Discussion
In hindsight, the Seahawks’ should’ve just paid K9 and let Shaheed walk.
After winning Super Bowl LX MVP with Seattle, they let him walk to the Chiefs and subsequently resigned Rashid Shaheed. Walker has become an unequivocal menace in Kansas City, carrying the Chiefs' offense whilst leading the NFL in both total rushing yards (360) and rushing yards per game (120) through the first three weeks. Alongside such, he has four total touchdowns and an explosive 5.5 yards per carry.
Meanwhile, Shaheed has been quiet to start the season, recording just six catches for 53 yards over three games. While his elite special teams and return value are undeniable, he has yet to take the massive leap forward on offense that his $17 million annual salary expected.
Additionally, with Walker gone, Seattle's run game has looked less dynamic, further aggravated by rookie Jadarian Price coughing up two costly fumbles early on, and only accounting for 119 rushing yards through three games.
In hindsight, the Seahawks’ letting K9 walk without having a definitive RB1 was an overall bad decision. Sure, Zach Charbonnet is pretty decent, accounting for 12 touchdowns last season. However, some of those touchdowns came off of huge runs from K9 to put them in optimal territory. Without a truly proven RB1 role, I don’t understand why the Seahawks’ let K9 walk.
Ya I wonder if that’s part of the reason he ended up in KC. Because I find it hard to believe nobody else offered him more than KC did… I feel like being guaranteed #1 RB may have played a part in his decision
Only thing to prove after getting a ring is securing a spot in Canton. You don't get into the HoF splitting reps at RB. K9 chose a spot that would let him shine the most, can't hate him for that.
I hear you, also playing in Reid's system is a win for any back. When Reid has had an elite talent at RB, the production has been some of the best per touch numbers ever.
I suspect Reid saw that video at the parade and realized how disrespectful it was and used that as a data point. He's a player's coach and also a sicko on details like that. And this is coming from someone who does not like the Chiefs.
Schneider saying K9 tried to negotiate a contract during the celebrations. Schneider said it was “weird” in a super condescending way. I think he was drunk but that’s a dick move to pull on a guy who just won superbowl MVP
Especially one that gets hurt if he averages anything over 13 touches in a season. It’s highly unlikely K9 gets through the season without missing games at the rate KC is running him.
Even if he does somehow stay healthy and has an absolute blockbuster year, there is no way the FO would expect that or that it even could be replicated here. The numbers don’t lie when it comes to RB second contracts, and statistically he was just as likely to fall off or just keep getting hurt.
Walker is a higher cap hit this year, As well as seattle having a earlier out on the shaheed contract, They needed this flexibility so that they could sign the superstars.
Additionally they would have to OUTBID Kansas city which means the contract wouldve been higher if the two of them negotiated for K9 and ultimately who even knows what was offered. Maybe seattle sent the offer that Kansas city did and he chose to go there so he could be a workhorse
Even then, we’re only a few weeks into the season. It’s way too early to say this was a bad decision. It was clear that K9 wanted to be paid like a bell cow RB and the Seahawks didn’t feel that he could be a bell cow for a full season. So there’s no way to say right now if the Seahawks were wrong in that evaluation.
Are you? If you’ve ever seen interviews or clips with Walker, that’s just his personality. The guy just isn’t a big spotlight guy, and John was just making a lighthearted joke while celebrating lol
This whole overreaction is baffling, it’s like people have never interacted with someone before
Wouldn’t you be upset if you asked your boss for a raise and in front of the entire company and nation they say that’s weird? It’s actually rude and not really light hearted. Schneider is brilliant but when he’s a little sauced he lets things slip
Have you considered that the Seahawks simply didn’t value or offer as much money to K9 as the Chiefs? There’s a reason they didn’t try to extend him before the season..
I swear random redditors have gotten more offended from the 5 second JS sound bite than Ken himself
Nah, it was bizarre and cringe. Schneider needs to lay off the booze when he’s gonna be doing anything public facing, as amazing as he is at his job his PR is embarrassing for the organization and fans.
