Cutting Through the Noise, Week 13

Each week in Cutting Through the Noise, we will take an objective look at one of the most polarizing players in Dynasty Fantasy Football as decided by the Footballguys Dynasty Discord. We will use the Footballguys consensus rankings to gauge where the player is currently valued.

Ken Walker

RB4 and Overall No. 12

Ken Walker spent the first two seasons of his college career in the ACC, playing for Wake Forest. In his 20 games for the Demon Deacons, he handled just 216 carries and six receptions. With no NFL talent ahead of him, it was unclear as to why Walker handled such a light workload. His football future was murky, so he entered the transfer portal.

In 2021 Walker joined the Michigan State Spartans as their feature back. He carried the ball 47 more times than he had in the previous two seasons combined. He also doubled his career catch total with a modest 13 receptions. He finished the year with the second-most yards in all of college football. He earned the sixth most Heisman votes with 18 first-place nominations.

Walker’s career got off to a rocky start, but his final season was impressive enough to earn him early-round draft consideration. He entered the 2022 NFL Draft cycle regarded as the second-best back behind Breece Hall, although he had Hall beat in most statistical categories. Walker ran an impressive 4.38-second 40-yard dash at 211 pounds at the combine, but it was not enough to overtake Hall. Walker was selected 41^st overall to the Seattle Seahawks as the second running back off the board by just five picks.

There were some early workload concerns due to the presence of Rashaad Penny, who finally emerged as one of the more talented backs in the league after four injury-riddled seasons. Unfortunately, injury caught up with Penny once again, leaving the door wide open for Walker’s rookie season. Through 12 games, Walker has 135 carries for 613 yards and nine touchdowns. He’s also caught 19 passes for 116 yards.

He's now ranked in the first round of Dynasty drafts as the fourth running back. Has he earned it, or is his value a result of the fragile nature of his position?

The Good

Rashaad Penny sustained his season-ending injury in week five. In Week 6, Kenneth Walker immediately took over with a 69% snap share. He’s played over 70% of the snaps in each game since. Only seven other backs in the league have a firmer grasp on their respective backfields.

While it’s impressive enough to be a true workhorse on any team in 2022, Walker just so happens to be a member of an offense that rushes above league average. He’s averaged nearly 22 opportunities (rushes and targets) in his six weeks as the starter. Given the state of running back in recent years, we’re looking for volume more than ever. Walker puts a big fat check in that box.

There is plenty to be said of Walker’s box score production that we can get to in “The Bad,” but Walker is averaging the seventh-most PPR points of all backs over the last six weeks. He’s outproducing Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, and Jonathan Taylor, all of which happen to be ranked ahead of him in Dynasty.

The Bad

The main concern with Walker in recent weeks has been his yards per carry. Yards per carry is only slightly relevant when comparing two backs from the same backfield. Even then, one could argue the backs may be utilized differently, which would skew the comparison. Most of the time, yards per carry should be considered an offensive line stat to go along with yards before contact. For the sake of a negative, we’re going to humor the argument.

In Walker’s six starts, he’s averaged fewer than three yards per carry three times. In Week 8, he handled 18 carries and managed just 51 yards. He scored a touchdown and ended with 12.2 fantasy points. In Week 10 he was shut down by Tampa Bay and managed just 17 yards on 10 carries. He earned eight targets and caught 6 passes for 55 yards. He scored 13.2 fantasy points. Finally, we’ve come to his 14 carries for 26 yards in week 12. He scored two touchdowns and finished with 16.9 fantasy points. The main takeaway is naturally going to be, “what if he doesn’t score those touchdowns?”. He’s going to continue scoring those touchdowns because he’s handling 70% of the backfield in the league’s fourth-highest-scoring offense. His floor is as safe as we can ask for.

The legitimate negatives we should be drawing are how his offensive line may affect him long-term. He’s leading the league in runs of negative yards since taking over in week six. While his negative plays and tackles for loss are concerning, they’d be much worse if he didn’t break the 10th-most tackles over that span.

Conclusion

We can raise questions about Seattle’s future. Do they retain Geno Smith after he leads the fourth-most-productive offense? Do they improve the offensive line that Walker is being forced to overcome? The fact of the matter is that every running back has these question marks, but not every back has as many rebuttals as Walker. We can poke holes in his game, but he’s a 22-year-old second-round pick who is already handling one of the league’s highest snap shares and is consistently scoring within the top 10. Since taking over as the starter, he is sixth in carries, eighth in yards, has nine touchdowns, and is averaging nearly 20 PPR points per game.

Ranking running backs in Dynasty has turned into who has the least negatives rather than who has the most positives. Extremely talented wide receivers can earn massive volume and produce at a high level with limited impact from their surroundings. Running back is not that simple; just ask Tony Pollard.

Jonathan Taylor can have the top spot, but when it comes to who’s second between Walker, Breece Hall, or Bijan Robinson, we can have the boat, or we can take the mystery box that, if we’re lucky, may just have a boat inside. I’m taking the known commodity and ranking Walker as the second most valuable back in Dynasty.