Lumen Field will be packed and loud on Wednesday, September 9, when the Seattle Seahawks trot out as defending champions to host the New England Patriots, kicking off the 2026 NFL regular season with the same two teams that closed out the previous one. It is a rematch that needs no introduction for either fan base, since the Seahawks and Patriots met in Super Bowl LX barely seven months earlier, and now they will do it again on the opening night of a fresh 17-game grind. For Seattle, the matchup is also a homecoming of sorts, a chance to defend a title in front of the crowd that watched them chase it all season. For New England, it is an immediate shot at revenge on the biggest possible stage of the calendar, a road trip to the Pacific Northwest that will set the tone for however far the Patriots hope to go this time.
The Seahawks beat the Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX, a result that delivered Seattle its second Vince Lombardi Trophy and its first since the 2013 season. The pairing also revives a much older wound for Seattle, since these same two franchises met in Super Bowl XLIX back in 2015, when New England won 28-24 in a finish that lingered over the Seahawks organization for more than a decade. Openers built around a direct Super Bowl rematch are not the norm; the last time the league opened a season that way was in 2016, when Denver hosted Carolina after beating the Panthers in the previous February’s title game.
Kicking off on a Wednesday is itself a break from routine, marking the first time since 2012 that the NFL has opened its regular season on that day of the week rather than the customary Thursday or Sunday slate. Both teams arrive with matching credentials from a year ago, having each finished the prior regular season at 14-3, and the Patriots will be making their 12th trip to a Super Bowl, more than any other franchise in the league, still chasing their seventh Lombardi Trophy. Seattle carries its own edge into the rematch, leading the all-time series between the two clubs 12 wins to 9. History also favors teams that show up as champions on opening night, at least somewhat: since 2004, 21 defending champions have played the following season’s opener, and they have gone a combined 16-5 in those games.
The rest of the opening slate stretches well beyond Lumen Field. A day later, on September 10, the San Francisco 49ers face the Los Angeles Rams at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, marking the NFL’s first regular-season game ever played in Australia, with the broadcast handled by Netflix rather than a traditional network. Elsewhere in Week 1, the schedule features Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Bears-Panthers among the marquee matchups, before the week wraps up on Monday night with the Denver Broncos visiting Kansas City. That finale carries its own storyline, with Patrick Mahomes’ recovery from a knee injury drawing as much attention as anything else on the schedule.
Before any of that kicks off, teams still have to survive preseason. The 2026 exhibition slate runs across three weekends between August 13 and August 29, and every roster around the league must be trimmed to 53 players by August 30. Looking further ahead, the league has already locked in its next championship date, with Super Bowl LXI set for February 14, 2027, in Los Angeles. That is the prize both Seattle and New England will already have in mind as they line up under the lights at Lumen Field on opening night, even as the Seahawks try to process what it means to no longer be the hunters.
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald put that shift in plain terms heading into the new season. “We know that we’re target No. 1 now,” he said.
