The only unbeaten record left in the NFL ended on a cold Sunday night in Seattle. The Seattle Seahawks beat the Kansas City Chiefs 20-3 at Lumen Field on October 25, 2026, holding the league's highest-scoring offense to one field goal and never letting it inside the Seattle 20-yard line.
Kansas City arrived at 5-0 and leading the league in total offense, averaging 414 yards a game — 262 through the air and 160 on the ground. It left with 5-1 and a box score that looked like someone else's. Seattle, which had lost twice in the five days before the game, improved to 4-3.
A first half that decided it
Seattle led 10-0 at the break, and the half belonged to wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba: six catches for 129 yards and a touchdown that survived a replay review. Kansas City's reply was a 50-yard Harrison Butker field goal, the team's only points of the night. Butker also missed from 58 and from 45 yards.
Running back Emanuel Wilson's 21-yard touchdown run in the second half put the game out of reach, and Seattle added a late field goal for the final 17-point margin.
Both quarterbacks threw an interception. Patrick Mahomes was picked off on an overthrow; Sam Darnold threw one in the end zone that cost Seattle points it did not end up needing. Darnold had come into the game with the weaker numbers of the two — 1,033 passing yards, seven touchdowns against seven interceptions and a 60.4% completion rate, against Mahomes' 1,309 yards, nine touchdowns, three interceptions and a 103.1 rating.
The number that explains the night
The cleanest measure of what Seattle's defense did is a negative one: the Chiefs did not reach the red zone once. An offense averaging more than 400 yards a game had no possession that ended inside the opponent's 20, which is why its scoring stopped at three points rather than at a touchdown or two.
That is also the gap between this result and a normal upset. Kansas City was not merely outscored; it was kept out of the part of the field where its season has been decided. Seattle, 18th in the league in rushing before Sunday, did not need to win the game on offense — the 20 points came from one long drive capped by Smith-Njigba, one Wilson run and two kicks.
What comes next
The loss leaves the NFL without an unbeaten team at the end of October and tightens a conference picture Kansas City had been running away with. For Seattle, which had seen a 12-game winning streak broken on September 27 in a 33-31 loss to the Washington Commanders, it is the result that puts the season back above water at 4-3.
Reporting from ESPN, CBS Sports, Fox Sports and The Columbian.
