1. Can an elite Seattle defense slow down Kenneth Walker III and an explosive Kansas City offense?<\/p>\n
In case you hadn’t heard, the Chiefs’ star running back, Kenneth Walker III, used to play for the Seahawks. In fact, he was the MVP of Seattle’s Super Bowl victory earlier this year. OK, OK, so you probably knew that already. But Walker’s return to Seattle is a big storyline heading into Sunday’s game not just because he’ll be facing his former team, but also because he is off to such a fast start. Despite the Chiefs having already had their bye, Walker leads the NFL in rushing yards with 665, and his 6.3 yards-per-carry average is also the league’s best.<\/p>\n
“He’s playing at an extremely high level,” defensive coordinator Aden Durde said. “You’re playing him, it’s different to see, but you’re also like, ‘Good for him.’ It’s another challenge, but it’s week in, week out. It’s about us. We’ve got to play our style of defense. We’ve got to understand our run fits and then understand how we play the game.”<\/p>\n
The Seahawks, meanwhile, counter with a run defense that has been one of the league’s best over the past two seasons. Last year, opponents averaged just 3.7 yards per carry against Seattle, the lowest mark in the NFL, and the Seahawks gave up only five runs of 20 or more yards all season, the fewest in the league. This year, the Seahawks have lowered that opponent YPC average to 3.5, which currently ranks fourth, and have allowed only two runs of 20 or more yards.<\/p>\n
Most notably heading into this game, the Seahawks have not allowed an individual 100-yard rusher in their last 35 games (including playoffs), a franchise record. Buffalo’s James Cook rushed for 111 yards against Seattle in Week 8 of the 2024 season, and since then no other rusher has topped that mark, and in 20 of those 35 games, Seattle’s opponents have failed to rush for 100 yards as a team.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the Chiefs, Walker is hardly the only person the Seahawks have to worry about. Head coach Andy Reid is one of the best offensive minds, and head coaches, of his era, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce are future Hall of Famers, and there are plenty of other playmakers to make life difficult on defenses.<\/p>\n
“I have a lot of respect for (Offensive coordinator Eric) Bieniemy,” Macdonald said. “He’s a great football coach. Andy Reid’s probably the best there is football coach. It’s quite a tag team. I can speak for this year. They’re playing really complimentary football. They’re staying ahead of the sticks, they’re being very efficient and they’re also the most explosive offense in the league. There are very few penalties and very few takeaways. They’re a great unit.”<\/p>\n
As Macdonald notes, the Chiefs are a very explosive offense, and that’s not just when Walker is making plays in the run game. The Chiefs’ 8.3 yards-per-pass-attempt average is tied for third best in the league, while their six completions of 40 or more yards are tied for second most.<\/p>\n
Seattle’s pass defense, meanwhile, have allowed just eight completions of 20 or more yards, the fewest in the league, and one of 40 or more yards, which is tied for the fewest.<\/p>\n
Per NFL Next Gen Stats, which defines explosive plays as runs of 10-plus yards and passes of 15-plus, the Seahawks have allowed explosives on 7.2 percent of plays this season, the lowest rate in the NFL, and the third lowest by any defense through six games since 2016. Seattle has allowed explosives on 7.5 percent of drop backs, while no other defense is below 10 percent, while the Chiefs have the league’s second highest explosive play rate (17.8 percent), and second highest on drop backs (19.8 percent).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Can an elite Seattle defense slow down Kenneth Walker III and an explosive Kansas City offense? In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1035082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[7,509,133229,134245,507,506,23461,6,238,237,261,2635],"class_list":["post-1035081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seattle-seahawks","tag-football","tag-homepage-hero","tag-homepage-top-headlines","tag-kansas-city-chiefs-at-seattle-seahawks-2026-reg-7","tag-news-national-feature","tag-news-stories","tag-news-what-to-watch","tag-nfl","tag-seahawks","tag-seattle","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-seattleseahawks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117491391779959951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1035082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}