The Seattle Seahawks had a signature performance on Sunday.
Seattle nearly shut out the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs, holding them to just 3 points and handing them their first loss of the season in a 20–3 win. In particular, the ‘Hawks defense shut down running back Kenneth Walker III on his return to Seattle. The win put the defending champs back on track after back-to-back losses before Sunday.
“We needed to win. I think that’s just part of this game,” linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. “But I mean, honestly, that’s what we’ve been. Once we execute and do our job, we should have been doing these things. And it was just good to see it come out today.”
The Seahawks held the Chiefs to just 213 total yards of offense. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes passed for just 165 yards and took a 2-yard sack. Mahomes and Walker combined for just 50 yards on the ground.
“We put on a clinic,” safety Nick Emmanwori said. “I know the defense; a lot of dudes were upset that we didn’t give them zero. That was our goal: give them zero. We definitely could have accomplished that. But that just says what type of defense we are … We didn’t lose any sleep about any offense or who we’re facing.”
The defense also made Kenneth Walker’s homecoming miserable. Walker, who has had four 100-plus-yard games and two games with 170+ yards so far this season, was limited to 36 yards on 14 carries. Walker was drafted by the Seahawks in 2022 and spent four years in Seattle, winning MVP of Super Bowl LX before signing with the Chiefs in free agency this offseason.
Emmanwori said it was a point of pride to limit Walker’s ability to disrupt games.
“I’m not going to sit here and lie; I definitely did want to hold him under a hundred,” he said. “I don’t really listen to all the media noise, but that kind of was my motivation. I know a lot of dudes on the defense, that was their motivation, too, to stop him under 100 and play lights out on defense, and I think we did that.”
Jones said the key to shutting down Walker was the defense’s aggressiveness in flying to the football.
“Just getting after him, man,” he said. “He’s been here. We know what type of running back was coming in here, but we don’t allow people to run through our defense. That’s just us. And we were able to execute against a really good running back today and hold them to minimum yards in that category.”
Emmanwori was a key part of shutting down Walker and the entire offense. With just 4 tackles and a QB hit, he was all over the field, rushing and covering Walker off the edge, blitzing Mahomes from the box, and going stride for stride with speedster Xavier Worthy.
“It’s just a swarm of players,” Emmanwori said of the defense’s mindset. “It’s hard to really scheme us. Sometimes we don’t even get it. Like sometimes we just go out there and play ball, play fast, play disruptive. We don’t even know what we’re doing in the moment, until we watch the stats and look at the film. But that’s just our defense. Any one of us on that defense can disrupt the game, whether it’s our tackles, our corners, our safeties. It’s lights out.”
The Seahawks previously dropped back-to-back games in two weeks of play, both by a field goal: a 32–29 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Oct. 11, then a 17–14 loss to the Denver Broncos on Thursday Night Football on Oct. 15. After redeeming themselves in a big way, Jones said the win was a boost for their confidence.
“We know when we’re clicking on all levels that, there’s not too many offenses that can move the ball against us,” he said. “So, we just continue to work, fix the things that we need to fix today, and just get ready to go next week.”
