At NFL scouting combine, general manager John Schneider on the Seahawks' condensed scouting timeline, at least for him, following Seattle winning Super Bowl 60. Schneider spoke Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. By Gregg Bell| Gregg H Bell
Kenneth Walker didn’t know what his GM was doing. No one did.
Two weeks ago, John Schneider got on stage inside Lumen Field. More than 50,000 fans were going nuts over their Seahawks having won the Super Bowl three days earlier.
Even though it was only 10 a.m. that Wednesday, the party was on. The team’s Super Bowl trophy celebration was rocking their stadium, the prelude to their victory parade in front of hundreds of thousands through downtown Seattle.
And the red Solo cups...well, they were already emptying.
That’s when the Seahawks’ general manager spoke about his lead running back and Super Bowl MVP being a pending free agent with his contract ended.
“Ken Walker being the MVP, let’s go!” Schneider yelled to the cheering crowd. “He tried negotiating with me 5 minutes ago. It was really weird.
“Anyway, hey, M-V-P! M-V-P!”
Walker and his new agent, David Canter the running back hired last month, made clear that is not what happened at that celebration.
“Must’ve been da liquor he drinking cuz I never said dat shi**!” Walker posted on his Instagram page, with two laughing-out-loud-to-crying-face emojis over the final letter of the final word.
Tuesday, the Seahawks’ GM said also that didn’t happen.
“You know, I kind of lost it at (that event). I got nervous at the talking in front of those people that day,” Schneider said at the NFL scouting combine, from a podium inside the Indiana Convention Center.
“And Ken’s like, ‘What are you talking about?’
“I totally made that up. I just lost it.”
Seahawks general manager John Schneider speaks to reporters at the NFL scouting combine Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, from a podium inside the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. Gregg Bell/The News Tribune
The GM and the champions have until March 9 to offer their lead back the last four seasons a contract extension the 25-year-old running back likes enough to accept. If they don’t, if he doesn’t, he will become a free agent for the first time.
We can presume those negotiations won’t happen on a public stage anywhere.
“We’d love to have Ken back,” Schneider said Tuesday, multiple times in about 15 minutes.
Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III, center right with OAKLEY across his forehead, listens to tight end AJ Barner speak from the stage during the team’s Super Bowl trophy celebration event at Lumen Field on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Seattle. Liesbeth Powers lpowers@thenewstribune.com
Seahawks’ pending free agents
Walker is one of four Pro Bowl- and MVP-caliber starters Seattle has as pending free agents with expired contracts.
They also include cornerback Riq Woolen, Pro Bowl kick returner and wide receiver Rashid Shaheed plus safety Coby Bryant. Schneider said Tuesday he wants to re-sign all of them over the next two weeks, before the free-agent market officially opens March 11.
That is Schneider’s biggest task this week at the combine.
It’s not the college prospects in their interviews, medical examinations then nationally televised underwear Olympics this weekend. It’s the meetings the GM is having each day, formally and informally, here in coffee shops and lobbies and conference rooms plus on the phone, with the agents for Walker, Shaheed, Woolen and Bryant.
“We’re down here trying to talk to everybody and get a feel for what the spring is going to look like,” Schneider said, to The News Tribune in a small group of team beat reporters off the podium on the convention center floor.” This week is for Schneider and his team of contract negotiators and analysts to learn initial contract values from agents. The Seahawks decision-makers will take those numbers back to team headquarters in Renton next week to form counter-offers to those players’ agents.
That dance has to happen relatively quickly before free agency begins with the start of the new league year in two weeks.
“Oh yeah, this (combine) has become like...everybody has to have everybody’s starting point, where they think it’s going to go,” Schneider said of negotiations with Seattle’s pending free agents. “And then you work and start working off of that.’’ Schneider said Tuesday when Shaheed’s New Orleans Saints came to Lumen Field to play the Seahawks in early October, the GM was on the sideline asking Saints personnel “can we have him?”
Four weeks later, Schneider got him. He traded two third-day draft choices to the Saints for the 2023 All-Pro kick and punt returner. Shaheed was an MVP of the final two months of the season. Without his punt return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter of the home game against the Rams late in the season, the Seahawks would not have rallied from 16 points down with 9 minutes left to beat Los Angeles in overtime.
Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Rashid Shaheed (22) dodges Los Angeles Rams defenders in the second half of the game at Lumen Field, on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Seattle. Shaheed carried the ball to the end zone for a touchdown. Liesbeth Powers lpowers@thenewstribune.com
If they hadn’t won that game the Seahawks would not have won the NFC West and conference’s top playoff seed. The Rams would have. That would have meant three road games for Seattle to win to even make the Super Bowl, not the bye and two home wins they got to get there. Shaheed said within days of the trade to Seattle in early November he wanted to re-sign with the Seahawks for 2026 and beyond.
Off the podium Tuesday, Schneider said of Shaheed: “He knows we’d love to have him back.”
Minutes earlier, in front of cameras on the podium Schneider said of Walker, Woolen, Shaheed and Bryant, chiefly among those Seahawks with expiring deals: “Obviously, we’d love to have everybody. We want to have everybody back, you know? Right?”
