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The Seattle Seahawks will play the New England Patriots in a Super Bowl rematch to begin the 2026 NFL season. While an official announcement from the NFL has yet to release, the expectation remains that the Seahawks begin the season at Lumen Field playing New England. The game takes place Wednesday, September 9th at 5:20 PM. The NFL slated NBC to broadcast the game.

The Seahawks just beat New England in the 60th Super Bowl 29-13. Seattle dominated the game defensively, posting a 19-0 lead at one point.

The opening game strangely begins on Wednesday this season because the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers are set to play on Thursday, the following day. New England was one of four possible opponents to begin the season. The other four were the Arizona Cardinals, the Chicago Bears, and the Los Angeles Chargers. The full schedule release occurs Thursday, May 14th at 8:00 p.m. ET.

Seahawks Ready to Begin Season Just How It Ended With Patriots Rematch

GettySam Darnold looks to begin the season in great form and continue to silence any doubters.

With the Seattle Seahawks playing the Patriots in the Super Bowl rematch, it seems fitting given how the team wants to address this coming season. Seahawks Head Coach Mike MacDonald comes into the season with a fresh perspective.

He said, “We’re a new team, and we have to rebecome the team that we’re destined to be. There’s a lot of new pieces, and I think that’s where the focus is. OK, how can we get those ground elements back to where we want them? What’s a better way in terms of our process? How can we do Phase One better? How can we do Phase Two—even though we’re going to alter the schedule a little bit—how can we do those things the best we can and take those things to the next level?”

During the offseason, the Seahawks lost some key players in Kenneth Walker III, Coby Bryant, Riq Woolen, and Boye Mafe. However, the Seahawks addressed those losses in the draft with the selections of Jadarian Price, Bud Clark, and Julian Neal. The team also announced the signing of defensive end Dante Fowler as well.

Head Coach Mike MacDonald Feels Confident in “New” Roster

GettySeahawks Head Coach Mike MacDonald seems confident heading into offseason training.

Despite the turnover throughout the roster, MacDonald wants to make sure that the new players feel welcome. Thus, he illustrates that the team wants to retain as many players as they can while fostering a sense of community and belonging for everyone involved.

MacDonald said, “We’re trying to be really careful with our language, we’re not really saying we’re running anything back, we’re not defending anything. That’s just not really our attitude. The goal is to try to retain as many great players as we can, and we love our roster and we love our guys, and we’re trying to keep that unit together and have that continuity. That’s what we’ve been trying to do.”

Additionally, When asked about being defending champions, MacDonald questioned the idea of that.

He said, “That’s not a thing. We’re not defending anything. I’ve already talked to some of the guys about it, and they’re great. The guys are awesome, and they know what we need to do. [We] work through those things, it’s not like you have the definitive meeting—no, it’s, this is our mentality on how we want to approach it. We’ll work through it. It’s not just me saying it, our coaches have an influence, and we’ll figure out ways for guys to talk—we’ll do walk and talks or whatever—we’ll figure out ways for the guys to really make it their journey again so we can all be on the same page moving forward.”

A Seahawks Patriots rematch allows the Seahawks to move forward quickly without having to think about the past.