For the first time since the season opener of the 2016 season, the NFL’s opening game will be a Super Bowl rematch between the Patriots and Seahawks in Seattle on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
While the Seahawks will hold a pre-game ceremony to hang their championship banner at Lumen Field, changes on the coaching staff and roster turnover are inevitable in the NFL. The main characters are the same as in Super Bowl LX last February, like the head coaches (Mike Vrabel vs. Mike Macdonald) and starting quarterbacks (Drake Maye vs. Sam Darnold). However, a lot has changed in the seven months between games, especially on Seattle’s side.<\/p>\n
As Patriots fans grew familiar with during the dynasty years, the rest of the league poached from the Seahawks coaching staff and roster this offseason. Seattle lost its offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, who was replaced by first-time coordinator Brian Fleury after leaving to become the Raiders head coach. The Seahawks also had to make tough decisions about who to keep from their Super Bowl-winning roster. Although they extended the contracts of stars Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Devon Witherspoon, and Leonard Williams, Seattle had to let some talent walk.<\/p>\n
Mainly, Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker was Kansas City’s prize free-agent signing. Walker has been replaced by first-round RB Jadarian Price. Seattle also lost starting CB Riq Woolen, starting safety Coby Bryant, and rotational edge rusher Boye Mafe in free agency. The Seahawks feel they have an in-house replacement in CB Josh Jobe for Woolen and have an embarrassment of riches at edge rusher but this is what happens when you’re the reigning champs \u2013 the other 31 teams chip away at your depth.<\/p>\n
As for the Patriots, Vrabel’s coaching staff remains intact from last year’s run to the Super Bowl, with coordinators Josh McDaniels (offense) and Zak Kuhr (defense) returning. However, New England took a big swing by swapping top receivers Stefon Diggs and Kayshon Boutte for star WR A.J. Brown and free-agent addition Romeo Doubs, hoping the Brown-Doubs duo will elevate the offense’s level of play against elite competition. The Pats also made tweaks to the offensive line and signed veteran S Kevin Byard III, who led the NFL in interceptions in 2025.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the Seahawks will celebrate the Super Bowl LX championship one last time in Seattle and winning the season-opener doesn’t mean the Lombardi Trophy changes hands on Wednesday night. Still, the Patriots, who played arguably their worst game of the season on the biggest stage and have been hearing that they were schedule merchants in 2025, would certainly make a statement by ruining banner night in a Week 1 trip to Seattle \u2013 revenge would be a sweet way for New England to start its 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Let’s preview the chess match in a Super Bowl LX rematch between the Patriots and Seahawks at Lumen Field at 8:20 p.m. ET on Wednesday night in Seattle.<\/p>\n
Offense Key: Have Better Answers to Seattle’s Blitzes and Capitalize on Opportunities<\/p>\n
As we all remember too well, the Seahawks defense decisively controlled the game the last time the Patriots played Seattle in Super Bowl LX back in February.<\/p>\n
Along with forcing three second-half turnovers to put the game away, Seattle’s defense held Patriots QB Drake Maye to a season-low -0.44 expected points added per drop-back with six sacks (season high) and a season-worst 52.8% pressure rate. For the MVP runner-up and the league leader in pass EPA during the regular season, the Super Bowl was an unfortunate time for New England to have its worst performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time since the season opener of the 2016 season, the NFL’s opening game will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":994180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[90,7,61707,1263,1264,130356,6,238,237,261,2635],"class_list":["post-994179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seattle-seahawks","tag-analysis","tag-football","tag-gameplan","tag-hp-article","tag-hp-featured","tag-new-england-patriots-at-seattle-seahawks-2026-reg-1","tag-nfl","tag-seahawks","tag-seattle","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-seattleseahawks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117229215009178587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994179","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=994179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/994180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=994179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=994179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=994179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}