That’s the product of winning the Super Bowl for only the second time in the Seahawks’ 50-year history.
“When you get done with something special like that, you’re like, ‘Let’s run it back! Let’s run it back!’” Schneider said.
The GM was struck by his veteran players saying that as they assembled for and rode in the Super Bowl parade down 4th Avenue in Seattle two weeks ago.
“You know, it’s gonna be...,” Schneider said, pausing for the right adjective, “it’s gonna be an interesting process.”
Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider hugs Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9) after beating the New England Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX at Levi's Stadium on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. Brian Hayes bhayes@thenewstribune.com
Kenneth Walker’s negotiations
Of all Seattle’s pending free-agent negotiations going on this week into the next couple, Schneider has the most ground to make up with Walker’s representatives.
First, Schneider hasn’t had the chance to talk to Walker’s agents until recently. Because the running back didn’t have them. Walker fired his previous agents last month. The week of the NFC championship game he hired David Canter, Ness Mugrabi and Brian McIntyre of the Florida-based Aura Sports Group. Walker did that looking ahead to these two weeks right now.
Second, Schneider and the Seahawks have had all the past year to approach Walker’s agents about a new contract. That’s the standard Seahawks way in Schneider’s 16 years as their GM, re-signing foundational players entering the final year of their deals.
But Schneider and Seattle have been like all NFL team decision-makers have been for years: Reluctant to give huge, multiyear, second contracts to running backs. They are the sport’s most-injured players, with the shortest career span.
This was the first season of Walker’s pro career he played in all 17 regular-season games. And those with the team cite that he was in a job share with Zach Charbonnet, playing less than 50% of the snaps, as the reason.
Now Charbonnet is on a long road back from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee. The number-two back Schneider drafted a year after he drafted Walker, in 2023 in the same, second round as Walker, injured his knee in the team’s divisional-playoff win over San Francisco in mid-January.
He had surgery last week. That’s typically a recovery of at least 8-12 months. That would be through at least the middle of next season.
Charbonnet has indicated he intends to play next season. Tuesday, Schneider was asked when the team expects Charbonnet back on the field for what is scheduled to be the final season of his rookie contract in 2026.
“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” Seattle’s GM said. “I mean, there was a point that we really didn’t even know what’s going on. He just such a strong, powerful person. His work ethic, incredible.
“So I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
Seahawks players, including running backs Cam Akers and Zach Charbonnet and tight end AJ Barner celebrate during the Super Bowl parade on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Seattle. Liesbeth Powers lpowers@thenewstribune.com
After Charbonnet went out injured, Walker was the lead back by himself for the first time this season. And he soared, to new career heights.
In the game Charbonnet got hurt Walker joined Shaun Alexander from 2004 as Seattle’s only backs with three rushing touchdowns in a playoff game. That was when Walker romped for 119 yards in the Seahawks’ 41-6 smashing of the 49ers in the divisional round.
Shaheed jump-started Seattle that night with a touchdown returning the opening kickoff.
Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Rashid Shaheed (22) returns the opening kickoff for a 97-yard touchdown during the first quarter of the NFC Divisional Round game against the San Francisco 49ers at Lumen Field, on Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026, in Seattle. Brian Hayes bhayes@thenewstribune.com
The next week Walker had 111 yards from scrimmage in Seattle’s 31-27 win over the Rams to win the NFC title.
Then in the Super Bowl against New England, now-gone offensive coordinator Klint Kubak and the Seahawks relied on Walker. His 27 carries were his most since the final game of his rookie season of 2022. He two catches for 26 yards in Seattle’s 29-13 domination of the Patriots to win the Super Bowl MVP.
Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9) carries the ball up field as New England Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez (0) looks to make a tackle during the second quarter of Super Bowl LX at Levi's Stadium on Feb. 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, Calif. Brian Hayes Brian Hayes / bhayes@thenewstribune.com
Schneider was asked Tuesday if he’s ruled out using the Seahawks’ one franchise tag for 2026 he could use to keep Walker from free agency and in Seattle on a one-year, guaranteed contract worth about $14.5 million for next season. “That’s a good try,” the GM said
He then joked he couldn’t hear the question.
For more than a year, Schneider’s been slotting a possible contract value and planning what it may take to keep Walker.
The GM’s plans didn’t include Charbonnet getting hurt and being out well into next season.
They didn’t include Walker riding in a parade down Main Street USA with Mickey and Minnie Mouse at Disneyland the day after the Super Bowl, either.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hands Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9) the Super Bowl MVP trophy during a press conference after winning Super Bowl LX at Moscone Center on Feb. 8, 2026 in San Fransisco. Brian Hayes bhayes@thenewstribune.com
“No, we’d love to have Ken back,” Schneider said Tuesday.
“You know, it’s -- and he knows us better than anybody— it’s about our 70 (players, 53 on the active roster plus 17 on the practice squad for the 2026 season), our collective and what that’s gonna look like.”