Week 1 · Wednesday, September 9 · 8:20 PM ET
Why This Game Matters
This is the rarest kind of season opener: an immediate rematch of the previous Super Bowl, with Seattle raising its championship banner at Lumen Field before kicking off against the team it just beat. New England arrives looking for revenge and carries the league's steepest projected win-total jump into the year, while the Seahawks — banner freshly raised but a roster reshaped by notable offseason turnover — try to prove their title-winning core can hold up from the opening night.
Real Player Matchups
- NE pass rusher Harold Landry III (8.5 sacks, 19 QB hits in 2025) vs. a SEA offensive line that allowed 27 sacks last season.
- NE's Stefon Diggs drew a 21% target share in 2025 (+70 receiving EPA) against a SEA defense ranked #2 of 32 in EPA allowed.
- SEA's Jaxon Smith-Njigba drew a 36% target share in 2025 (+91 receiving EPA) against a NE defense ranked #11 of 32 in EPA allowed.
Real 2025 season production (nflverse), a prior-season baseline pending real 2026 games.
Key Matchups
- Seattle's retooled roster, reshaped by significant offseason turnover since the championship run, against a Patriots team pegged with the league's biggest projected win-total jump alongside Denver
- Seahawks S Nick Emmanwori's availability in the secondary — he opened training camp on the PUP list — against a New England offense trying to justify its offseason hype
- Power-rank gap entering Week 1: Seattle at No. 4 (still trailing the Rams despite the title) versus New England at No. 6 in a newly crowded 10.5-win tier of contenders
- Super Bowl LX revenge dynamic: Seattle's title-winning formula on its own banner-raising night against a Patriots team that has had seven months to plan its response
Injury Report
Nick Emmanwori · SEA S
PUP
Opened training camp on the Physically Unable to Perform list.
Series History
All-time: Seattle holds an 11-8 edge in the regular-season series (12-9 including playoffs). The series is more extensive than most cross-conference pairings because the Seahawks spent their first 25 seasons (1977-2001) in the AFC West before moving to the NFC in 2002, which had them facing New England more often in that earlier era. The two Super Bowl meetings between these franchises are split 1-1: New England won Super Bowl XLIX 28-24 in February 2015, and Seattle won Super Bowl LX 29-13 in February 2026.
Last meeting: Their last meeting before Super Bowl LX came in Week 2 of the 2024 regular season on September 15, 2024, when Seattle beat New England 23-20 in overtime at Gillette Stadium on a Jason Myers field goal.
- · Super Bowl XLIX (Feb. 1, 2015): New England beat Seattle 28-24 on Malcolm Butler's goal-line interception of Russell Wilson in the final seconds, one of the most dramatic finishes in Super Bowl history — and the result Seattle avenged eleven years later in Super Bowl LX.
- · October 14, 2012: Rookie Russell Wilson led Seattle to a 24-23 comeback win over New England in Seattle, an early signature victory of his career.
- · September 20, 2020: The teams played a 35-30 shootout in Seattle, with Russell Wilson and Cam Newton — in his lone season at New England — combining for one of the highest-scoring games either franchise had played in years.
Weather
Forecast not yet available this far out — check back closer to kickoff. Lumen Field is an open-air stadium in Seattle.
Records & Rankings on the Line
- · Seattle sits at No. 4 in the current power rankings — the defending Super Bowl LX champions, but ranked behind the Rams in their own division amid notable offseason roster turnover.
- · New England enters at No. 6, carrying the league's largest projected win-total jump alongside Denver and now grouped in a crowded 10.5-win tier of contenders.
- · The Super Bowl LX rematch (Seattle won 29-13) headlines a rare Wednesday-night season opener, with Seattle also raising its championship banner at Lumen Field before kickoff.
The Desk Weighs In
Duke Callahan
SEA -3
"Seattle's O-line beat New England's front seven up in that Super Bowl and I haven't seen enough turnover on New England's D-line to think that changes. Give me the team that controls the line of scrimmage on banner night."
Vega Okafor
NE -1
"New England carries the league's steepest projected win-total jump for a reason — the underlying roster grade closed the gap on Seattle faster than the scoreboard from last February suggests. A rematch three weeks after a title isn't a coin flip in Seattle's favor by as much as the crowd thinks."
Sunny Marchetti
NE -2
"Everybody's picking the champs on banner night because it's the obvious, comfortable pick. That's exactly when I get interested in the other side — New England had seven months to build a team specifically to answer what just beat them, and revenge games on the road are underpriced more often than not."
Reese Thackeray
SEA -4
"Seattle's only real camp absence is Nick Emmanwori on PUP — everyone else that mattered in February is on the field. That's a healthier availability picture than most defending champs get, and it's worth more to me than New England's offseason spending."
Priest Dunbar
SEA -7
"You do not lose a banner-raising game at home. I don't care how good New England's offseason was — that building is going to be the loudest it's been all year, and Seattle's locker room knows exactly what it feels like to win the game that matters most. Momentum from a title doesn't evaporate in seven months."