Through the first four weeks of the 2025 NFL season, the Seattle Seahawks are riding a three-game winning streak with a revamped offense which appears quite capable of pouring on the points. Halfbacks Kenneth Walker III and Zach Charbonnet form a one-two punch with plenty of pop, but determining which player to start in any given week feels near-impossible. Which one of the pair provides better fantasy value moving forward?
Analysis
Through four weeks, it remains difficult to truly get a read on the Seahawks’ backfield due to one factor — injuries. Walker served as the starter over the last two seasons and was originally expected to start in Week 1, but a foot issue kept him out of most of the training camp and preseason period. During that span, the coaching staff (which includes new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak) raved about Charbonnet’s play and it soon became clear the former second-round pick could usurp his teammate as the starter. That came true in Week 1 when Charbonnet out-snapped Walker 58% to 40%, a trend which continued into Week 2 with a 55% to 35% split. However, Charbonnet suffered a foot injury which sidelined him for Week 3.
For that contest, Walker served as the primary running back with 53% of the snaps. Fast-forward just one more week to last Thursday and he played 50% of snaps to Charbonnet’s 47% as the split drew a bit closer. The injury may have played a factor in that workload distribution though, so it’s quite tough to discern whether the split remains the same in Week 5 and beyond. What’s there to learn from all this? Well, even a crystal ball or tarot cards may not be capable of revealing which halfback actually has the label of starter in Seattle. Still, we can analyze each player’s skill set and deployment to figure out who serves as the better fantasy football play.
Kenneth Walker III
Through his four appearances in 2025, Walker averages 13.6 FPPG. That line feels more in line with his typical fantasy production as he averaged 13.5 and 13.3 FPPG over the first two seasons of his career before a 16.5-FPPG campaign last year. In the first two weeks, Walker saw 10 and 13 rush attempts and four total targets, with five of those carries coming inside the 20-yard line. However, just one of those rush attempts came from inside the 10, and he didn’t see a single touch inside the five as Charbonnet absorbed those opportunities. The only goal-line carries Walker’s seen thus far came in Week 3 with Charbonnet out, so that’s a knock on his profile.
The two areas where he makes up for it are efficiency and pass-catching upside. Walker averages 4.2 YPC, much better than Charbonnet’s 2.5. He also boasts 11 explosive runs of 10+ yards, so the potential for long gains does provide a little bit of extra appeal for him scoring more fantasy points even with limited volume. Additionally, Walker’s seven targets outpace Charbonnet’s two and bump his ability to rack up PPR points. That’s a somewhat significant advantage, but the target share for Seahawks running backs is just 11.5%, the second-lowest of any team. Thus, it’s not a major boost barring a change to that trend.
Even with that said, he looks like a slightly safer play right now and brings low-end RB2 value with room for more.
Zach Charbonnet
Meanwhile, getting a read on Charbonnet remains a little more difficult due to his injury possibly changing his deployment when he returned in Week 4. Prior to that, he out-carried Walker 27 to 23 and handled four rush attempts inside the 10 to just one for his counterpart. He also took the only two attempts inside the five-yard line. In Week 4, Charbonnet carried the ball 12 times to Walker’s 18, but he did see both goal-line carries and scored a touchdown. Whether he’ll return to a role as the lead runner feels uncertain, but the fact he was still nursing an injury while playing on a short week means the team could’ve just been conservative with his touches for health reasons.
Without a pass-catching role, Charbonnet takes a bit of a knock in PPR formats. His efficiency hasn’t been great either, but if he maintains the goal-line role, there’s a lot of upside for some great fantasy weeks with a Seahawks team averaging 27.8 points per game. For Week 5, Charbonnet is probably less attractive of a fantasy option until we see how the greater workload distribution shakes out. Pencil him in as a touchdown-dependent FLEX in rankings for now. However, he’s absolutely a player to monitor and hold onto for the time being. As I put it in an article a couple of weeks ago:
When Walker misses time, Charbonnet nearly always rises to the occasion. In eight games as the starter without Walker active, the UCLA product has racked up 540 rushing yards and seven touchdowns on 124 carries, also catching 24-of-29 targets for 219 receiving yards. That averages out to over 17.7 FPPG, and the actual results show that Charbonnet can indeed carry the load as a fantasy RB1 with a full workload.
