Kenneth Walker reveals secret to Seahawks success and more (Exclusive)

Kenneth Walker is having a fantastic year on the field, as are the Seattle Seahawks. The star running back has helped the Hawks get into position for the top seed. Off the field, he's making sure he is healthy and looks good, and his teeth health is a big part of that.

Walker partnered with Oral-B, making him one of many NFL players to link up with the popular tooth care brand. As for why, Walker revealed to Seahawks On SI that it all goes back to childhood.

"I'm always with my pops, and as a kid, he used to always tell me about my teeth. I used to love to eat candy. (0:23) So he'd always tell me like my teeth would fall out or whatever," Walker said.

He said "obviously" he didn't want his teeth to fall out, and that idea was instilled him to take good care of his teeth. "As a professional athlete, I always want to take care of my body, and I feel like taking care of my teeth is just the same."

Walker himself uses the Oral-B iO Series Electric Toothbrush, and he specifically likes the two-minute timer it has. "It's like I can get the perfect clean for my teeth," he said with a smile.

The Seahawks are in first place right now, but not by a wide margin. The Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers are both bearing down on the Hawks. Walker says it's going to take more of the same to fend them off.

"I just feel like we gotta keep doing what we've been doing," he said. "All season we've been harping on 1-0 and being 1-0 [every week]."

To go 1-0 this week, the Seahawks will have to beat the Carolina Panthers. Just a few weeks ago, the Panthers helped the Seahawks by beating the Rams in Charlotte. That's where the Seahawks will play.

Carolina's just 8-7, but they've proven to be feisty. The Green Bay Packers were once the one seed until the Panthers beat them. That was true of the Rams as well. Number one seeds don't fare well against the Panthers, for some reason.

Sep 24, 2023; Seattle, Washington, USA; Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9) celebrates after rushing for a touchdown against the Carolina Panthers during the fourth quarter at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images | Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

To avoid losing that game, Walker says the Seahawks need to "keep the main thing the main thing, and that's just focusing on this game." He mentioned going 1-0 this week again. The 49ers loom in Week 18, but Walker noted that the Hawks can't get ahead of themselves.

Coming off an emotional, dramatic win last week won't make that easy. There is an inevitable comedown that can bite the Seahawks. They're going to try not to let it.

"We're a brotherhood," he said. "Everybody's got the same mindset. Coach Mike does a great job on harping on that as well. (2:57) Like even today we had meetings, and he told us like, it's a lot of stuff, a lot of distraction that's going on, but we just got to keep focused on what we got to keep focused on."

Speaking of coach Mike Macdonald, it's only his second season. In year one, the Seahawks were decent and won 10 games. This year, they're elite and have already surpassed that win total and will likely end with a whole lot more.

Walker said the Seahawks this year are a "tight-knit" team, and that, believe it or not, shadow-boxing in the locker room really helps. "When you know your brother gonna go hard for you, you'll do the same for him on the field," he said.

As for how that shadow-boxing trend got started, it's one of the great mysteries of the NFL. Walker admitted no one knows how it began, but said he and Derick Hall used to do it a ton, and it sort of kept going from there. "It just keeps us together," he said.

Walker is nearing a career high in scrimmage yards. He could set all sorts of personal records in the next two weeks. But Walker isn't taking the credit for that. "I always give credit to my O-line first," he said, "because if it's not for those guys, none of that's possible."

The offensive line has been much maligned over the years since Walker's been on the team. But this year, the line has been much better, and the main addition was rookie first-rounder Gray Zabel, who Walker said doesn't act like a rookie.

"He's always in his playbook, he's always wanting to learn and asking me questions to see what I see to make his job better," the running back said. The other change that might've helped the offensive line was the hiring of Klint Kubiak as an offensive coordinator.

Walker said that Kubiak is a tremendous leader, and that he's always open to hearing new ideas. But most importantly, he puts the ball in the hands of his playmakers, such as Walker or Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

The Seahawks are the one seed in a wide-open NFC. The entire NFL seems pretty wide open. The Chiefs, Ravens, Eagles, and others aren't as good as they usually are, and it could be anyone's season.

Despite wanting to go 1-0 and focusing on the immediate game, Walker said it's also important to know what sort of "special" things this group can do. It's hard not to get too ahead, but they have to be aware of what could happen.

"I feel like that's good to have though, like that in the back of your head, because it's a long season and when you feel like you wanna like stop on your routine or something, you got something to think of, you got something to look forward to," he said.

And while Walker is aware of the big picture for his team, he's not as interested for himself. Free agency looms, but it's not something he's worrying about during the season. He prefers to let that sort itself out later.

"I'm so focused on us winning and getting better as an individual as well that I don't really, you know, all that stuff will play out in the off-season," he said.

There is a bit of a running gag in the NFL community surrounding the Seahawks' backfield. Kenneth Walker will do a lot of the heavy lifting to get the Hawks down close, and then Zach Charbonnet's number will be called to score from there.

Fans have viewed it as suffering for Walker or unfair for their fantasy team, but Walker and Charbonnet don't care. "We laugh about it," he said. "We're on the internet, so we see stuff like that, but honestly, that's about all I do is laugh about it because we're winning."

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