Seahawks to Kick Off 2026 NFL Season, Date, Start Time Revealed for Super Bowl Champions' Schedule

The defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks will kick off the 2026 NFL season on Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 8:20 p.m. ET against a to-be-determined opponent, per ESPN's Adam Schefter.

The NFL season has almost always started with a standalone game on the first or second Thursday of September since 2002. The lone exception is 2012, when the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys began the season on a Wednesday due to the Democratic National Convention.

This year, the NFL Kickoff will be bumped a day earlier because of the league's first game in Australia, where the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers will play in Week 1.

Wednesday games are certainly rare, per senior NFL researcher Tony Holzman-Escareno.

The Seahawks' Wednesday opponent is to-be-determined.

However, it will be one of these seven teams: the Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Kansas City Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots, Los Angeles Chargers or New York Giants.

The defending Super Bowl champion has been featured in the NFL Kickoff game each year since 2002 with the exception of 2019, when a pair of longtime bitter rivals, the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears, kicked off the league's 100th season.

The Seahawks hope this year's game goes similarly to the last time they were in the NFL Kickoff in 2014, when Seattle crushed the Green Bay Packers at home, 36-16.

Seattle is looking to become back-to-back Super Bowl champions after a phenomenal 2025 campaign that saw the team go 17-3 overall capped by a 29-13 victory over the New England Patriots for the Lombardi Trophy.

The Seahawks return many talents from that team, including quarterback Sam Darnold, cornerback Devon Witherspoon and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who is now the league's highest-paid wide receiver thanks to a four-year, $168.6 million contract.