Football

Kenneth Walker after his dream debut with the Chiefs: 'It felt great'

DAZN

15, Sep

Kenneth Walker after his dream debut with the Chiefs: 'It felt great'

Watch every NFL game only on Game Pass ► Sign up

The Kansas City Chiefs had been eagerly awaiting Patrick Mahomes's return. Yet the star performer in their 31-10 victory over the Denver Broncos was Kenneth Walker III.

In his first game in his new colours, the running back rushed for 173 yards and scored a touchdown on 23 carries. He added three receptions for 18 yards and a second touchdown, bringing his total to 191 yards from scrimmage.

Walker alone gained more yards than Denver's entire offense, which was held to 176. Just months after being named Super Bowl LX MVP with Seattle, he made a spectacular debut with Kansas City and sent an early message to the rest of the NFL.

Kenneth Walker takes charge from the off

The way Andy Reid deployed Walker on the very first drive was telling. The running back carried the ball on the first four offensive plays for the Chiefs, then seven more times during a drive capped by a 15-yard rushing touchdown from Mahomes.

Kansas City clearly did not simply want to integrate their new signing into the offense. The team intended to build their game plan around him.

Walker had already accumulated 89 rushing yards by halftime, but it was in the third quarter that he truly turned the game.

On a fourth-and-one from the Kansas City 40-yard line, he found the gap before accelerating all the way to the end zone for a 60-yard touchdown.

That play extended the Chiefs' lead to 21-7 and exposed all of Denver's defensive struggles against the running back's speed and change of direction.

Walker then scored a second touchdown on a two-yard reception, following a short pass from Mahomes in the fourth quarter.

After the game, Walker summed up his first experience at a packed, roaring Arrowhead Stadium in simple terms: "It felt great."

Andy Reid was equally enthusiastic when reflecting on his new signing: "What a day he had."

A debut that enters NFL history

The 173 rushing yards represent a new personal record for Walker. His previous high was 167 yards, set in 2022 with the Seahawks against the Los Angeles Chargers.

According to NFL Research, his 191 total yards also represent the best Week 1 output by a reigning Super Bowl MVP. The previous record belonged to Jerry Rice, who posted 180 yards in 1989.

Walker also recorded the second-best rushing performance by an established player on debut with a new team. Only Michael Turner had done better, with 220 yards for Atlanta in 2008.

As a team, Kansas City rushed 38 times for 220 yards, the third-highest total by a team coached by Andy Reid since his arrival in Missouri.

The reputation of the opposing defense makes the performance all the more impressive. Denver had finished top of the NFL in sacks in each of the previous two seasons.

Yet the Broncos missed 28 tackles on Monday, conceding 247 yards after missed tackles — the highest total recorded by Next Gen Stats since at least 2018.

The running back Kansas City had been looking for

Kenneth Walker Chiefs RB David Eulitt / Stringer

By offering Walker a three-year, $43 million contract, the Chiefs wanted to put an end to a long period of inconsistency in their backfield. No Kansas City running back has surpassed 1,000 rushing yards in a season since Kareem Hunt in 2017.

Walker, however, arrived with strong credentials. During the 2025 season, he set a personal record with 1,309 yards from scrimmage, including 1,027 rushing and 282 receiving.

He also forced 61 missed tackles, gained 664 yards after contact, and recorded 33 runs of at least 10 yards. Ten of those had gone for more than 20 yards.

By comparison, the Chiefs' running backs combined had managed just three runs of more than 20 yards throughout 2025.

His move to Missouri was confirmed just weeks after a 135-yard rushing performance in Super Bowl LX. No player had reached that total in a Super Bowl for 28 years.

The question was therefore not whether Walker had the talent to improve Kansas City's running game, but whether Reid was prepared to hand him a true feature back role. The opening night of the season provided a particularly clear answer.

Kenneth Walker lets the Chiefs protect Patrick Mahomes

The return of Patrick Mahomes, nine months on from his serious knee injuries, had initially been the main story heading into the game. The quarterback finished with 184 passing yards, two touchdowns and one interception, to which he added 27 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown.

His performance was encouraging without yet resembling the kind of displays that defined his best seasons. But thanks to Walker, the Chiefs never needed to ask him to carry the offense on his own.

Kansas City threw 27 passes against 38 rushing plays. The ground game helped neutralise Denver's pass rush, extend possessions and protect Mahomes as the offense also had to cope with the absence of left tackle Josh Simmons.

"The guys around me stepped up," Mahomes said after the win. Nobody did so more than Walker.

Analysis: Kenneth Walker can transform the Chiefs' identity

Romain Champagne, NFL writer for DAZN

The most significant statistic from Monday night may not be Walker's 173 rushing yards, but the number of times the Chiefs chose to hand him the ball.

Since Mahomes became the starter, Kansas City has generally used the run to complement the passing game. Against Denver, the hierarchy was reversed: the run dictated the match and the pass came to support it.

The result goes beyond simply protecting a quarterback returning from injury. Walker's presence forces defenses to respect the backfield more, can limit the aggressiveness of the pass rush and is likely to create extra space for Rashee Rice, Travis Kelce and Mahomes's other targets.

His 60-yard run perfectly encapsulates this new threat. In a situation where Denver could reasonably expect a run designed to gain a single yard, Walker turned a fourth-down play into a touchdown. Very few running backs possess both his ability to force missed tackles and his speed to immediately punish a defense once he clears the first level.

One game is obviously not enough to declare a definitive transformation. Denver's 28 missed tackles also show that the Broncos' defense contributed significantly to its own undoing.

But the signal sent by Andy Reid is hard to ignore. After a 2025 season that ended 6-11, Kansas City no longer wants to depend on a heroic performance from Mahomes on every possession. If Walker maintains this workload and efficiency, the Chiefs could become dangerous again without needing their quarterback to immediately rediscover his very best form.

The most reassuring thing for Kansas City is therefore not simply that Mahomes is back. It is that, for the first time in a long while, the Chiefs appear capable of dominating an opponent without asking him to do everything.