What the Seahawks Proved in Stifling the Previously Unstoppable Chiefs’ Offense

Rich opened the show with a headline for Sunday night: "The world champs have entered the chat."

It took Seattle a while to get here. The Seahawks lost Sam Darnold about five snaps into their opener against New England, and while Rich gave due respect to Drew Lock for holding things together, there was not much rhythm to be found with a backup in and a starter on the way back. The run game sputtered, injuries piled up, the offensive line was not playing up to snuff, and all three phases were not clicking. Seattle walked into Sunday night's game against the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs as a .500 team.

Rich had one safe assumption going in: Seattle was not going to let Kenneth Walker III run all over them the way he had been running all over the rest of the league. "They were not letting K9 come back into that building and do his thing," he said. "No way, no how."

That is exactly how it played out. Walker finished with a season-low 36 rushing yards, 97 shy of his average coming into the game. Rich admitted he was part of the noise Seattle heard all week. He had said, on this show and on Sunday morning's pregame show before Steelers-Saints, that Walker could be this year's Sam Darnold, the player a team lets walk who then wins a Super Bowl somewhere else. "The Seahawks were clearly not up for that narrative to continue," Rich said.

Once Walker was neutralized, the game went on Patrick Mahomes' shoulders, and Seattle's defense "ran his ass down over and over again." Leonard Williams, DeMarcus Lawrence and the rest of the Dark Side front took over, and the numbers Rich read off were brutal. Mahomes was pressured on 53% of his dropbacks, the fourth-highest rate of his career. He threw for a season-low 165 yards. The three points tied for the fewest in a game Mahomes has started, the Chiefs had zero red-zone drives for the first time in a Mahomes start, and their 213 total yards were the second fewest. Mahomes' 165 passing yards were only 15 more than Jaxon Smith-Njigba had receiving.

Smith-Njigba, Rich noted, is the first player in the Super Bowl era with 850 receiving yards and eight receiving touchdowns through his team's first seven games. Darnold stayed upright and got rid of the ball almost a second faster. The run game did its part too, with 153 rushing yards and Emanuel Wilson putting up 100 yards and a score. With Zach Charbonnet and first-round pick Jadarian Price on the way back, Rich said that "takes care of the other conversation" about whether Seattle can run without Walker.

Head coach Mike Macdonald said the win reminded his players what they are capable of. "You want them to feel what it feels like to play our brand of ball again," he said, "and you want our fans to feel it too." He added that "we're still a championship caliber team and that's what we're chasing."

Seattle's Nick Emmanwori confirmed the motivation Rich suspected. "I'm not going to sit here and lie. I definitely did want to hold him under 100," Emmanwori said, adding that a lot of players on the defense felt the same way. Walker, for his part, walked off without handshakes or dapping up his former teammates. "We lost. I was frustrated. That's about it," he said.

With San Francisco also losing, Seattle gained ground in the division, and next up is the Week 8 Monday night game against the Bears in Seattle. Rich said that matchup should have been the season opener, because Seattle just erased Mahomes in a way he has rarely been erased, and now "a less decorated, younger version of him" arrives in Caleb Williams. His co-host countered that the schedule makers got it right by waiting, since both teams now look like NFC contenders. After that comes Arizona at home, a trip to Las Vegas, a bye and then the big one in San Francisco, where Seattle won the Super Bowl and won the regular-season finale last year.

Cris Collinsworth said on the broadcast that this team, playing like that, can win the Super Bowl again. Rich agreed. "They looked super last night," he said. "That's a fact."