He transformed Mahomes' Chiefs - now Walker faces team that let him go

The one that got away. The perfect match they let walk out the door. The ex that found a worldie new partner. Did they make a mistake? Did they take him for granted? And yes, we are still talking about football. 

Kenneth Walker III returns to Seattle for the first time since his blockbuster exit this Sunday as he leads out the Kansas City Chiefs against the same Seahawks team he inspired to Super Bowl glory back in February.

The running back posted 135 yards on the ground as Mike Macdonald's side beat the New England Patriots at the NFL's showpiece climax in Santa Clara. But instead of extending the Super Bowl MVP, Seattle allowed Walker to hit free agency, where he would sign a three-year $45m deal with the Chiefs as their marquee needle-shoving offseason addition.

Behind Walker Patrick Mahomes' refurbished, reinvigorated dynasty Chiefs are back in Super Bowl contention; he has changed the game entirely for Andy Reid. Next in line - his old flame.

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"It's going to be a special moment for him," said Chiefs quarterback Mahomes. "You get to go back to the place where you built your career, where you won a Super Bowl. "Those fans are the people that were around him for all of that. Those are a still a lot of the guys that were his teammates, that he grew up with as well in the NFL.

"At the end of the day, you've got to win a football game. He knows we have his back."

A merry Seahawks GM John Schneider joked during his side's Super Bowl parade of how Walker had tried to negotiate a new deal with him five minutes earlier, describing the moment as 'weird'. What was instead weirder was the decision not to extend a defining figure in Seattle's Lombardi surge.

Still, it would become a broken Chiefs team's transformative gain, Walker having since provided an MVP-calibre impact to an offense that had lost all identity, all spark, all pizzazz in recent years.

Walker leads the NFL with 665 rushing yards at 6.3 yards per carry through six weeks, while averaging a league-most 133 yards on the ground per game and having scored a tied-second-most eight touchdowns from scrimmage. His 760 scrimmage yards are second only to Bijan Robinson, and no back has broken more tackles or averaged more yards after contact per carry than Walker.

In doing so he has dictated a heightened respect for the Chiefs' activity out of the backfield, coupled with the scrambling ability of Mahomes. His immediate threat has unleashed Kansas City's play-action game, and so too Mahomes' freedom to stretch the field with the deep-shot aggression and three-level concepts that have been largely non-existent in the last couple of seasons. It is a Chiefs offense reborn, and Walker has been at the heart of change.

"If you have one weak link in the chain, the great running backs will find that. Ken will do that, and he has the past bunch of games this season," said Seahawks safety Julian Love.

While the Chiefs rank second in rushing offense, the Seahawks lie down in 18th with an average of 107.2 yards per game as they await the return of Zach Charbonnet, who was activated off the PUP list this week.

Charbonnet had been Seattle's starting running back over Walker before tearing his ACL in the playoffs, during which the latter recorded 65 carries for 313 yards and four touchdowns alongside nine catches for 104 yards.

The Chiefs have long yearned for another superstar face on offense with which to support Mahomes, particularly coming into his first season since last December's year-ending knee injury. Walker has lived up to the billing and more, inspiring the return of Mahomes magic by becoming the face of Andy Reid's attack. Few saw it going quite this well.

The Seahawks chose not to pay him. Pay for it, they might.

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Bonjour, Paris!

The NFL is primed to make more history on Sunday when the New Orleans Saints host the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first-ever regular-season game to be played in Paris, France.

The iconic Stade de France opens its doors as the newest host stadium to football, with Paris featuring among a record nine international games being played during the 2026 campaign and joining Melbourne and Rio de Janeiro as a brand new territory for the league.

Civil unrest around the city has dominated much of this week's build-up to the game, however the NFL remain in constant communication with French authorities and insist they do not expect Sunday's game to be disrupted. Aaron Rodgers' Steelers enter the contest 4-2 following last Sunday's overtime victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, while the Saints are 2-4 coming off their win at the New York Giants.

McCarthy's time in New York

More change awaits at quarterback for the Giants as J.J. McCarthy prepares to make his first start under center against the Houston Texans, taking the reins from Jameis Winston in the wake of last weekend's impressive cameo against the Saints.

McCarthy threatened an unlikely Giants comeback when entered the game while trailing by 24 in the fourth quarter before throwing for 243 yards, the most-ever across an 11-minute span in NFL history. It has prompted John Harbaugh to go and find out what he has (or doesn't have) in the former first-round pick, who arrived via a trade from the Minnesota Vikings following the season-ending injury to Jaxson Dart.

McCarthy's NFL career has stuttered since he entered the league as the 10th overall pick in 2024, injury in his rookie preseason opening the door for Sam Darnold's career-resurrection before a combination of poor play, more injuries and the eventual arrival of Kyler Murray would spell the end in Minnesota. Now, is his chance. With a Malik Nabers-sized talisman at his disposal.

Rams woes and the NFL's best TE duo?

The NFL has its share of elite wide receiver tandems, from Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens to Puka Nacua and Davante Adams.

Frightening tight end tandems are a little less common, but the Las Vegas Raiders have forged one of their own. Brock Bowers rightly gets the acclaim as Klint Kubiak's prized weapon on offense - looking every bit a wide receiver in a tight end's body - but it is also becoming something of a breakout year for teammate Michael Mayer.

