Kansas City came to Seattle on Sunday night 5-0, with the league's leading rusher and the look of the AFC's best team. It left with three points. The Seahawks won 20-3 and held the Chiefs to 213 total yards and 50 on the ground, and the champions looked like the champions again: stop the run, get the ball to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, let the other team make the mistakes. Smith-Njigba caught nine passes for 150 yards and a touchdown. Seattle has now gone 36 games without allowing a 100-yard rusher, the league's longest active streak, and Sunday was the clearest demonstration yet of why that number matters.
Kansas City had no answer for it. With the run game shut down, the Chiefs managed one field goal, and Harrison Butker missed from 45, his 10th miss since the start of last season. "He's off a bit. Got to fix it," Andy Reid said. Rashee Rice is still out, and a trip to Denver, winners of three straight, is next. Kenneth Walker III, last season's Super Bowl MVP for Seattle, ran 14 times for 36 yards in his return, which tells you the Seahawks didn't need him to be great. Seattle is 4-3 and Chicago visits next Monday.
The bigger picture is the one the standings will show this morning. Kansas City lost its perfect start Sunday night, San Francisco lost its perfect start Sunday afternoon in Atlanta, and Minnesota is the only unbeaten team left. Seven weeks in, the league's top tier looks less like a set of juggernauts and more like a group of good teams with one or two things that could undo them: a kicker in Kansas City, ball security in San Francisco, an offense in Minnesota.
Falcons 29, 49ers 20. A week after he was carted off against Chicago, rookie linebacker Kendal Daniels wore the green dot, intercepted Brock Purdy in the final three minutes, and recovered George Kittle's fumble with 57 seconds left. San Francisco, which had six turnovers in its first six games, gave Atlanta four, and the Falcons turned them into 13 points. Michael Penix Jr. threw three touchdowns with no interceptions. "Too sloppy to win," Kyle Shanahan said. The 49ers head into their bye at 6-1; Atlanta (3-4) won at home for the first time this season.
Minnesota at 6-0, by the inch. The Vikings had 128 yards before Kyler Murray's 35-yard scramble at the end of the third quarter and still beat the Colts 16-10, with Blake Cashman (12 tackles, two sacks, four passes defensed) leading a defense that has allowed a league-low 74 points. The offense has 10 touchdowns in six games, the fewest for a team with that record since the 1933 Bears, per ESPN. The next four are at Detroit, Buffalo, at Green Bay, and at San Francisco. "We're not far off," Kevin O'Connell said.
A 258-to-59 half, and then a rout the other way. Baltimore outgained Cincinnati 258-59 in the first half with Tyler Huntley starting for the injured Lamar Jackson, but led only 13-0. Ja'Marr Chase used halftime to light into his own offense -- "Somebody's got to make a play for us," he said he told them -- and the Bengals scored touchdowns on their first five second-half possessions to win 35-13, with Joe Burrow throwing four touchdowns and Tee Higgins catching six balls for 148 yards, all after the break. Per Sportradar, the Ravens are the first team in 76 years to lead by 13 or more at halftime and lose by 20 or more.
Watson does it again. Deshaun Watson led his fifth fourth-quarter winning drive of the season, hitting Harold Fannin Jr. for 36 yards to set up Andre Szmyt's 32-yard field goal on the final play: Browns 27, Titans 24. Asked whether officials missed a false start on the Fannin play, Titans coach Robert Saleh said, "Live, I think they did, yeah." Tennessee has gone 65 straight games without consecutive wins, tying the 2014-18 Browns. Every team in the AFC North now has a winning record, and so does every team in the NFC North.
Paris gets a grinder. The first regular-season game in France went to Pittsburgh, 16-10, before 78,488 at Stade de France. Aaron Rodgers threw his 540th touchdown pass, a 4-yarder to Darnell Washington, to pass Peyton Manning for third all time, and the 42-year-old sealed it with an 8-yard scramble on third-and-6. Payton Wilson's red-zone interception of Tyler Shough, on a play he said he had repped "more than 20 times now," swung the third quarter. The Saints ran 17 times for 18 yards, and per ESPN no Saint rushed for 10 yards in a game for the first time since 1993.
