The Kansas City Chiefs walked into Seattle unbeaten and walked out with their first loss of the season, a 20-3 beating on "Sunday Night Football" that felt one-sided long before the final whistle.
For all the attention on Kenneth Walker III returning to face the Seahawks, Seattle made sure the night belonged to its defense. Walker, who came in leading the league with 665 rushing yards and 6.3 yards per carry, was held to 36 yards on 14 carries. The Chiefs clearly wanted to lean on him, but the Seahawks did not bite.
Patrick Mahomes never found his rhythm either. He finished 19-of-33 for 165 yards with no touchdowns and an interception thrown to Seahawks safety Ty Okada with Kansas City already across midfield in the second quarter. NBC noted that it was the first time in the Mahomes era that the Chiefs were kept out of the red zone for a full game, a striking sign of how thoroughly Seattle controlled things.
The Seahawks, who had dropped three of their previous four, looked far more like the version that powered last season’s Super Bowl run. Sam Darnold was sharper, too, going 20-of-28 for 257 yards with one touchdown and one interception, and Seattle’s defense limited the Chiefs to just 213 total yards.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba was the star on the other side of the ball, and he kept adding to a season that has already put him at the center of Seattle’s offense. He entered Week 7 with 51.4% of the Seahawks’ receiving yards, which NBC said would be the highest rate in the NFL since 1956, and he only built on that with nine catches on 12 targets for 150 yards and a touchdown. He had 129 yards in the first half alone.
His highlight came late in the second quarter, when he hauled in a remarkable over-the-shoulder touchdown catch to stretch Seattle’s lead to 10-0. By the end of the night, the Chiefs had no real answer for him, and Smith-Njigba now has at least 100 receiving yards in all but one of Seattle’s seven games this season.
The Chiefs had a chance to make things interesting before halftime, but Harrison Butker’s missed field goals changed the shape of the game. After Darnold threw what looked like a costly interception near Seattle’s goal line, Nohl Williams picked it off and returned it across midfield. Butker then missed from 58 yards, and Kansas City went to the locker room still scoreless.
He did get the Chiefs on the board with a 50-yard field goal in the third quarter, their only points of the night, but another miss from 45 yards in the fourth quarter kept any comeback from ever gaining traction. The earlier miss loomed largest, especially with Kansas City’s offense offering so little around it.
Seattle’s defensive tone was set by Nick Emmanwori, who finished with four tackles, two solo, and a QB hit. After the game, when NBC Sports sideline reporter Melissa Stark asked him how the Seahawks handled Walker so effectively, Emmanwori didn’t sound remotely rattled.
"We haven't let up a 100-yard rusher in a long time, so we weren't really worried. We weren't losing no sleep about it, and we just came out here and played ball."
That was the story of the night: Seattle played ball, and Kansas City never found a way to answer.
In Other News...
Seahawks Offense Took Another Hit At The Worst Possible Time
Seattles offense was already working with a careful, ball-control plan, and the personnel losses only made the margin for error thinner. The Seahawks finished with 87 rushing yards and 257 through the air while trying to manage the game late, but the picture got shakier when wide receiver Rashid Shaheed was ruled out for the rest of the night and running back Velus Jones Jr. went down with a hamstring injury.
Zach Charbonnets lingering knee issue adds another layer to the concern, because the Seahawks were already leaning on a methodical approach to keep things in reach. They had a late lead before the opponent stretched it out, and now Seattle has to sort through more questions about health and depth at exactly the moment it needed stability most. [Read more 🡒]
Seahawks Added Insult To Chiefs First Loss In Brutal Fashion
The Seahawks did more than hand Kansas City its first loss of the season in a 20-3 rout. They also turned a milestone night for Travis Kelce into one of the more memorable postgame social media moments of the year, after the tight end moved past Tony Gonzalez for the most combined regular-season and playoff receiving yards by a tight end.
Seattles jab landed after the game, when the teams social account leaned into Kelces profile off the field with a reference to Taylor Swift, his wife, along with a friendship bracelet image and a lyric quote from one of her songs. It was a sharp, very public bit of shade attached to a frustrating afternoon for the Chiefs, and it added another layer to a loss that already stung in more ways than one. [Read more 🡒]
Seahawks Suddenly Face A Rashid Shaheed Concern They Didnt Expect
Rashid Shaheeds afternoon took an unexpected turn in the third quarter when the Seahawks receiver exited with a knee injury and headed to the locker room with a trainer. He was quickly listed as questionable to return, leaving Seattle to sort through the immediate impact of losing one of its most dynamic playmakers in the middle of the game.
The Seahawks have already had to adjust their offensive approach without him, a reminder of how quickly a game plan can change when a key receiver is unavailable. His status will be one of the bigger things to monitor as Seattle tries to navigate the rest of the game and, if needed, plan ahead for what comes next. [Read more 🡒]