The Seattle Seahawks did well the only other time they got to kick off the NFL regular season.
After Seattle’s first Super Bowl championship, they hosted the Green Bay Packers in the opening game of the 2014 season. In an NFC championship game rematch from the previous season, the Seahawks beat the Packers 36-16. The NFL is hoping for a more competitive game this season when the Seahawks kick off the season at home, a perk of being the defending Super Bowl champions.
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Seattle has a fun schedule and a lot of good options for the NFL to pick from for that Week 1 game, which will be on Wednesday, Sept. 9. The Seahawks have nine home games this season and we know their opponents, though two potential opponents will be on the other side of the world. Let’s try to predict who Seattle will play to kick off the 2026 NFL regular season.
Normally, the NFL might consider the Rams or 49ers for the first game, even though it’s rare for the league to make it a divisional game. Since 2004, when the defending champions were first featured in the kickoff game, there have been only three divisional games including the champs and all three were NFC East matchups. There was a Packers-Bears game to begin 2019, but that was a special one to commemorate the NFL’s 100th season. This time it’s not even possible, because the Rams and 49ers will be in Australia ready to open their seasons on Sept. 10.
No shot: Cardinals
The Seahawks have a pretty good home schedule this season. There’s one opponent that stands out as a dud, and that’s a Cardinals team that was 3-14 last season and didn’t do much in the offseason to fix its quarterback situation. There’s no way, with all the other fun options that the NFL has available for a marquee game to start the season, that the Cardinals are the pick.
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Normally yes, doubtful this year: Chiefs
If Patrick Mahomes didn’t tear his ACL, the Chiefs might be the favorite to be Seattle’s Week 1 opponent. Even if there was a guarantee that Mahomes would play in Week 1, his comeback game would be great theater. But there’s too much risk in scheduling the Chiefs and having one of the NFL’s premier games of the season suddenly featuring Justin Fields as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback.
Not enough juice: Chargers, Giants
The Giants are a pretty interesting team for this season, with some young talent and John Harbaugh coming aboard as coach, and the NFL loves putting its NFC East teams in prime time. But it still seems unlikely that a Giants team that was 4-13 last season would be trusted with this marquee time slot. It would also be a surprise if the Seahawks draw the Chargers, a good team that has no real rivalry with Seattle. Chargers-Seahawks might be a good game, but it would be a tougher sell.
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OK, getting warmer: Patriots
Maybe the way the Super Bowl unfolded, with a fairly uncompetitive Patriots loss that provided an unmemorable game, will dissuade the NFL from booking a rematch to open this season. The NFL has had a Super Bowl rematch for the kickoff game, when the Panthers and Broncos met to begin the 2016 season. Patriots-Seahawks would be a perfectly reasonable opening game matchup, though this seems like a Week 9 or 10 Sunday night game waiting to happen.
You know why: Cowboys
The Cowboys were part of the opening game last season so you’d think the NFL would like to avoid them being on it again. But when has the NFL ever avoided putting the Cowboys in prime time? The Cowboys are an interesting team coming into the season so it wouldn’t be a bad matchup, but the mainstream appeal of Dallas would be the main reason for the NFL to pick them.
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Seems like the sweet spot: Bears
This would be a fun one. The Bears won the NFC North last season and have an exciting offense led by coach Ben Johnson and quarterback Caleb Williams. They’re also a huge market, and while the NFL could save other matchups like the Rams and Patriots for a prime time game later in the season, there’s not much reason to save this for later. This would be a great way for the NFL to feature one of its foundational franchises which is in the middle of a rebirth, while also being a really intriguing football matchup between Johnson’s offense and Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald’s defense. This seems like the matchup that checks the most boxes, though the NFL has plenty of good options to choose from.
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