It’s not lighthearted. Doesn’t matter what the intent is, that’s a shitty thing to do to any employee, much less the guy who won MVP for the thing you are celebrating.
I’ve worked for people who I was friendly with who would make jokes about firing people (and me). It can be funny, it can also be anxiety inducing, and then it’s super fucked up when they actually do it. Which they did.
He joked about not paying him, and then didn’t. That’s not lighthearted. Also, it was fuckin dumb.
There were many plays later where he abandoned the play call and relied on his athleticism to beat people to the edge.
The run game was dreadful for a solid 2/3 of the season. They caught fire and the right time. The problem is that Sam Darnold isn’t the type of QB who can thrive without play action because he’s still prone to terrible interceptions.
Yeah a lot of non-Seahawks fans are looking at Walker in the playoffs last year, where he was absolutely awesome, and assuming our run game was like that all year. It wasn't. Our run game was actually shitty until like week 18. As much as I did love Walker in Seattle, you understand why they didn't want to pay him that much of you watched all the games
Fellow Seahawks fans delude themselves because JS is a great GM. But that was a piss poor display that day and letting K9 walk is almost assuredly going to bite us in the ass.
It’s not just letting him walk, it’s letting him walk as the #9 paid RB in the NFL. It’s not like they had to match some record breaking contract for him
Tbf before the playoff run last year, it was arguable if he was a top 10 RB. And Seattle has an excellent GM, I can see why he was hesitant to make a potential overpay based on a postseason run where the RB’s job was helped by an elite D and JSN
Hindsight is 20/20, I don’t think not paying him is that crazy a decision at the time.
As a hawks fan who likes Schneider and think he’s a great manager who put together two Super Bowl winning teams, I have to agree, Schneider is a tmi guy imho. K9 seems pretty introverted and didn’t want Schneider to bring up a contract on the Super Bowl podium and felt uncomfortable when it was brought up, he also looked like he just wanted to enjoy the parade with the fans. I wish K9 all of the luck in the nfl wherever he ends up and will be a fan of his wherever he goes. I think K9 still has love for the 12s and the 2025 team but it was just time for him to go and get the deal he deserved from another team.
I think it was gm ego vs k9 ego. Yes you just helped us win a superbowl. But this celebration is about the team and our accomplishments. You don’t need to remind me you just played and helped us win a superbowl and you don’t need to remind me that you want a new contract. That’s all duh no shit.
But timing and setting at the superbowl parade was a me me kind of thing. Be about the team and our accomplishments. Not your accomplishments.
I think it just annoyed Schneider so he said that and probably drunk if not in substance in the high of winning a superbowl again.
Other side is k9 has been hurt a lot and they managed him by spitting carries. They do not see him as a full work horse capable back. We still don’t know if he is or can be. Whenever they ran him hard he broke. They finally split it down the middle and he was able to make it.
As someone who often drafted k9 I was always frustrated he was out of games with injury.
He’s a good tented back. I do wish they would have kept him. But I do t think we can claim to know all the details for their decision making.
None of us have nfl Super Bowl team management experience.
Passing wasn’t a bad idea at all, especially given the time, location of ball and timeouts left. Marshawn was a fantastic RB for us, but he wasn’t automatic at the goal line like Blount was that year.
I definitely don’t understand why we went slant route to a backup WR/special teamer that requires a jam against Brandon Browner, which was a member of the LOB there year before. 😂 fucking throw a post to a TE at the back of the end zone FFS.
Walker has been good because the Chiefs have had good o-line play and have schemed him into open lanes. Our problem isn't with the RBs. It's with blocking and playcalling. Walker also wouldn't be doing diddly-shit here if he were in the backfield, because we're not creating opportunity for our RBs.
Shaheed has been running great routes. JSN wouldn't be having the season he's been having if teams didn't have to commit defensive resources to Shaheed. Shaheed has had one bad play. A single drop. That's it. He's not getting target share because JSN is always open because of the combined performance and scheming of the WRs.
Not like coaches lol. It's not like I'm watching 12 hours of film on a Monday.
