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It was a frustrating night for the Chiefs, but midway through the fourth quarter, Harrison Butker got a chance to make it a one-score game against the reigning Super Bowl champions on Sunday Night Football at Lumen Field in Seattle.
The Seahawks’ offense had been efficient and the defense dominant, but the lead was only 10 points when Patrick Mahomes and the offense mounted a 60-yard drive.
It was the fifth time in seven drives Kansas City had reached Seattle territory before the drive stalled and coach Andy Reid sent Butker out for a 45-yard field-goal try. The once-reliable kicker pushed the ball wide right, and the Chiefs’ unblemished season drowned in a sea of cheers from the 12th Man.
“All three phases, we struggled,” Reid said. “So, we’ve got to do better and that’s my responsibility. I take full responsibility for this.”
The Seahawks, who finished 11 of 16 on third down while limiting the Chiefs to 3 of 11, tacked on a touchdown — Emanuel Wilson, who had 24 carries for 100 yards and added a 15-yard catch, did the honors with a 21-yard run as the Red Sea of Kansas City’s defense parted — to polish off a 20-3 win for Mike MacDonald’s squad.
“This sucks,” Mahomes said. “You don’t want to perform like this in primetime, in a big moment like this. So, you’ve got to feel it on that plane ride home and understand that it sucks, but how can you build off of it? That’s the biggest thing.”
Seattle (4-3) avoided the multiple-turnover performances that have at times plagued the offense this season and bottled up Kenneth Walker III as Kansas City (5-1) took one on the chin, failing to reach double figures for only the third time in Mahomes’ career.
The three points matched the fewest the Chiefs have scored in a game Mahomes has started.
“You got your tail kicked,” said Mahomes, who finished 19 of 33 for 165 yards with no touchdowns and an interception. “Didn’t execute offensively, especially around that midfield area. Kept us away from a lot of points, or at least enough points to be competitive. But it’s stuff you’ve got to learn from. That’s obviously a really good defense and we didn’t execute at a high enough level to have success.”
Kansas City also scored only three points in a 27-3 loss at Tennessee on Oct. 24, 2021, but Sunday marked the first time a Mahomes-led offense failed to reach the red zone.
The Chiefs still lead the AFC West by a half-game, but will need to win next Sunday at Denver (5-2) to stay atop the division.
“It’s about how you come back, because you’re going to face it,” said Jones, who didn't have a tackle for a defense that failed to record a sack for the fourth time in six games. “At some point in time, in some area of your life, adversity is going to hit you. It’s about how you bounce back.”
Seattle stops Walker
Walker, who signed a big contract with Kansas City after earning Super Bowl MVP honors with Seattle last season, entered Sunday averaging 133 rushing yards in his first five games with the Chiefs.
He’s set the league ablaze with eight touchdowns already this season, but his former team was having none of it.
The Seahawks boast the NFL’s best defense, allowing only 237.3 yards per game and 4.0 yards per play this season entering the game, and they flexed on their former teammate.
Walker managed only 36 yards rushing on 14 carries, a 2.6-yard average, while adding four catches for 21 yards.
“We have to help him,” Mahomes said. “I think that’s the biggest thing. When they put so many eggs in that basket of stopping the run game, we have to have the play-action game and the movement game to be able to throw the ball. If we’re not proving that, they’re going to continue to put those guys up at the line of scrimmage.”
Mahomes said his inability to punish the Seahawks with the play-action game early allowed the defense to settle in.
“If I can hit some of those, it will loosen up the defense, and he can kind of get going,” Mahomes said. “That’s what we’ve been so good at this year, and obviously we didn’t do it today.”
The Chiefs managed a meager 213 yards, more than 200 yards below their NFL-leading 414-yard average entering the game.
Mahomes praised Seattle’s ability to “contain the explosive plays” that limited the offense.
“They passed off their zones, they played man when they needed to play man, and then they got us off the field on third down,” Mahomes said.
After racking up nearly 160 yards rushing per game in the first five games, Seattle limited Kansas City to 50 yards rushing on 16 carries.
Missing pieces
For the first time since Super Bowl LIX, the Chiefs were shut out in the first half of a game Mahomes started.
It’s the fourth time that’s happened, including the loss to the Titans five years ago and Mahomes’ first AFC Championship Game — a 37-31 overtime loss, most famous for Dee Ford’s offside penalty.
But this was perhaps the least surprising instance.
Kansas City has been without its starting left tackle, 2025 first-round pick Josh Simmons, all season. He was placed on injured reserve midweek, and reports emerged early Sunday that he’d been asked to leave a team meeting the day before the roster move.
