Seahawks Spear Chiefs

Last time this happened, all but eight of Seattle's current players were still in college or high school.

Not since 1990, and only twice since 1980, had the Seahawks left Arrowhead Stadium as winners. But in this remarkable turnaround year under Mike Holmgren, everything seems to be changing for Seattle, which beat the Chiefs 31-19 on Sunday.

"Look, you're not going to intimidate us any more," quarterback Jon Kitna said after the victory that snapped the Seahawks' eight-game losing streak at Arrowhead.

Ricky Watters scored three touchdowns to lead Seattle to its fifth straight win and hand the Chiefs their third straight loss and their first at home in more than a year.

"We came into a very tough stadium, a difficult place to win a football game," said Holmgren, who was 0-2 in Arrowhead as Green Bay's head coach. "So, for a young team that's still figuring things out, this is an important win."

"The bottom line is the defense didn't hold up our end of the bargain," Chiefs linebacker Marvcus Patton said. "I'm not really sure what happened."

Watters, who rushed for 107 yrds, nailed it down with a 5-yard touchdown run with 2:43 to go several plays after his 45-yard run on third down.

"It's a huge game for us, no doubt," he said. "We had some chances to put them away and we didn't. But we did when we needed to."

Kitna hit 14 of 33 passes for 235 yards and two touchdowns, but he was outplayed by Elvis Grbac, who had his best day as a Chief by going 30-of-49 for 322 yards.

"We did some great things passing-wise but we just didn't score enough points," Grbac said. "We didn't make the big play."

Leading 14-13 at halftime, the Seahawks went up 24-13 in the third on Todd Peterson's 38-yard field goal and Kitna's 45-yard touchdown pass to Sean Dawkins.

But Grbac led the Chiefs right back on an eight-play, 59-yard march capped by Donnell Bennett's second touchdown, a 4-yard burst up the middle that made it 24-19 with 6:49 left.

While the Seahawks seem virtually assured a trip to the playoffs in Holmgren's first year as general manager/head coach, the Chiefs in Gunther Cunningham's first year might be doomed to sitting out the postseason for the third time in four years. They don't get to play at home again until after trips to Oakland and Denver.

"I'm not ever going to roll over," Cunningham said. "I think we have a lot of issues to address to regain where we were."

The Chiefs, who had promised to open up their stodgy offense, did just that on their first possession. Grbac connected on his first five passes on a 71-yard drive that ended with Pete Stoyanovich's 29-yard field goal.

Daniel Pope's punt pinned the Seahawks on their own 8 a few minutes later. But Kitna went to a third down only once during an impressive 13-play touchdown march.

The first-year starter connected with Dawkins on gains of 12 and 16 yards and Watters had runs of 14 and 25 before capping the drive with a 2-yard scoring run.

Bennett's 1-yard run with 5:03 left in the first half put the Chiefs ahead 10-7. On Seattle's next possession, Kitna connected with Watters for 13 yards and Dawkins for 18 before Watters took a pass on the left flank and turned it into a 22-yard touchdown with 1:46 left in the half.

The teams then exchanged fumbles at midfield on back-to-back plays before the Chiefs got Stoyanovich in position for another 29-yarder with two seconds remaining, cutting Seattle's lead at halftime to one point.

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