Why Mina Kimes says Seahawks’ game vs Chiefs is ‘huge’

With the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks at 3-3, there’s no getting around how important their Sunday Night Football matchup with the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs is.

“I think it’s huge,” ESPN NFL analyst Mina Kimes said Friday when she joined Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy.

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Kimes said there’s a couple reasons for that.

The first is that the Seahawks find themselves three games back in the NFC West standings behind the 6-0 San Francisco 49ers.

“The feeling that San Francisco seems to be pulling away obviously with the division, and you’ve got to kind of stop the bleeding and stay competitive in that regard,” Kimes said.

But there’s more than just the division to worry about for Seattle, because if it finds itself needing to win a wild card to make the postseason, there’s another division that is going to make that hard to come by.

“Elsewhere in the NFC, the NFC North is really a problem. So this idea that, like, three wild card teams will come out of the NFC West, (you) can’t take that for granted,” Kimes continued.

The 5-0 Minnesota Vikings lead the NFC North, but the other three teams are all ahead of the Seahawks right now: the Chicago Bears (5-2), Green Bay Packers (4-2) and Detroit Lions (3-2).

As big as Sunday’s game is for the Seahawks, though, Kimes doesn’t rule out Seattle leaving the game with an encouraging step forward even if it falls under .500 with a loss to the red-hot Chiefs.

“I’m not saying it would be OK to lose, but I do think if the offense can show some signs of turning around, some signs of life, regardless of the outcome, I probably feel better given the competition,” she said. “But obviously (it) would be good to win given how San Francisco is winning these games.”

Hear the full conversation with ESPN NFL analyst Mina Kimes in the video at the top of this post. Catch Bump and Stacy live from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports.

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