His dad had never seen him play in an NFL game before Super Bowl LX. All Kenneth Walker did was go out and win MVP

Santa Clara, California (CNN) — Kenneth Walker Jr. never saw his son play in the NFL before Sunday night. He’d sat with him in the hospital when his boy was treated for blood clots in his lungs and he’d worked with his son to prove the doctors wrong – to prove that he would play football again.

But the overwhelming in-person experience of an NFL game was too much. Then his son’s agent changed his mind: He had to show up for Super Bowl LX.

Suffice to say, Kenneth Walker III has set quite the standard for himself to live up to the next time his dad is in the stadium.

Walker, a fourth-year player out of Michigan State University, ran for 135 juking, sliding, shuffling, lung-busting yards against the New England Patriots on Sunday night and put himself among the greats of the game by being voted the MVP of Super Bowl LX.

“My dad, he comes out to Seattle all the time and watch games, but he never goes to the game because he don’t like crowds,” Walker said after his stellar performance.

“So, this is his first NFL game, and we won a Super Bowl, so it means a lot to me and I know you’re proud of me for real.”

Walker has had some dominating performances in big games throughout his football career – five touchdowns in a classic Spartan win over Michigan in 2021 and 116 yards over the San Francisco 49ers and three touchdowns in the divisional round of these playoffs spring to mind – but he’s never really had a game like this.

With his defense dominating on the other side of the ball and his own offense sputtering, Walker had to be Him for the Seahawks in a way that he hadn’t been asked all year – mostly because he had Zach Charbonnet beside him.

Charbonnet and Walker made up the running back duo that was the pace-changer for the Seahawks offense, the complement to their devastating aerial attack led by Sam Darnold. But in the divisional round, Charbonnet tore his ACL and was ruled out for the rest of the season.

So, the ball, literally and figuratively, was given to Walker.

“You never want to see your brother get hurt, but I was gonna have to pick up the slack and I just wanted to make a positive impact on my team in whatever way possible,” Walker told reporters after the game.

After softening up the New England defense in the opening quarter, Walker started to find a groove.

At one point, NBC’s color commentator Cris Collinsworth openly wondered how many yards Walker had picked up after going backward. He was all over the place, breaking tackles and making guys miss when they had a clean shot at him. The Seahawks couldn’t get the ball into the end zone, but it was Walker putting them in position to score the field goals that built their lead in the opening stages of the game.

By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, Walker was ready to burst. And he made a run he’ll never forget – even though it didn’t count.

“The O-line had the hole wide open, I just really had to beat the safety and whoever was on my left,” he said of his 49-yard run into the end zone that was called back for a holding penalty.

“I scored and looked back and it’s a flag and, you know, that’s probably the worst feeling ever. But, we won the game, so I’m not gonna complain.”

‘Special’

There’s one word that his teammates kept using about Walker.

“K9 is special,” said Seattle safety Julian Love. “There’s not a person in the building that doesn’t believe that we’re a better team when he’s going, and so to see him and when he gets MVP, it’s crazy. He’s earned it. I mean, there’s been so much doubt on his name.

“He shows up each day. He’s a quiet guy. He’s a menace with that ball in his hands, and so he showed it today. The MVP is crazy, his whole playoff run. Obviously, Zach (Charbonnet), we love him, and it was vital having both of them all season. But it was more on K9’s shoulders when Zach went down. And so, he showed up for us.”

“I’m so happy for him,” said Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the team’s star wide receiver. “Y’all don’t understand what K9 has gone through. He’s a special player. He’s a special player and our o-line – they’re special. We have a special group of guys and I feel like when you look back at this team, y’all will realize how special we are.”

In a league where everyone is constantly predicting the demise of the running back position, Walker is proof that the old ways still work. Turning around and handing the ball off can be the way that you settle down an offense in the biggest game of their lives. It can be the way that a defense softens up to the point that you can finally get in the end zone, even if it doesn’t count. It can lead you down the field for five goals – a new Super Bowl record.

And it can win you the Vince Lombardi trophy.

“When the doctor told me I couldn’t play no more – I just thought football was over,” Walker said after the game. “That’s what I was doing all my life, so it was a shocking moment, but you know my dad worked with me throughout that whole process and he was in the hospital with me, as well and my mom.

“Just going through that, it just made me grateful for each and every day to be able to go out there and strap up and play this game and just still be alive, for real.”

The-CNN-Wire
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