How will Seahawks fare in Kenneth Walker's return to Seattle?

Oh, big one coming up on Sunday. The Seahawks hoping to bounce back after two straight losses. They are three and three on the season. And on Sunday, Super Bowl MVP Ken Walker III returns to Lumen Field with the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs. Fox 13 sports reporter Ethan McReynolds joining us this morning to break down the big matchup for us. Ethan, good morning to you. Hello, Bill. Good to be here with you. All right, so the premier storyline, the return of Kenneth Walker III coming to Seattle, playing like an MVP. I mean, he's been running absolutely wild for the Chiefs, and he has been the focal point of the Kansas City offense. He's played it down when asked about this game, but he has to see this as a revenge game of sorts, right? Yeah, you have to think so. I mean, you know, a lot of the dialogue over the offseason was, you know, whether Kenneth Walker wanted to come back to Seattle. And it seemed like, you know, reading some reports that he did not. and it comes back to him not being the featured back here in Seattle and him splitting carries with Zach Charbonnet. Now, you can understand why the Seahawks went that route with the durability concerns with Ken Walker, but either way, Kenneth Walker right now is showing that he can be the featured back. We'll see if he holds up. But, you know, early returns, averaging 6.2 yards per carry, on pace to set the single-season rushing record. It seems like he's holding up just fine so far. So, yeah, you have to think that, you know, not not so much revenge on the players, but as far as John Schneider and the coaching staff who made that decision to for him to split carries. Yeah, I feel like there's got to be a little bit extra of like, hey, I can handle this workload. You guys should have entrusted me with that. So we'll see. I'm not really excited about seeing an angry canine. I don't know about you, Bill, but I know that scares me a little bit. I can't lie. I know I'm right there with you. Now, the Seahawks defense has been as good as anyone, though. they haven't allowed a hundred yard rusher in, in two years almost. So, so like you, you look at the, the, the chiefs and like their passing game doesn't scare me. So you got to figure they're, they're going to really be keying on K-9. What, what's the key against the, the KC offense here? For me, to me, it's Nicky Manwari. And, and, and, you know, maybe the passing game hasn't been as efficient as a Patrick Mahomes offense has been in the past, but, you know, hearing a Kansas City Sports Radio guy the other day, he was saying that this is like the best that Mahomes has been playing since his MVP years. So in this offense, with an older Mahomes, maybe a little bit past his prime, they've been able to lean more on the running game to take some of that load off of Mahomes, but he can still throw it. They're one of the best play-action teams in the entire league. So the key for Seattle's defense is, yes, you need to be able to initially stop ken walker but you also need to be able to adjust when they do hit you on that play action inevitably as they're going to do in an andy reed offense and the key to that well it's going to be nicky manwari and being able to stop the run while not dedicating so many resources to it so you can still be uh you can still be active against the pass uh when they do decide to drop back and throw it nicky manwari he's the swiss army knife he's a safety he's a linebacker he's an edge all combined into one player he's the guy that allows you to stop the run um in more neutral light personnel so that you you're able to cover both things at once and that's why that's what makes the Seahawks defense so good um i i am expecting you know i this Kansas City offense is really good uh it's going to be really hard to slow them down uh so it's going to come down to this offense making some plays uh i i it's going to be a low scoring game and hopefully hopefully the Seahawks defense can uh can keep K9 in check and keep that streak of uh you know preventing the 100 yard rusher uh going and the hawks have really struggled to run the ball Zach Charbonnet is set to return what will the hawk running game look like on sunday charbonnet is going to help uh i would temper expectations i'm expecting him to be on some sort of snap count one game back from you know tearing that ACL uh and with an accelerated return by the way so uh i would temper my expectations on you know what we're going to see from zach charbonnet uh i feel like the bigger help is going to be getting Anthony Bradford back in the lineup uh he's trending towards uh returning he hasn't played since week one we'll find out for sure if he is back uh later today when mike mcdonald talks to the media uh just after one uh but i think he's going to be the bigger help he's always been better in in run blocking uh than in pass protection i know a lot of fans uh have had major problems with his his run or his uh pass protection especially last year funny that we're in a situation that we're we're looking forward to to anthony bradford coming back to sort of you know quote unquote save the offensive line a little bit but here we are and the the seahawks desperately need him and you see you know some of the struggles from right tackle abe lucas that we've seen specifically in the last couple of games maybe you can tie that to having sort of a rotation at right guard with christian haynes and bo stevens now he gets his uh his usual partner back in the mix and anthony bradford who knows maybe that that helps this offensive line gel a little bit more because yes the turnovers are a problem the running game is a problem but this offensive line is also a ginormous problem at least the last couple of games so hopefully anthony bradford helps out in that department a little bit yeah i mean against the broncos what five sacks they gave up 17 hits on on Sam Darnold, they got to clean that up and the turnovers, but we'll get into that a bit later. Ethan, thank you so much. We'll chat with you again our next hour. We have a lot more to break down with this huge matchup coming up on Sunday.