Kenneth Walker represents the Chiefs’ future. But they have more work to do
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs add Kenneth Walker to help Patrick Mahomes and boost the run game.
- Departing 2022 draftees signed roughly $258M in new contracts elsewhere.
- Franchise must replace production via upcoming draft capital and player development.
The prize of the Chiefs’ free agency class stepped into the team facility this week for the first time — and Kenneth Walker arrived sharing more in common with the quarterback than most here.
Or, at least in one aspect, more in common with him than everyone here.
When Walker greeted Patrick Mahomes on Thursday — they’d exchanged texts, calls and social media posts, but hadn’t yet met in person — it marked the first time in three decades the Chiefs had two of them on the same roster.
Super Bowl Most Valuable Players, of course.
Walker is a month removed from winning his trophy. Mahomes has built something of a collection.
The former is here so he can help the latter. So he can ease the burden for the quarterback. So he can provide a supporting cast.
There’s some irony in it — Walker serving as the new supporting cast.
Before he was the prize of the free agency class, he was a prize of the 2022 NFL Draft class, the second running back off the board in a group that has produced eight rushers who have run for at least 2,500 yards in their initial four seasons.
The irony? The Chiefs have some familiarity with that class.
It’s served as their supporting cast for the last four years.
During a week in which the Chiefs added one member of that draft, they watched eight players from their 2022 draft class sign contracts with other teams in the last five days alone.
Their total earnings over the next four years: $258 million.
Seriously. The Chiefs just had one draft class sign $258 million of contracts in the span of a week.
It leaves a dual meaning to Walker’s arrival.
He’s a sign of where the Chiefs’ next phase is headed — but also a reminder of what they’ll now have to play without.
Walker is a valuable addition. He should be the most immediately valuable of all the additions, regardless of what awaits. But the foundation of the Chiefs’ long-term future must be built in the same way they constructed a team that went to three straight Super Bowls and won two of them.
That draft class.
The one of which Walker was a member.
But the one that just walked out the door for a few hundred million dollars.
For all the attention on this time of year — certainly warranted — the Chiefs did not build a perennial Super Bowl contender in March. They did it April and May.
While the Chiefs missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade this season, their 2022 NFL Draft class had never finished the season shy of a Super Bowl. They were 55-23, playoffs included, and that also includes the 6-11 record last year. (Yes, that makes them 49-12 in their initial three seasons.)
There’s a reason those guys are getting paid — Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson with the Rams; Bryan Cook in Cincinnati, Leo Chenal with the Commanders; Isiah Pacheco in Detroit; and even Joshua Williams (Titans), Skyy Moore (Packers) and Darian Kinnard (Packers).
The Chiefs killed that draft. They built a defense with it — a unit that finished top-10 in yards allowed in three straight years for the franchise’s first time in a half-century.
As rookies alone, they combined for 664 offensive snaps, more than 3,000 defensive snaps and about 1,500 on special teams. So on defensive plays in 2022, the Chiefs averaged three rookies on the field. And last year, that class produced 3,700 defensive snaps.
Which leaves a two-pronged takeaway.
That 2022 class was remarkable. It also includes George Karlaftis, who signed a 4-year, $93 million extension with the Chiefs last summer and is the last man standing.
Collectively, the class signed second contracts totaling $351 million. (The departed group isn’t guaranteed that $258 million, but nor is anyone playing on their last deal.)
But the other takeaway: It’s a lot to replace, and the man who arrived at the Chiefs’ facility for the first time this week can’t replace it all.
Where does the rest come from?
Ideally, exactly where it originated.
Look, it’s going to be pretty hard to replicate that kind of production in a single draft — but the Chiefs have never had a better opportunity to replicate it. They have more draft capital next month than they held in 2022.
Walker is a good piece, and potentially a really good piece for an offense that needs help in the running game — and an offense needs to find some way, any way, to make the quarterback’s job a little easier. Walker could change the way the Chiefs play offense. If they want to maximize what they paid for him — upward of $45 million over three years — it should change the way they play offense.
It’s a major piece of the puzzle.
The other rests on the same thing they just turned over — the same thing that just cost the rest of the league $258 million to acquire.
This story was originally published March 13, 2026 at 6:30 AM.