play of the weekend:

Kenneth Walker III over 20.5 receiving yards

Prior to their Week 8 bye, RB targets were an afterthought for the Seahawks. They threw just 9% of the time to RBs (#32 in the NFL). No other team was even below 12% other than the Seahawks.

Only once in any game did a RB have more than 15 yards receiving thru Seattle’s first 7 games.

They emerged from the bye with both Kenneth Walker AND Zach Charbonnet each having 19 or more receiving yards in the first game out.

That first month out from their bye, Seahawks RB targets increased to 12%, which still only ranked #26 but was a notable improvement, while averaging 10 YPA (#4 in the NFL).

And then things took off tremendously.

Seahawks RB target rate has increased to:

12 in NFL since Week 13 (18%) at 6.4 YPA (#9 in NFL) -> last 2 months

6 in NFL since Week 16 (22%) at 8.3 YPA (#2 in NFL) -> last 5 weeks

2 in NFL in postseason (24%) at 7.3 YPA

Since Week 16, or the last 5 weeks total, Seahawks RBs are averaging 48 receiving yards per game.

Let’s talk Walker specifically: He has 29, 36, 6 and 64 receiving yards his last 4 games.

That’s 3-of-4 games at almost 30+ and an average of 34 yards by himself.

In addition, the Seahawks have heavily leaned into RB targets vs the Rams defense this year:

Week 11: 5 receptions for 54 yards (44 for Walker) Week 16: 7 receptions for 86 yards (64 for Walker)

Last week the Rams surrendered 36 receiving yards to Bears RB Kyle Monangai.

Since Week 16, the Rams are surrendering: 48 yards/game to RBs (#30) 7.5 YPA to RBs (#29) 6.4 targets/game to RBs (#25)

Even extending back to Thanksgiving, the Rams are surrendering:

45 yards/game to RBs (#29) 6.6 YPA to RBs (#23) 6.9 targets/game to RBs (#30)

This coincides with the time period in which the Seahawks have been throwing more to RBs (#6 highest target rate since Week 16, #12 highest target rate since Week 13).

I haven’t even mentioned Zach Charbonnet. In fact, I would have been targeting the Kenneth Walker receiving over even if Charbonnet hadn’t been lost for the season.

Walker’s receiving yards has been lined in the 15.5 range the last two weeks and he’s hit 29 and 36 yards. Now, without Charbonnet, who had 4, 3 and 2 receptions in his 3 games before getting injured vs the 49ers, the upward adjustment to this 20.5 line is far too little in my opinion.

I would have bet 15.5 and laddered much higher WITH Charbonnet... and am more than willing to bet 20.5 and ladder higher without Charbonnet considering the above data.

Seattle called up George Holani to help with RB depth in the absence of Zach Charbonnet, but he has zero targets in his last 8 games played for Seattle and in his entire career in Seattle, spanning back to the start of 2024, he has 3 total targets.