The 2025 campaign is going to be a big one for Seattle Seahawks running back, Kenneth Walker.
Walker has no doubt shown he can be a huge difference-maker in the NFL, but he's also coming off a season in which he only appeared in 11 games due to injury, and playing through injuries has been another issue for him throughout his career.
If Walker wants to land a lucrative, long-term deal in free agency in 2026, he's got to stay on the field and produce in 2025.
Just to get an idea of how talented Walker is, Pittsburgh Steelers star Cam Heyward, who will face Walker and Seattle in Week 2 this season, recently compared the former second-round pick to Le'Veon Bell.
"Yeah, I like Kenneth's... not speed, but I think the thing I love about Kenneth, he has the vision like Le'Veon (Bell)," he explained on the Not Just Football with Cam Heyward podcast. "There was one time I remember I was going to tackle him and he made a move where he kind of got out of place, but it was like, you've gotta have some amazing vision with that dude."
Anyone who remembers Bell knows his vision on the football field was special. He had an elite ability to diagnose blocks and then explode through whatever hole he found. You just don't teach vision like Bell had.
Bell's career ended in quite a disappointing fashion, though, and one Walker will hope to avoid.
After not playing in 2018 over a contract dispute, Bell signed with the New York Jets in 2019 but was simply never the same. He tallied 789 yards in his first season in New York and never even sniffed that number over his next two seasons before being out of the sport entirely.
Given his injury history and teams balking at signing non-elite running backs, it feels more likely that Walker will be traded at some point this year rather than extended or even re-signed in free agency next year.
The Seahawks would be well-equipped to make such a move, with the team having Zach Charbonnet and promising 2023 seventh-round pick Kenny McIntosh. Seattle could then turn around and draft another running back in 2026, if need be.
For now, Walker looks set to return to his role as Seattle's lead back, but how long that lasts remains to be seen.