Are You Scared Of The Seattle Seahawks?
10 repliesLate October has settled in, Halloween is a week away, and naturally the schedule sends Kansas City on the road into a house of horrors known as the forgotten “Clink.”
Before divisional realignment moved Seattle to the NFC West, the Seahawks were an annual fixture on the Kansas City schedule. That history carries a specific ghost. On Veterans Day in 1990, Derrick Thomas dropped Dave Krieg seven times in an afternoon at Arrowhead, setting a mark that still stands.
Thirty-six years later, Kansas City drafted edge rusher R Mason Thomas in the second round, while Seattle quarterback Sam Darnold enters Sunday night under heavy fire from a Steve Spagnuolo defense that just shredded the paper Champions and is now out for the defending ones. It is hard not to think about that history when looking at how this matchup sets up.
Seattle likes to point to the trapped concrete volume “clinking” around Lumen Field, but Arrowhead Stadium holds the world record at 142.2 decibels.
Noise is not a novelty in Kansas City.
The substance of this game rests on the fact that Seattle holds the Lombardi Trophy from last season. They are 3–3, coming off two straight losses, and they are playing to keep their season afloat. That makes them dangerous, and defensively, they are the most disciplined group Kansas City has faced all year. That puts all eyes squarely on one matchup.
Kenneth Walker III vs. Seattle
Eight months ago, Walker won the Super Bowl and took home MVP honors in a Seattle jersey. In March, Seattle refused to pay him, so Kansas City bought in, paid the man, and brought K9 home to the Arrowhead yard.
Seattle let Kenneth Walker walk so Kansas City could run.
Fast forward to October, and Walker has piled up 760 yards from scrimmage and eight touchdowns across five games. Seattle’s offense without him has averaged below four yards a carry, coughing up fumbles and frantically activating Zach Charbonnet off a torn knee ligament just to find a pulse. When they shared that backfield, they were an entangled tandem where Walker never quite had the backfield entirely to himself, but now Seattle is scrambling to piece together a running game after what they voluntarily let walk away.
Across the field, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is putting together an extraordinary season of his own after Seattle handed him a monster contract fit for Halloween. While Walker leads the league in total scrimmage yards, JSN has posted 717 yards through the air in six weeks with seven scores. Credit where it’s due: both are playing sensational, game-breaking football, and watching each of them carry their respective offenses has been worth every penny for their franchises.
That creates an undeniable battle on the outside for the Chiefs’ defensive backs. Rookie Mansoor Delane is stepping into the biggest test of his life trying to deal with the hottest receiver on the planet. Alongside him, Nohl Williams has been awesome in his own right, but both young corners are facing a genuine four-quarter fight if Darnold has time to throw.
Up front, the Josh Simmons news was never a sudden panic as much as the maddening anxiety naysayers have championed as loud as both fanbases combined. Simmons hasn’t played a snap all season; Rick Burkholder stepping to the podium to announce injured reserve was simply the team admitting that relief will not come.
Kahlil Benson is no longer dressing up like an NFL left tackle for Halloween. After five starts, the rookie isn’t wearing a costume anymore. He is the left tackle. He took home Rookie of the Month honors in September, and now he has to anchor the blind side in the loudest stadium on the Chiefs road schedule.
That puts the burden on Andy Reid’s passing game against Mike Macdonald’s defensive front. With Travis Kelce and Rashee Rice working through injuries, Kansas City needs Xavier Worthy, Jalen Royals, Cyrus Allen, and Andrew Armstrong to separate, block, and produce against Devon Witherspoon, Julian Love, and the rest of the Seahawks’ formidable number-one defense.
This is the stage in the season where Patrick Mahomes might simply have to be Mahomes—ready to trick or treat Seattle’s defense with his magic and eye-candy ball skills. Facing a Super Bowl-caliber roster desperate to defend its reputation after back-to-back losses and letting Walker walk, Kansas City walks into an angry building hungry to make a statement in front of their home crowd. We all know that Mahomes tends to play his most concentrated football against elite defenses, but he’ll have to prove it once again in front of the world, in prime time on Sunday Night Football.
If Seattle drops a third straight game in October, their notoriously loud crowd will bring out the boo birds real quick. Seattle has the championship pride to fight for its life, but Kansas City has the ground game, the quarterback, and the defense to silence that building. Expect the Chiefs to walk out at 6–0, leaving the defending champions defeated in their own house—left “clinking” last year’s Super Bowl glasses to a 3–4 reality as Seattle unleashes a Halloween-esque Legion of Boos.
Are you scared?
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I aini’t ‘fraid of no ghosts, same with birds. Pluck the Seahawks!
People online get so mad about everything, but they really take this series so personal. It’s a question, not an accusation–and it’s a series. I almost wrote one about the bye week. Most of these have been fairly positive and have given the reader reasons to not be scared.
What about bird ghosts? Or ghost birds?
It still chaps my hide we lost that 7-sack game. A fingernail away from an 8-sack game and the dub.
Me too.
They are the defending champs, but I think KC is the better team this season. Hoping Walker runs well in his former home, as that would give us a chance to win.
The Seahawks having a pretty decent roster and coaching staff. They are going to put up quite the fight but I think that the Chiefs will have an answer. I would actually worry more if they were playing Drew Lock… Because he was managing them well like Alex Smith esque.
I think we’ll be able to get Darnold to make some mistakes trying to out duel Mahomes.
I think you nailed a big key to our success in the Mahomes era… putting stress on the opposing QB, especially late in games!
Good write up! we have a bunch of stuff today. I think Brag has some more videos coming up around 1…
Brag always has some videos up his sleeve.