NFL games aren’t just matchups of two complete teams. They are also a series of individual one-on-one matchups that will ultimately help decide the outcome.
Every Friday, we’ll take a look at three potentially significant individual matchups that will take place in Sunday and Monday’s games.
Here are the matchups we’re looking at for the Week 7 game.
Kenneth Walker III (RB, Kansas City Chiefs) vs. Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy (DT, Seattle Seahawks)
After helping lead the Seahawks to the Super Bowl a year ago, and winning the Super Bowl MVP in the process, Walker will make his first trip back to the Pacific northwest as a visiting player on Sunday and it will be fascinating to see the welcome he receives.
On the one hand, he helped hang a championship banner and became a central part of it. Banners fly forever, and the players who contribute to them are usually lifelong heroes.
On the other hand, he was a player who left in free agency, and NFL fans were not generally receptive to that return.
Walker has been playing at an MVP level for the Chiefs this season and has been one of the best offensive players in the league. He’ll get a tough test Sunday night against the defense he helped win a Super Bowl, and that includes Seattle’s dynamic defensive tackle duo of Williams and Murphy.
While the offensive line plays a big role here as well, Walker has done a lot of damage this season in Kansas City in yards after contact. So even if Williams and Murphy win their matchups at the line of scrimmage, that’s no guarantee they’ll slow Walker down.
The Texans are clawing their way back into the playoff race in the AFC, and they have a good chance to extend their winning streak to three games on Sunday when they play the Giants.
The Giants were making a quarterback change and turned to JJ McCarthy, and he figured to lock down Malik Nabers for most of the game. Given the way Nabers has played the last few weeks, that was a smart decision.
Nabers has shown little rust since returning from his season-ending 2025 injury, and has topped 100-yarders in each of the past three weeks, catching 29 passes for 398 yards and two touchdowns in that stretch.
While Stingley is one of the NFL’s best cornerbacks, he hasn’t played much to this level this season for a Texan defense that has been a surprising disappointment. If the Texans want to extend their winning streak and keep playing in the AFC South race, they may need to lock him up against one of the NFL’s best wide receivers.
Walker vs. the Chiefs isn’t the only big matchup of the week featuring a player going up against his former team.
Hendrickson will also face his former team when the Ravens take on the Bengals in a big AFC North matchup. Hendrickson missed two games this season with a finger injury, but is back in the lineup and will undoubtedly be fired up to make an impact against the Bengals.
Bengals tackle Orlando Brown Jr. will be tasked with slowing him down, and it will be one of the game’s biggest matchups when it comes to determining the outcome. Hendrickson is still an elite pass rusher, but Brown has struggled at times in pass protection so far this season.
One way the Bengals could counter that: Run directly at Hendrickson. As strong as he has been in the passing game throughout his career, his ability to stop the run has always been a focal point of criticism and no team should understand that more than the Bengals.