In the days leading up to the highly anticipated Sunday Night Football matchup between the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs (5-0) and the reigning Super Bowl champs Seattle Seahawks (3-3) most of the talk centered around Kenneth Walker. Who, of course, played a key role in helping Seattle win their 2nd Lombardi Trophy, then left in free agency for a massive payday. The Chiefs, smartly, identified Walker as the running back to compliment all-world QB Patrick Mahomes. KC and GM Brett Veach offered Walker a 3-year, $43 million dollar contract with $28.7 million dollars guaranteed and a $13 million dollar signing bonus. The running back accepted it immediately. Sometimes the player, or his agent, takes the offer back to his original team to see if they will match, there also didn’t see to be much enthusiasm from Seattle’s side to negotiate with the former Spartan. John Schneider and Mike Macdonald instead opted to draft Jadarian Price in the 1st round, in addition to signing Emanuel Wilson and giving George Holani more reps. Unfortunately for Seattle, they might’ve chosen wrong.

Ken Walker has been astonishingly good in KC, like leading the NFL in rushing yards kind of good. His ability to be the 3-down back and take pressure off Patrick Mahomes has given the Chiefs a great platform to build a balanced offense. In Walker’s first 5 games as a Chief he ran for 173 yards, 117 yards, 70 yards, 117 yards and 128 yards. He also added 6 rushing TD’s and 2 receiving TD’s over that 5 game span. Now, if were being honest, those are MVP level numbers if he can keep them up for a whole 17 game season. Which seems to be the main reason he is no longer a Seahawk, questions surrounding his durability.

During his 4 seasons in Seattle he averaged 15.2, 14.6, 13.9 and 13.0 rushing attempts per game. This season alone he’s up to 20.0 rushing attempts per game. Last season in Seattle he had a total of 221 rushing attempts, through 5 games in KC he’s already up to 106. If we extrapolate this number for a 17 game season he would run 360 times, which would tie him with 2005 Edgerrin James for 45th all-time in a single season. Safe to say that would smash Walker’s career high rushing attempts in a single season. Andy Reid, Eric Bieniemy and the rest of the offensive staff need to figure out a way to maximize Walker and not rely too heavily on him. Burnout or injury with a star RB is a real threat and could derail a very promising season.

From the opening minutes, it felt like Mike Macdonald and the defense made it a point to not let Ken Walker get going. He was bottled up at the line of scrimmage and wasn’t afforded room on the backside to cutback. The former Seahawk finished with 36 yards on 14 carries. Easily his worst performance of the season. With an ineffective running game the Chiefs turned to Patrick Mahomes and the pass attack, which also didn’t go very well. Mahomes finished with 165 yards on 19/33 attempts, 0 TD’s, 1 INT and 1 sack. Noah Gray, Travis Kelce and Cyrus Allen all found success down the middle of the field and when Mahomes scrambled out of pocket. On the other hand, the wide receivers were almost non-existent. Simply put, Kansas City doesn’t have a pass catcher anywhere near as talented as Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

The reigning offensive player of the year is on another planet. If the Seahawks had any other receiver this team would be sunk. Just look at JSN’s game log through 6 weeks:

Those numbers are absurd. The funny thing is JSN isn’t an overwhelming physical force or has 4.2 speed. His special, set-himself-apart-skill is his deceptive nature. The way he uses head and body fakes to get his defender off-balance then glide by them and make quick, decisive cuts to open up just enough space for a pass. It also helps he and Sam Darnold have incredible chemistry, which they flashed on JSN’s 2nd quarter TD reception. Sam dropped a dime in JSN’s lap and he did the rest getting the ball over the pylon. The former Buckeye finished with 150 yards on 9 receptions and 1 TD. Seattle also got a good game from Emanuel Wilson, who finished with 100 yards on 24 carries and 1 TD.

While the offense did just enough in the Seahawks 20-3 win over Kansas City, the story was the defense and how they shut down both Kenneth Walker and Patrick Mahomes. Nick Emmanwori gets a special shoutout due to his play forcing Mahomes into a bad read that resulted in Ty Okada’s interception, which Seattle turned into a TD. Collapsing the pocket and harassing Mahomes all evening was the major difference. His timing was off most of the night with his receivers.

Next up for the 4-3 Seattle Seahawks is their 3rd primetime game in a row, this time a Monday night affair against the 5-2 Chicago Bears, who are coming off an impressive Thursday night victory 30-24 against the New England Patriots. Bears QB Caleb Williams looks healthy after missing a few games with a calf injury and will present the Seahawks defense with a unique matchup. Chicago head coach Ben Johnson is regarded as the best young offensive play-caller in the NFL, so a battling of wits against the NFL’s best young defensive play-caller should be a helluva stylistic matchup.