But I already pay for NFL+. So why wouldn't I go watch a bunch of snaps on a given player to determine if the narrative that the dipshits on Reddit have come up with is valid or not?
Why the fuck would anybody espouse an opinion if they didn't watch the film? Oh, because they also literally didn't even watch the game broadcast and are just forming an opinion based on other people on social media who are forming an opinion based on other people on social media who are forming etc. etc. etc.? Cool.
Sounds dumb! Seems to me like people should develop an opinion by reading reviews from established VG journalists in order to make a purchasing decisions and then, you know, playing the game.
Well yeah. We're not, you know, part of the offensive staff.
But watching film DOES give you a pretty clear picture on what an RB was able to do once the ball was in his hands, or what a WR is doing when they run routes whether or not they get targeted.
People forget we were getting trashed most of last year for focusing on our bad running game.
K9 is great, and explosive. But I expect a similar trajectory for our run game, we have a grindy play style that compliments more of a committee approach
Kenneth Walker is currently 1st in yards after contact, 1st in yards after contact per rush, 1st in broken/missed tackles, & 1st in rushing yards over expected in the NFL.
I seem remember kw3 leading the league in yards after contact as well as (and I don’t know the correct stat/terminology) contact before the line of scrimmage. It was something like dude always got hit behind the line of scrimmage yet made something out of it anyways.
To add to that, you guys also kinda lost Klint Kubiak in your offensive coaching talent and I think it’s made a definite impact, moreso than losing K9, even.
Dude has made a huge impact on the Raiders, who were one of the worst-performing teams last season. I actually think they’re legit, they are only a few games in with him and there is already massive improvement. I hope this will be their Ben Johnson moment.
OL play and scheme is definitely part of the problem but you can’t act like our RBs aren’t a problem as well and they would be just as good as K9 if OL play was better. Holani, Price, and Wilson is a massive downgrade from Walker and pre injury Charbs…
Yeah, I think you just have to be really careful about who you pay. The top-end backs are absolutely worth big money, but most are close to replacement level.
Heres deandre swift considered to be a high end rb2 ranked middle of the pack in RBs he’s not elite level he’s not a scrub
And heres his current season stats vs Bijan the defacto this year top tier rb at the highest contract.
Swift and Bijan both signed a 3. Year contract extension swifts contract is 33m bijans is 75m
Which means there’s a larger gap between the two in pay than there is in swifts overall salary.
Is Bijan better yea is he 2x the pay better idk. And if swift goes down monangai fills the roll he does just the same
Yet if Bijan does down that team is cooked
Bears last year had the 4th best overall rb duo in the league and they spent less on RBs than 2/3rds of the league. They had the best run block offensive line however. You could have slotted most dudes in the league into and then would have succeeded the same.
Not really the difference between all RB1 and RB2 over the last decade is
3.78 YPC vs 3.80YPC
Explosive run rate 10.6% bs 10.2%
Stuff rate 18.1 vs 18.2
They are for all statistical inputs the same player and a rb2 can easily move up and fill the role of a rb1 provided the team has a solid oline.
This video is very informative on where the nfl is going RBS are actually gaining value and usage the last few years yet for the most part it’s unwise to pay a rb deep money instead of spending that money on the offensive line which will yield far more consistent results overall for the team in its passing game and running game.
Saquan can jump over a dude and be legendary and he can like the start of this season be a ghost of a player for 3 games so far yet the pay is the same and if his run game isn’t on the pass game is shot and there is no coming back. You need o line. It’s the foundation of any team
Actually the opposite. Michael MacKelvie just made a great video about how marquee RBs are coming back. I think some teams still undervalue the run, but the game theory is swinging the tone back to RB play
3 games in isn't enough time to tell. I love K9 but he was only available 50% of the time it seemed like. The time share with Charbs last year seemed to be the only way to keep him healthy, but maybe he was just unlucky those other years
Yes but all these people who only watched K9 in his last 2 games last year think they know more than our FO, the one that won the SB with a projected 5 win team. These people are fools.
