The Seattle Seahawks are Super Bowl champions. The Seahawks dominated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX on Sunday, largely by controlling the line of scrimmage. The Seahawks’ defensive front manhandled the Patriots’ offensive line all night long, and when Sam Darnold couldn’t get much going in the passing game, their offensive line helped Kenneth Walker win the Super Bowl MVP award. It was a performance that the 2025 Kansas City Chiefs were light-years away from pulling off.
That’s not to say that every team should try to win the exact same way. The Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, and the Seattle Seahawks have Sam Darnold and a defensive-minded head coach in Mike Macdonald. Obviously, those two teams are going to try to win games through different approaches. However, the Chiefs would be wise to take notes on how the Seahawks showed that controlling the line of scrimmage can help you in all phases of the game.
Seattle didn’t need to throw for 300 yards per game this season because their defensive front dominated for most of the year, helping the Seahawks defense allow the fewest points in the league. Then, in the biggest game of the year, they harassed Drake Maye so badly that it probably had Chiefs fans flashing back to KC’s Super Bowl loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when Patrick Mahomes was running for his life on every snap.
A dominant Super Bowl showing by Seattle highlights how far the Chiefs must go up front if they want to contend again in 2026.
You have to get after the quarterback in order to compete at the highest level of the NFL, and the Chiefs’ pass rush just wasn’t good enough. They were also paper-thin at defensive tackle next to 31-year-old Chris Jones. Jones was able to provide pressure up the middle, but because he didn’t have enough help, the KC defensive front just flat-out wasn’t good enough. George Karlaftis would be a dominant No. 2 defensive end, but he struggles to be a true difference-maker as a No. 1. Ashton Gillotte won KC’s rookie of the year basically for being a snap-eating role player. It just wasn’t good enough.
On the opposite side of the ball, the Chiefs have invested a ton of resources (both draft capital and contract dollars) to give Patrick Mahomes a reliable offensive line, but an injury to rookie Josh Simmons, inconsistent play at right tackle, and a refusal to develop and commit to an interior run game that should be powered by a top interior offensive line have led to a lack of return on their investment.
That all has to change in 2026 if the Chiefs want a shot at getting back to the Super Bowl and dethroning the now Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. They need to make sure they have the offensive tackle situation settled to slow down teams like the Seahawks and division rival Denver Broncos, who won the AFC West on the back of the best pass rush in the NFL. They also have to find a true starting running back like Kenneth Walker (or perhaps Jeremiyah Love) and commit to using him to control the line of scrimmage and take some of the pressure off Patrick Mahomes.
On defense, they have to find someone who can consistently get pressure on the outside opposite George Karlaftis. There could be a couple of potential options early in the draft in guys like Rueben Bain Jr. and David Bailey. They also need to find a starting-caliber defensive tackle next to Chris Jones. Hopefully, Omarr Norman-Lott will be healthy to start the season, but he looked more like a role player than a true starter as a rookie. Perhaps Clemson’s Peter Woods could help in that department.
Sunday was a day for the Seattle Seahawks and their fans to celebrate an impressive season and a Super Bowl win. Hopefully, it was also a day for the power players in the Kansas City Chiefs organization to reflect on how the Seahawks were able to win in today’s NFL and why KC wasn’t able to. The NFL is an incredibly complex league, but sometimes the answer is simple. The Seahawks dominated the line of scrimmage, and the Chiefs didn’t. Here’s to hoping the Chiefs change that in 2026.