The champs are still the champs.
The Seahawks have shown some vulnerabilities this season, particularly on the offensive end, but they reminded the NFL that their defense is still lethal with a dominant performance against the Chiefs on “Sunday Night Football.”
Seattle’s 20-3 win not only handed the Chiefs their first loss of the season, but their worst offensive performance of the Patrick Mahomes era by most indications.
Here are the numbers behind the Chiefs’ ugly offensive display in Seattle.
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Chiefs offense vs. Seahawks, by the numbers
3 points
The Chiefs have never been shut out in a game started by Mahomes, so their three points tie a 27-3 loss to the Titans in 2021 as the lowest mark with their star under center. Even last season, when Kansas City won just six games and missed Mahomes in three games, the Chiefs never scored fewer than nine points.
Kenneth Walker’s 36 rushing yards
Which one of these numbers is not like the rest? 173, 117, 70, 177, 128 and 36. With all due respect to the Dolphins, who managed to hold Walker to 70 rushing yards in Week 3, the Seahawks did something no team has been able to do this season by holding their former running back to just 36 yards on a meager 2.6 yards per carry. Those are both season-lows, as is his 29 percent success rate, ESPN’s Mina Kimes notes.
Seattle took Walker off his historic pace and didn’t let him run for more than seven yards on a single play, proving Mike Macdonald knows exactly how to gameplan against the player his defense faced in practice in each of the last two years.
2 missed field goals
The Chiefs lost by 17 points, but the momentum of the game changed twice when Harrison Butker missed two field goals. Butker did drill one from 50 yards out, giving the Chiefs their only points of the night, but he came up short on a long-shot 58-yard attempt and then missed from 45 yards out when they had a chance to make it a one-possession game in the fourth quarter.
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0 red zone appearances
For the first time in a game started by Mahomes, the Chiefs didn’t even enter the red zone. That would be an unfathomable thought for some of the Kansas City teams of the early portion of the decade, but even some of the more subdued Chiefs offenses of recent years never had a game without a red zone appearance when Mahomes was on the field.
213 yards
The Chiefs’ 213 yards of offense are also the lowest total in a regular-season game started by Mahomes. Kansas City did have a 212-yard playoff game against the Texans, but unlike that day, the Chiefs didn’t walk away with a win this time.
0 explosive plays
Sunday marked the first game of Andy Reid’s head coaching career without an explosive play, which is defined as at least a 10-yard run or 20-yard pass, CBS Sports’ Doug Clawson notes.
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