Recently, the Kansas City Chiefs made a major splash by signing free agent running back Kenneth Walker III away from the reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. Walker III won the Super Bowl MVP honor for his performance against the New England Patriots last month, and now, he will join a Chiefs team that hasn’t had a great running game in quite some time.
Walker will be making over $14 million per year in his first two seasons with the Chiefs, with the 2028 season essentially being a team option, and recently, Mike Florio of NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk reported on what this means for the organization.
“The investment suggests that the Chiefs plan to use him heavily; last year, they paid only $1.5 million to Kareem Hunt and $1.12 million to Isiah Pacheco,” reported Florio.
Florio also broke down where Walker’s contract lands among other top running backs in the league.
“While not at the top of the tailback market (Saquon Barkley at $20.6 million), it puts Walker not far behind Derrick Henry ($15 million APY) and ahead of Jonathan Taylor ($14 million APY),” he noted.
The Chiefs will certainly want to lean on Walker heavily next year as Patrick Mahomes works his way back to full health after tearing his ACL toward the end of last season. For a sizable chunk of the 2025 campaign, Mahomes himself was the leading rusher for the Chiefs, speaking volumes about just how inept the team has been in that department in recent seasons.
If Walker can stay healthy and replicate the production that he put on display in Seattle, the Chiefs could very well re-assume their spot among the AFC leaders heading into next season, which is slated to begin in September.
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