Thursday's quarterback rematch. Caleb Williams threw for 308 yards and two touchdowns, and the Bears beat Drake Maye and New England 30-24, two years after Maye won the rookie meeting 19-3. Luther Burden had four catches for 130 yards, including a 24-yard screen for a touchdown on third-and-17. Cairo Santos missed from 53, then made a 58-yarder with 1:34 left, a career long that ties the franchise record. Cole Kmet hurt his right knee late, and Ben Johnson said it didn't look good.
Detroit survives its coach's gamble. With the score tied 17-17, Dan Campbell went for it on fourth-and-1 from his own 24 with under five minutes left, and Jahmyr Gibbs was stopped for no gain. Green Bay rookie Trey Smack then had a 35-yard try partially blocked by D.J. Wonnum, his second miss of the day from 35 or closer. Goff drove the Lions into range with help from two Karl Brooks penalties, Gibbs twice went down short of the goal line to run the clock, and Jake Bates won it 20-17 from 22 yards on the final play. The Packers (4-3) are last in the division.
McCarthy's first start, Skattebo's answer. A week after he replaced Jameis Winston in the fourth quarter against New Orleans, J.J. McCarthy made his first start of the season in Houston and went 20-of-28 for 252 yards. Cam Skattebo, who got zero carries a week after his overtime fumble in the Washington tie, ran 17 times for 124 yards, including a 16-yard touchdown and a 42-yard burst in overtime that set up Devin Singletary's 30-yard winning run. Giants 27, Texans 21, and New York (4-2-1) leads the NFC East.
The Rams look like the Rams for a half. Los Angeles led Las Vegas 28-6 at halftime and won 35-21, with Matthew Stafford throwing three touchdowns to pass Roman Gabriel for the franchise record (155); he already holds Detroit's, making him the first player to own the career mark for two teams. Kyren Williams and Blake Corum combined for 192 rushing yards. The Raiders have lost four straight, and Klint Kubiak said "we're thinking about everything," including No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza.
Tampa Bay breaks its one-score habit. The Buccaneers had played 12 straight one-score games before Sunday, then ran 49 times for 258 yards and beat Carolina 43-13 in Charlotte while Baker Mayfield, back from a dislocated thumb, threw 11 passes. Tampa Bay sacked Bryce Young five times (three by YaYa Diaby), forced four turnovers, returned a strip-sack for a touchdown, and returned a blocked extra point 70 yards for two points. Atlanta goes to Tampa on Sunday.
MNF thoughts (not played). Dallas (2-4) at Philadelphia (2-4), 8:15 p.m. ET on ESPN, and the Cowboys are favored by about four points on the road. That says plenty about the Eagles: four straight losses, 58 points in those four, Jalen Hurts out with blood clots and expected to miss the rest of the season, and Saquon Barkley's hamstring still a question. Dallas, for its part, has 29 points in two games and ranks 30th in defense. The loser falls 2.5 games behind the Giants, and both teams are provisional in the rankings below.
Kansas City came to Seattle on Sunday night 5-0, with the league's leading rusher and the look of the AFC's best team. It left with three points. The Seahawks won 20-3 and held the Chiefs to 213 total yards and 50 on the ground, and the champions looked like the champions again: stop the run, get the ball to Jaxon Smith-Njigba, let the other team make the mistakes. Smith-Njigba caught nine passes for 150 yards and a touchdown. Seattle has now gone 36 games without allowing a 100-yard rusher, the league's longest active streak, and Sunday was the clearest demonstration yet of why that number matters.
Kansas City had no answer for it. With the run game shut down, the Chiefs managed one field goal, and Harrison Butker missed from 45, his 10th miss since the start of last season. "He's off a bit. Got to fix it," Andy Reid said. Rashee Rice is still out, and a trip to Denver, winners of three straight, is next. Kenneth Walker III, last season's Super Bowl MVP for Seattle, ran 14 times for 36 yards in his return, which tells you the Seahawks didn't need him to be great. Seattle is 4-3 and Chicago visits next Monday.