On the day the Seahawks drafted Kenneth Walker III last April, a lot of eyebrows were raised.
Why would Seattle spend the 41st pick on a running back when the Seahawks still had Rashaad Penny and Chris Carson?
As the Seahawks knew better than anyone, Carson’s future was hazy at best.
And sadly, Carson was forced to retire before the season due to a neck injury, leaving the Seahawks with a hoped-for one-two punch of Penny and Walker.
But that duo became a solo act in the fifth game of the year when Penny suffered a season-ending ankle injury.
If carrying the burden of being the lead back for a coach who stresses the importance of running as much any in the NFL was a lot to ask for a rookie, Walker proved emphatically he could handle it.
With 114 yards on 29 carries in Sunday’s 19-16 overtime win over the Rams, Walker became the second Seahawk rookie to ever top the 1,000-yard rushing mark, finishing with 1,050. The only other to do it was Curt Warner — a Ring of Honor member — with 1,449.
And while 17-game seasons may skew stats, Walker didn’t play two games and had only 58 yards before Penny got hurt. Meaning, Walker rushed for 992 yards in the final 13 games of the season, but playing in only 12.
“It means a lot,” Walker said of topping the 1,000-yard mark. “That’s a big goal. Like I always say, credit to the O-line. We had a stretch where we were struggling throughout the season, but we got it together. To be able to finish like that, I have to give all of the credit to the O-line.”
Seattle coach Pete Carroll was happy to give a lot of the kudos to Walker, who rushed for 100 or more yards in each of the last three games of the year and finished with five 100-yard games for the season.
“He is good, man,” Carroll said. “I’m impressed with him. The plays that he makes and the bursts that he has and the creativity and how tough he is. There’s not a tougher run than the one he ran to convert, I think it was fourth down (a 9-yard gain on a fourth-and-one in the fourth quarter). You can’t run any harder than that. We have a tough guy. We have a guy that loves to play. He doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t even flinch. He is going back out again. He isn’t worried about nothing. I love to compete with him, and he is really talented.”
Walker finished as the leading rookie rusher in the NFL, on Sunday passing Houston’s Dameon Pierce, who had 939 yards before missing the last four games of the year with an injury, and staving off Atlanta’s Tyler Allgeier, who finished with 1,035.
That might also help Walker be named the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year — he has been the betting-line favorite the past few weeks.
“What do they mean?” said Carroll of some of the records the team set Sunday, including Walker’s 1,000-yard season. “Well, they mean a lot. They do mean a lot, when you can get the win and you can talk about it now. Those are markers. Who are they markers for? Offensive linemen. Those guys are so proud that they were able to get that done and take great pride in it. The amount of progress that our guys have made with the two young guys up front and the new center all year long and all of that. We rushed for 197 again. We got the running game going again like we need to, and you can see how we play. That’s how we do it. That’s the way we fight to play.”