{"id":742956,"date":"2026-02-10T17:56:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/742956\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T17:56:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T17:56:28","slug":"who-could-super-bowl-champion-seahawks-face-to-kick-off-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/742956\/","title":{"rendered":"Who could Super Bowl champion Seahawks face to kick off 2026 season?"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO — It took just two seasons for Mike Macdonald to take the Seattle Seahawks from playoff observer to Super Bowl champions.<\/p>\n

The dominant defensive performance in a blowout win<\/a> over the New England Patriots underscored the defensive guru’s place among the top young minds in the NFL. Macdonald is the third-youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl (38 years, 227 days old). His 17 victories this season set a new record for the most wins in a season by a head coach under 40 years old (including playoffs).<\/p>\n

With a young head coach and a roster built by general manager John Schneider to last, Seattle won’t be a one-hit wonder. The Seahawks could just be hitting their stride under Macdonald. After a swift ascent to the mountain top, it’s never too early to start thinking about that elusive repeat.<\/p>\n

Next season<\/a>, Seattle hosts the Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, New England Patriots, New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers.<\/p>\n

Here are my top four matchups for the Seahawks to begin their Super Bowl defense in 2026’s NFL Kickoff Game:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO — It took just two seasons for Mike Macdonald to take the Seattle Seahawks from playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":742957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1227,391,257,7,110,58,88,6,609,4267,252,261],"class_list":{"0":"post-742956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-around-the-nfl","9":"tag-chicago-bears","10":"tag-dallas-cowboys","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-kansas-city-chiefs","13":"tag-los-angeles-rams","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-no-minute","17":"tag-offseason-news","18":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","19":"tag-seattle-seahawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116047629518199660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}