The 2023 second-round pick has 28 catches for 266 yards and a touchdown through six games as a prominent target alongside Bowers and Tre Tucker, his 162 yards after catch ranked fourth among tight ends. As teams game-plan to contain Bowers, Mayer's value is beginning to show.

His Raiders sit 3-3 as they take on the struggling Los Angeles Rams, who face mounting scrutiny after a 2-4 start at the bottom of the NFC West. Sean McVay's team purred into the year widely recognised as Super Bowl favourites courtesy of a Myles Garrett acquisition, an Aaron Donald return, an MVP-winning Matthew Stafford and the lasting memory of their narrow NFC Championship Game loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

Marquee injuries have combined with a special teams mess in leaving them playing catch-up in one of football's toughest divisions. It wasn't supposed to go like this.

Williams and LaPorta in the spotlight

Xavier McKinney may warrant more attention as Green Bay's All-Pro safety, but Evan Williams is emerging as one of Matt LaFleur's unsung stars on defense. The 2024 fourth-round pick is Pro Football Focus's highest-graded safety through six weeks of the season, his influence going beyond mere statistics as one of the most intelligent and versatile players in his position across the league.

His ground coverage, play diagnosis, elite instincts and ball skills were demonstrated last week as he retreated from the line of scrimmage post-snap before gliding across to pick off Dak Prescott in the red zone of his side's win over the Dallas Cowboys.

He has become an instrumental part of Jonathan Gannon's Packers defense, which ranks eighth in yards allowed this season ahead of Sunday's rivalry match with the Detroit Lions.

As for the Lions, tight end Sam LaPorta faces some added attention in light of comments made during the week criticising the Lions for their approach to a prospective new deal. LaPorta, in the final season of his rookie contract, insisted he will "get paid somewhere else" should he and the team not find a resolution over his extension.

"I think the combination of getting your heartstrings twisted as well as the violent sport that we play, it sucks," LaPorta said on Barstool's "Pardon My Take" podcast. "It's disappointing that you go out there every week and you bear the risk of getting hurt. "Like last year, whatever it was, Week Nine, Week 10, I break my f****** back for the team. And then I'm going out there this year and I'm balling, and maybe they're just not showing the love."

CJ Stroud's MVP charge

This is the CJ Stroud the NFL knew and loved during his standout rookie season.

The CJ Stroud NFL disciples forecast to join the league's elite quarterbacks, and the CJ Stroud capable of leading this Texans team to Super Bowl contention.

DeMeco Ryans endorsed his fanbase's MVP clamour surrounding Stroud last week after watching his quarterback star in Houston's win over the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium. He finished the game 24 of 34 passing for 312 yards, three touchdowns and his first interception of the year, among his highlights a stunning deep-shot to Jaylin Noel with pressure in his face.

Stroud ranks third in passing yards with 1,714 for nine touchdowns to just one pick, his 285.7 yards per game good for fourth in the league. He is on a heater.

Latest news

• Buccaneers QB Baker Mayfield will start against the Panthers Sunday after missing the last three games with a thumb injury
• Eagles QB Jalen Hurts is set to miss the rest of the season after being diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis and bilateral pulmonary emboli
• Packers RB Josh Jacobs could make his return against the Lions after missing the first six weeks of the season on the Commissioner's Exempt List
• Jaguars left tackle Anton Harrison is out for the season after suffering a torn ACL in London, having undergone knee surgery on Thursday
• Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice will miss Sunday's game against the Seahawks with a hamstring injury
• Texans wide receiver Tank Dell is set to face the Giants in his first game since suffering a knee injury late in 2024
• Rams wide receiver Davante Adams is expected to miss six-10 weeks with a hamstring injury
• The Colts fired General Manager Chris Ballard after 2-4 start to his 10th season in the role

Key stats:

• Aaron Rodgers needs two touchdown passes to surpass Drew Brees (186 games) for the second-most games with multiple touchdown passes. Tom Brady leads the way with 233.
• Jared Goff leads the NFL with 41,107 passing yards since entering the NFL in 2016, and needs 139 passing yards to overtake Derek Carr for the third-most passing yards by a player in his first 11 seasons.
• Derek Henry is a touchdown away from tie Marshall Faulk (136 touchdowns) for the fourth-most touchdowns by a running back in NFL history behind only Emmitt Smith, LaDainian Tomlinson and Marcus Allen.
• Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels has not won a game since October 5, 2025, when Washington beat the Los Angeles Chargers 27-10
• Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce needs 35 receiving yards against the Seahawks to overtake Tony Gonzalez (15,413 receiving yards) for the most receiving yards by a tight end in NFL history, including playoffs.
• Cardinals tight end Trey McBride needs four catches against the Broncos to overtake Travis Kelce (78 games) as the second-fastest tight end ever to reach 400 career catches, behind only Kellen Winslow (72 games).

Watch the 2026 NFL season live on Sky Sports, including every minute of the playoffs and Super Bowl LXI on Sunday February 14, 2027. Get Sky Sports or stream contract-free with NOW.