per touch (PlayerProfiler.com).

Walker finished his rookie season with 1,051 rushing yards and nine touchdowns on 228 carries. He finished second behind Jets wide receiver Garrett Wilson in the offensive rookie of the year voting. 

With the departure of Penny in free agency, the path was cleared for fantasy gamers to be all in on Walker for 2023 and beyond. He was even vaulted up to the RB1 in dynasty by many (including us at Yards Per Fantasy). After all, his rookie season gave us everything we could have asked for. The volume was there—he averaged 20 touches per game from Week 5 onward. And he gave us fantasy points—averaging 15.4 points per game after Penny went down. All at 22 years old. It wasn’t just the dynasty leaguers, either. Walker’s early best ball ADP cracked the top-20 overall.

More: Deciphering The Bears Backfield

What We Know About Zach Charbonnet 

But then came Zach Charbonnet. Charbonnet was one of the top running back prospects in the 2023 NFL Draft class. He is a big back who runs with good vision and patience. His lower body strength gives him the power to break through arm tackles with ease and move a pile in short yardage situations. In the passing game, he accounted for more than 12% of UCLA’s completed passes in 2022 and amassed 61 receptions over the last two seasons. He can run a variety of routes out of the backfield and has decent enough hands to be serviceable on passing downs. My comp for him coming out of college was Tyler Allgeier who we saw have a terrific rookie season. 

How It All Plays Out

The way I see this Seahawks backfield playing out is simple: it’s still the Kenneth Walker show. People want to say the Seahawks spent significant draft capital on Zach Charbonnet so that clearly means there’s something they don’t like about Walker and they have a plan for Charbonnet to be an immediate contributor. With any other team, I would agree that the draft capital spent is a major indicator of what they plan to do. However, the Seahawks have proven to be one of the few merit-based franchises when it comes to who gets on the field. We saw that a few years ago when they drafted Rashaad Penny in the first round but kept putting seventh rounder Chris Carson out there ahead of him. And let’s not forget, Walker was a second round pick, too so that argument is mostly obsolete anyway.

Walker showed us how good of a runner he was last season. There’s no question there. Rather than drafting Charbonnet to replace Walker, he was brought in to compliment him.  The two have very different running styles. Walker is your homerun hitter who wins with speed and explosion. Charbonnet is your north-south downhill runner who finishes his runs with power and strength.

Related: Deciphering The Lions Backfield

Red Zone Work

This is where Charbonnet could find a role for himself. If the Seahawks deem him a more reliable option in short yardage and goal line situations, he could start to eat into that workload. He has the vision and ability to hit the hole and push the pile when needed and is less susceptible to lost yardage than a big play seeker like Walker. After all, Walker had more than 50 runs stuffed last season which was the fourth highest total in the NFL according to PlayerProfiler. Losing that role would be a major loss for Walker who had the third-most red zone touches in 2022. 

Passing Downs

The other theory is that Charbonnet could be the team’s primary option on passing downs. Walker was not known for his receiving skills in college and only caught 27 passes in his rookie campaign. Charbonnet, on the other hand, made it a point to become a quality receiving option during his time at UCLA. He is far from the next Christian McCaffrey, but his college target share more than doubled anything Walker ever earned. 

I’m Drafting…

Despite the risk of losing valuable touches in the passing game and at the goal line to Zach Charbonnet, Kenneth Walker is still the Seahawks running back I want in 2023 fantasy football drafts. First of all, I was never drafting him expecting a major receiving output anyway. I also don’t expect he would lose red zone work entirely. Even if Charbonnet takes a significant portion of those opportunities, the Seahawks offense will be good enough for both backs to see touchdown opportunities. Plus, we established that Walker is one of the better home run hitting running backs in the NFL so he won’t necessarily need to plunge in from the one-yard line to get his touchdowns.

Either way, Walker’s ADP has all of that risk baked in. He is being drafted in the fifth round as the RB16. He’s going around guys like Aaron Jones, Diontae Johnson, J.K. Dobbins, and Alexander Mattison. Even with the risk of losing some work to Charbonnet, Walker should be going a round higher. So not only is Kenneth Walker the Seattle running back I want to draft in 2023, but he is one of the best values at his position.

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