Right tackle Jaylon Moore was also out, so the Chiefs used a lot of multiple-tight end sets early and kept extra blockers to shore up the line.
Additionally, Kansas City lost its leading receiver, Tyquan Thornton, late in a Week 4 game at Las Vegas. He will miss at least three months after surgery to repair an ankle injury.
Rashee Rice also left the win over the Raiders with a hamstring injury and has missed the first two games after the bye week.
Going up against the NFL’s top defense in one of the league’s toughest environments without both starting tackles and the top two receivers was always going to be a tough task.
“The biggest takeaway is: if you don’t come ready to play, you can get your tail kicked in this league,” Mahomes said. “No matter if you’re 5-0 or whatever it is, every week’s a new week and every team can do this.”
Seahawks dominate 1st half
An illegal shift, which erased a completion for a first down to Walker, short-circuited Kansas City’s opening drive. Still, Mansoor Delane made sure Seattle also came up empty on its first possession with a terrific third-down pass breakup.
The Chiefs started their second drive at the 10-yard line and drove into Seahawks territory before it fizzled, and Reid opted to play the field position game.
It backfired when Sam Darnold drove Seattle 86 yards on 15 plays, including a pair of key third-down conversions on passes to Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Kansas City stiffened in the red zone and only trailed 3-0 after a 25-yard Jason Myers field goal.
Once again, the Chiefs moved across midfield on the ensuing drive, but safety Nick Emmanwori wasn’t fooled on a play-fake and chased a bootlegging Mahomes toward the sideline.
Mahomes tried to float a pass to Jalen Royals, but the pressure forced the throw to sail into fellow safety Ty Okada’s arms.
“I got kind of pulled down as I was throwing and it sailed high over the top of his head,” Mahomes said.
Darnold, who finished 20 of 28 for 257 yards with a touchdown and an interception, punished the mistake on the ensuing drive, which featured a twisting and turning scramble that left Kansas City’s defensive line grasping at air as he converted a third-and-6 from the 36-yard line with a 7-yard scramble on the final play before the two-minute warning.
Three plays later, Darnold burned Delane with a 28-yard bomb to Smith-Njigba, who finished with nine catches for 150 yards, in one-on-one coverage deep down the left sideline for the game’s first touchdown with 1:44 remaining before halftime.
Seattle led 10-0 at the intermission, but it could have been worse.
The Chiefs went three-and-out and only used 28 seconds, giving the Seahawks a chance to drive into the red zone before Nohl Williams picked off Darnold in the end zone. He even returned the ball 65 yards, giving Harrison Butker a field-goal try to end the half, but his 58-yard effort came up short.
Butker is 1-for-5 on tries of 50-plus yards this season at that point.
When asked about Butker coming up short on the 58-yard try, Red deflected, “Everybody had an issue; started with me.”
Butker’s long-range issues
But during his first three pro seasons, Butker went 9-for-15 on field-goal tries of 50 yards or more. That’s pretty good for a young NFL kicker, but he was incredible — 19-of-25 on kicks of 50-plus yards, a whopping 76% — for the four years that followed.
That even included going only 3-for-7 on long tries in 2022, which was the season he suffered an ankle injury in the opening game and missed four games.
But Butker has struggled during the last three years with kicks from distance and is now 9-of-19 from long range during that span, a meager 47.4%, after missing from 58 yards and connecting from 50 yards out in the third quarter. It’s the driving force behind Butker’s declining effectiveness as a specialist.
During his first seven seasons, excluding the injury-plagued 2022 campaign when he connected on a career-worst 75% of his kicks (18 of 24), Butker hit nearly 92% of his field-goal tries.
But he’s hit barely 82% of his kicks over the last three seasons, which has sunk Kansas City’s field-goal conversion from one of the NFL’s best to well below average.
“He’s been one of the most consistent kickers in football, but he’s off a bit,” Reid said. “We’ve got to fix it.”
Kelce keeps climbing among NFL greats
Travis Kelce entered Sunday seventh in NFL history in receptions. He ended it in fifth place with 1,004 receptions.
After not catching a pass in the first half, Kelce finished with four catches for 44 yards, passing Hall of Fame wide receivers Cris Carter (1,101) and Marvin Harrison (1,102) on the all-time NFL list.
Only Jerry Rice (1,549), Larry Fitzgerald (1,432), Tony Gonzalez (1,325), and Jason Witten (1,228) have ever caught more passes in the league.
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