Early on the morning of February 9, Mike Macdonald and Kenneth Walker III departed a hotel in San Jose for an hour-long ride to the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco; the Super Bowl-winning head coach and the Super Bowl MVP on their way to a press conference the morning after the Seahawks' Super Bowl LX win at Levi's Stadium.

As the van drove north on I-280 toward San Francisco, the coach and the running back enjoyed some quiet conversations about everything from, as Macdonald noted, history, to the Super Bowl victory that ended only 12 hours earlier, to the all-nighter Walker had pulled not because of a wild party, but rather enjoying time with his family in a hotel room, savoring what he and the team had accomplished.

"It was just us in the van for like an hour," Macdonald said on Wednesday. "We were talking all sorts of stuff, really nothing about football… Can it get any better? You just won the Super Bowl. You're hanging out with the MVP. Life is good. It was awesome.

"Of course we (talked football), but you're not talking about future or anything. Ken's a history buff. We talked a little history."

The future for Walker following that Super Bowl win, of course, included free agency, and a month after that Super Bowl victory, Walker signed with the Kansas City Chiefs, who come to Seattle this weekend for a Sunday night contest at Lumen Field. So now, eight months after that van ride to San Francisco, Macdonald and his defense will be tasked with trying to stop Walker, the league's leading rusher six weeks into the 2026 season.

Seeing as he is the reigning Super Bowl MVP, Walker facing his former team in prime time would be a pretty good storyline regardless of how he was playing this season. But the fact that he is off to such a hot start in Kansas City, and that Seattle has one of the league's best run defenses, makes this a particularly juicy subplot to Sunday night's game. Walker, who had two 1,000-yard seasons in his four years with Seattle, leads the NFL with 665 rushing yards despite the Chiefs having already had their bye, and his 6.3 yards-per-carry average also leads the league.

"He's off to a tremendous start," Macdonald said Wednesday. "Stats back it up, tape definitely backs it up. He's playing great football."

While Seahawks fans might look at Walker's fast start and wonder "what if?", Macdonald only had appreciation for what Walker did with Seattle on his mind when talking about his former running back.

"I love Ken," Macdonald said. "I thoroughly enjoyed him being on our football team. We've had some great one on one conversations. I feel like we have a great relationship. I respect the heck out of him. I'm happy for him. Obviously, we have to do a good job of stopping him this week. I think there are mixed emotions in terms of how you're happy for him, but we are also trying to find ways to stop this guy too because he is playing at a really high level.

"We appreciate the heck out of him. He got himself a Super Bowl MVP and helped us win the championship. These things happen, and we have to move forward. I have nothing but great things and great memories with Ken."

No one has really had much success stopping Walker so far this season -- he has 117 or more rushing yards in four of five games and a game low of 70 yards -- but if any team is equipped to slow him down, it might be the Seahawks, who dating back to the middle of Macdonald's first season, have had one of the league's best run defenses. Last year, opponents averaged just 3.7 yards per carry against Seattle, the lowest mark in the NFL, and the Seahawks gave up only five runs of 20 or more yards all season, the fewest in the league. This year, the Seahawks have lowered that opponent YPC average to 3.5, which currently ranks fourth, and have allowed only two runs of 20 or more yards.

Most notably heading into this game, the Seahawks have not allowed an individual 100-yard rusher in their last 35 games, a franchise record. Buffalo's James Cook rushed for 111 yards against Seattle in Week 8 of the 2024 season, and since then no other rusher has topped that mark, and in 20 of those 35 games, Seattle's opponents have failed to rush for 100 yards as a team.

The key to that type of run defense?

"Fundamentals," Macdonald said. "Blocking and tackling. There are different ways to do it. The way that Kansas City defends the run, they have a different structure than we do, and they do it at a high level. It's a thorough understanding of how they are going to fit things and what they are going to call and what type of structures they want to be in. That's probably predicated off of things that they believe in with their personnel. For us, it's the same thinking. What our personnel is, some of the things we believe in and what we feel comfortable teaching. I think the through line is just fundamentals like block destruction -- how are you going to play blocks, how are you going to leverage the football? It's not just the front. If you see the ball, get out, it's either a missed tackle, multiple missed tackles, a bad leverage or a bad angle by the third level player. It's got to be team defense."

Said veteran outside linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, "Everybody's willing to just do their assignment. We're all very attention-detailed, and everybody knows what they've got to do. If you've got to hold the edge, hold the edge. If you've got to play a double team, play a double team. If you've got to come from a safety spot and fill in the B gap, that's what you've got to do. We all practice really hard, we study it hard, and make sure everybody knows their assignment, so that's why we're able to play so well."

Making Seattle's run defense numbers all the more impressive is the fact that the Seahawks don't often load the box, committing extra players to stopping the run. Few teams play more nickel (five defensive back) or dime (six defensive backs) packages more than Seattle, and the Seahawks usually deploy a two-deep safety look, meaning there isn't a safety lurking in the box to stop the run.

Players at all three levels play a big role in Seattle's run defense, but the defensive linemen and outside linebackers really set the tone and make it possible to do what Macdonald asks of his defense.

"It's just a hard ask," Macdonald said. "It takes great players to do that. It takes great coaches to get that done and get the guys to buy in to play that way. Believe it or not, we try to take the stress off our defensive line as much as we can, but I'd say it's more of a targeted approach. It definitely starts up front with how we play. When we've played our best football, those guys are on fire. They're playing great and they set the tone for the rest of the defense. I think they are the first ones to say that when we're not meeting up to our standard, they can play better as well. They're great guys, have great attitudes and set the tone for us."

All of those fundamentals and sound tackling will be imperative if the Seahawks want to slow down Walker and the Chiefs offense, because as they saw firsthand for four seasons, Walker can make a defense pay if it makes mistakes.

"You have to be sound," safety Julian Love said. "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. For us, it's about understanding concepts and understanding our scheme, how we fit off of each other. It's like 'OK, this guy has every tool in the trade.' He has juice, he has shake, he has speed, great contact balance. When you get in those moments of point of attack, you have to play off each other. Shoot your shot, be aggressive and everybody else, help out the brother next to you. That's what you have to do when you play a really great back.

"The players will always have a bond and a love and respect for K9. A lot of guys that are in here are incredibly close with him still and because of what we did last year, that bond will be forever. We'll always be attached, but while he wears another jersey, we have to attack him just like everybody else with another jersey. I think he would want that. I think that's just how it is in this league."