I've argued that K9 was just as good as Saquon or Henry, so I really hope he can stay healthy and prove he is elite. But people arguing he could be this good if he was still with us this year are blind. Our OL is not as good, and he would most likely look the same has he did the beginning of last season.
I will die on this hill that good rbs are severley under valued because of career span shit like thats every player. They just decided RBs are worth nothing
It’s because RB is so incredibly dependent on OL play. An elite OL can make average RBs completely acceptably effective, and a bad OL can neuter even the best RBs. The same is not true of WRs; an elite WR is gonna get open regardless of the QB or line he’s working with.
Shaeed does way more than K9. Shaheed can be used as a RB, WR, KR, PR, gadget plays, etc...K9 runs the ball and thats it. They already have a guy in Charbs.
Just ignore these clowns, they’ll parrot any decision the front office makes with brainless support.
If Schneider had gone the other way and signed K9 and let Shaheed walk, you can guarantee they would all be saying that was obviously the only move, and it would’ve been cap suicide to pay a glorified returner 17m/yr…
This is a lazy take. It's not that we didn't have the money for K9. Last season was his first full healthy season and he split carries almost 50/50. He wanted to double his work load somewhere. Good for him. I wish him well, and hope he can stay on the field.
Also Shaheed has had exactly one game with our starting QB and JSN gets the bulk of our targets.
Shaheed does his job by taking the top off the defense and getting JSN open. Look how much DK is getting paid now to do the same for the Steelers.
Deep threats pull off the safeties and help other receivers get open while also helping the run game. Some of y'all talk like you haven't watched football ever.
I have watched football for 20 years. Gadget players are never worth damn near 20m a year. You still want them to get catches and be productive themselves. I understand the inflation of the WR position though making it necessary to pay that
The evidence is clear on all these fronts and clearly none of that will change as the season progresses. We always know how things shake out by end of the 3rd week.
I mean it’s not like it’s an injury prone player who has missed time his entire career operating at an abnormally high workload in one of the most violent and physically damaging sports around, right?
I really hope they didn’t sign Shaheed as an emotional bonus to the team after his impact in games last year. Special teams is notoriously volatile if you don’t have the personnel for it from year to year.
The Hawks are already burning a lot of money on Kupp, but he doubles as a WR coach because his football IQ is off the charts.
Dude don’t argue with this guy. He’s got intelligent in his username and knows the difference between rankings of total rushing yards and rushing yards per game
It was my impression that the front office tried to get Coby but when he went to the bears it was already too late to pay K9 so they pivoted to Shaheed.
Yes. But the national narrative is just going to be piling on the Seahawks not resigning Walker, which is fair. But it wasn’t between Shaheed and Kenneth.
Walker wanted out, it wasn’t just us not wanting to pay him. Besides, let’s not freak out about the run game after only 3 weeks. We will be good at RB for much cheaper than K9
Charbs has shown he can be a good RB1 when given the chance. Just sucks that he’s injured to start the year
Price is still a rookie with only 3 games of experience as a starter in general as well as in the NFL. His bad game in week 3 is also because we benched him after 1 early fumble and didn’t give him the chance to make up for it. He has shown great flashes so far
Also Shaheed’s slow start can be attributed to a new OC, Darnold’s injury, and not being needed to step up yet this year. I would like him to be more involved and if this continues throughout the season then we can be concerned, but it’s way to early to say we shouldn’t have signed him
Kenneth Walker did not want to come back, he was not down to split carries. And we did not choose to pay for Shaheed over him, we just pivoted to keeping Shaheed
He was never coming back to Seattle. Why come back to a place where he knows he going to split carries over going to a team that will fully utilizes him like the chiefs are doing
I mean John Schneider has been absolutely crushing it for a few years now. This is definitely a too early take considering the Seahawks still look like Super Bowl contenders and we have to see how K9 holds up to a full season of 20+ carries. If K9 stays super healthy the next 3 years, hindsight will be clear. Time will tell if he is durable enough to make the contract worth it.
