The Athletic article sheds light on departure of Kenneth Walker III from Seahawks

Kenneth Walker III won Super Bowl MVP honors last season with the Seattle Seahawks. Now after leaving in free agency for a three-year, $43.05 million contract with Kansas City, he’s a legitimate regular season MVP candidate with the undefeated Chiefs.

DJ highlights missing element for Seattle Seahawks

At the same time, the 3-3 Seahawks’ offense is scuffling without the star running back, particularly in the run game where Seattle ranks 18th in the NFL with 107.2 rushing yards per game and 3.9 yards per carry.

With the Seahawks gearing up to face Walker and the Chiefs on Sunday Night Football this week, there understandably is a spotlight being shined on Walker’s standout start with Kansas City, Seattle’s troubles without him, and what went down this offseason leading to his departure.

Seahawks’ franchise-record streak on line vs. Kenneth Walker III

In an article published Wednesday by The Athletic, national NFL writer Michael-Shawn Dugar shed a light on exactly that, and he provided a couple pieces of key information about Walker’s decision to leave the Seahawks for the Chiefs.

Most notable is that Dugar reported that Walker “effectively priced himself out of Seattle” and that the Seahawks did not make a contract offer to Walker prior to free agency, “according to league sources not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.” Walker wasted no time in finding a new team once the market opened, as reports surfaced in the opening hour of the NFL’s “legal tampering” free agent negotiating period in March that he had agreed to go to Kansas City.

Dugar also pointed to a Walker quote from the spring that signaled that he knew he wouldn’t be coming back to a Seattle team that gave him at least 20 carries in only one of 20 total games combined last season, which was when he turned 27 carries into his Super Bowl MVP-winning 135-yard performance against New England.

“Things ain’t work out how I was expecting it to, and that’s all right,” Walker said in May to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. “It worked out for the team. But yeah, (I knew) sometime during the season, and then we get to free agency, you pretty much know you weren’t going to be there.”

Walker has received 22 or more carries in three of his five games thus far with the Chiefs and at least 18 in each contest. He’s turned that into an NFL-leading 665 rushing yards (as well as six touchdowns), even though Kansas City is one of only six teams to have its bye week already, meaning they’ve played just five games while the majority of the league has played six to this point.

Seattle Seahawks news and more

• Seahawks coach says 2 key returns could come this week
• The positive sign Seahawks’ offense showed in Week 6 loss
• Brock: One area Seattle Seahawks’ defense is falling short

Related

Chiefs star RB Kenneth Walker III downplays his return to SeattleSeahawks Injury Report: Charbonnet takes big step toward returnWhy potential return may not fix Seahawks’ O-line issuesDaniel Jeremiah highlights the big missing element in Seahawks’ offenseNFC West: LA Rams sign another kicker to be their third in two weeksSeahawks had ‘honest conversations’ about struggling offense