A great running back suited up in Seattle on Sunday night. Expectations were high, the lights were bright, and many Seahawks fans were afraid of what he might do with an opportunity to carry the ball against a successful defense given what has happened this season. That running back ended up rushing 24 times for 100 yards and a game-sealing touchdown.
Can you imagine if that running back was Kenneth Walker like all the Chiefs fans told me was gonna happen?
Of course, Emanuel Wilson had 100 rushing yards, as he helped the Seahawks beat Walker’s Kansas City Chiefs 20-3 on Sunday night. Walker — as I predicted would happen — was held to 36 yards on 14 carries. It was simply math and matchups, not magic.
The Seahawks are 4-3 and after the San Francisco 49ers lost to the Atlanta Falcons and dropped to 6-1, Seattle’s hope for the division title are not dead.
The Chiefs offense was always in for a long night
As I wrote several times this week, it just didn’t make any sense that Kansas City would be able to score against the Seahawks defense without a turnover by Seattle or a fluky busted play. There was one Sam Darnold turnover, but he did it so deep in Chiefs territory and so late in the first half that Kansas City wasn’t able to get any points off of it after a missed 58-yard field goal.
There were no busted plays.
Given the way the Texans played on Sunday (losing 27-21 to the Giants), I can now safely say that the Seahawks have the best defense in the league. The Chiefs’ nightmare matchup I expected was going against Seattle’s #1 defense without their top two receivers and their starting right tackle. Walker had gained 70% of his rushing yards outside the tackles coming into Week 7, and the Seahawks had the #2 run defense (behind HOU) outside of the tackles.
That’s exactly how it played out: Walker couldn’t run the ball, Kansas City’s entire offense broke down, all Seattle’s offense had to do was score a little and not give anything away for free.
The Steps Were Obvious:
If the Seahawks contain Walker on outside runs, as expected, they’ll force him inside
Inside, Walker is not even a top-10 running back and the Seahawks have Byron Murphy and Leonard Williams up in there; Seattle has the highest stuff rate inside the tackles
Then if you stop Kansas City’s running game, you effectively shut down their entire offense this season because it’s so heavily predicated on play action. Travis Kelce would be far and away the number one option for Patrick Mahomes, but Seattle is also one of the top defenses in the NFL against tight ends.
Nick Emmanwori was Seaside Joe’s predicted winner of Defensive Player of the Game for that reason … and that’s what he ended up being.
Not only did the Seahawks hold Walker to his worst game of the season, but they put their team name in the column for one of Mahomes’ five-worst performances of his career. And it’s only the second time in Mahomes’ career that the Chiefs were held to three points.
(I want to say that even those three points felt a little cheap, but Kansas City also missed two field goals so we’ll take it as it lies.)
The Seahawks defense performed as expected, but Seattle’s offense and special teams deserves credit too.
Sam Darnold’s good night
Darnold finished 20-of-28 for 257 yards with one touchdown and one interception. The touchdown came on a perfect sideline pass to Jaxon Smith-Njigba and the interception came two plays after an almost identical pass to JSN went out of bounds just shy of the goal line.
For me, I predict Mike Macdonald and Brian Fleury would admit that something was amiss on the interception. It just does not make any sense that JSN and Rashid Shaheed were supposed to run directly at each other in the back of the end zone. It’s obvious Darnold saw a wide open JSN putting up the mailbox and he threw it to the spot he thought JSN was going to be standing in, but Shaheed had brought additional coverage over there and Darnold never saw that defensive player.
Every clean interception like that needs at least some accountability by the quarterback, including this one, but it feels like more than one thing went wrong there. Luckily, the Chiefs missed the ensuing field goal and overall this was an almost-perfect game for Darnold as the Seahawks went 11-of-16 on third down.
Tonight will improve their 29th-ranked third down offense.
JSN will be the Offensive Player of the Game after totaling nine catches for 150 yards. He now has 58 catches for 867 yards and eight touchdowns in seven games. Dating back to 2025, JSN has 14 games with at least eight catches and 100 yards. Nobody else has more than nine, and Puka Nacua is the only player with more than seven.
However, Emanuel Wilson can’t go unnoticed after rushing for 100 yards for the first time with Seattle. Jason Myers made all of his kicks and Michael Dickson got love from the broadcast for his curveball.
The stage was set for a Goliath on Goliath violence on Sunday night. But by the end, the Super Bowl winners beat the Super Bowl MVP.
I could have probably given the Vikings defense credit tonight. But I don’t care. I’m still riding this high.
I'll read the article after I comment.... because I've been waiting for you to post since halftime just so I ask you to let us know if Chiefs Twitter apologizes for giving you a bad time about the rushing projection for K9!