The 2026 NFL season will officially be released on Thursday evening, but we may already know who the Seattle Seahawks are playing to begin the campaign. As is tradition for the reigning Super Bowl champion, the Seahawks will kick off the season with the first game at home. This year, it will begin on Wednesday, September 9th. There has been speculation for a while now (thanks to ESPN’s Michael Wilbon) that Seattle will host the explosive Chicago Bears. However, it appears that is not the case.
According to NFL insider Jordan Schultz, the Seahawks will take on the New England Patriots in Week 1 for a Super Bowl LX rematch right out of the gates. This will be the first time since the Denver Broncos played the Carolina Panthers in Week 1 of the 2016 season that we will get a Super Bowl rematch to start the season.
To say it’s been a noisy offseason for New England is quite the understatement. After getting absolutely humiliated by the Seahawks in their disastrous 29-13 Super Bowl loss, their head coach has been embroiled in a particularly nasty scandal. Mike Vrabel has been exposed for having what clearly seems to be a prolonged affair with (now former) NFL reporter Dianna Russini. The distraction even rose to the level of Vrabel stepping away from the team during Day 3 of the 2026 NFL draft. Unfortunately for New England, more photos of the two continue to be released and the story isn’t going away. It remains to be seen if Vrabel will even be on the sidelines for this game.
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Assuming he will, and assuming the Patriots are able to successfully finalize a trade for disgruntled Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver AJ Brown, they will have had nearly seven full months to prepare their revenge attempt for the Seahawks… because clearly two weeks was not enough time this past February.
We at Seahawks Wire will continue to monitor any and all schedule release updates.
This article originally appeared on Seahawks Wire: Seahawks vs Patriots: Hawks to host Pats for Week 1 Super Bowl rematch