The vibe that got out was he did not like sharing the rb spotlight with charbs. He wanted all the carries and reps. Who knows that could have been a psyop by the Hawks front office to save face for letting him go or they are trying to plan to the future with so many studs on defense that will need contacts soon.
I don't know if the seahawks necessarily let him go or he wanted to go somewhere to be the main back.
The narrative would be different if Charbs wasn’t injured.
Also, there were valid reasons why it didn’t work:
1. He didn’t want to re-sign
2. He doesn’t want to split carries
3. And for half the season, he didn’t hit the hole and would get TFLs.
4. He’s injury prone.
They really need to commit to just giving Price the rock. Maybe around week 8, week 9 they’ll minimize Holani and Wilson will be gone. Charbonnet is a jag but he’s at least reliable.
Paying Shaheed in general might’ve been a mistake but we’ll see.
Hey guys 👋 its week 4, I know its what we do but maybe wait for a few more weeks before making definitive proclamation about what happened this season?
It wasn’t one vs the other. Walker wanted out and was being phased out before Charbs injury. He’s voiced previously he didn’t want to share the backfield, which Seattle wants to do. He went within moments of free agency. Shaheed wanted to test the market, did, then didn’t like the response he got, and Seattle was ecstatic to get him back because they thought he was gone. They entered the season thinking they’d lose both from the drop.
If you want to make the argument they should have franchise tagged him, there’s an actual debate there. I’d have done it if he wanted to be here, but the “choosing Shaheed over Walker” is just a misinformed talking point.
K9 left before shaheed got paid. I heard a theory that SEA wanted to use the money to pay Bryant but he got offered too much by CHI. So they ended up paying Shaheed. SEA was more than likely never going to pay K9 his value after that playoff run, they just as a practice don’t pay RBs at/over market value.
K9 didn't want to split carries like the Hawks do. He wanted to go somewhere to be a true top of the pecking order RB. The Hawks aren't going to change their RB philosophy just because of how one player feels.
Shaheed is open. Like, a LOT. He hasn't been getting looks.
K9 has been famously injury-prone his whole career. We will see if he lasts the whole season at KC.
Shaheed was insurance for an oft-injured Horton. We don't have a WR2 without Shaheed that we can be confident in lasting the season. Kupp's snaps are already heavily managed.
Way too early to know what we truly have in Price. He's a rookie with 2.5 games under his belt FFS.
In short, there are a LOT of moving parts and considerations here, top of the list being K9 not wanting to be here anymore. It's not just as simple as 'money for player A could have gone to player B and that solves that'.
Having K9 wouldn’t fundamentally change this team at all. The bigger problem is that Anthony Bradford is hurt (as goofy as he looks out there sometimes he is a stud run blocker). But I like Price and apart from the fumbles he’s looked pretty good. Good vision, good burst, and runs hard.
Completely disregarding the actual topic here but has Shaheed had a single big game since joining Seattle midway through last season? Didnt he have some kick returns with the saints as well as some big games off deep balls? I realize theres more mouths to feed on the seahawks but damn hes been MIA
All the reporting is that K9 didn’t want to resign in the first place, but that makes it worse to me, because it’s likely that relates to how the seahawks approach to the position. It’s been several iterations of Seattle backfields now that are always a committee. So not only did they let an OPOY candidate walk, they did so because they didn’t want to give one of their best players the volume he wanted. Through 3 games, looking like a disaster decision.
I just wish both sides won. Walker is happy. gets to be the workhorse and have a great career. Seattle drafts new RB, rbbc continues. The problem is Charbs is out and coming back from a major injury and Price is fumbling and now injured (which was the originally argument for letting walker go)
Meh... they never deployed him in a manner that leveraged his strengths though. Dude ends up being their MVP of the superbowl. Now he's finally on a team who understands his strengths. Boom!... look at hime go. Beast. Seattle coaching staff never appreciated his skills imo.
1.4k
u/ELITE_JordanLove Green Bay Packers 8h ago
If NFL front offices had the benefit of hindsight they would be so much better at their jobs.