Get ready for Wednesday night football.
The defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks will host the NFL’s 2026 season opener on Wednesday, Sept. 9, at Lumen Field. Kickoff is set for 5:20 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on NBC. Seattle’s opponent will be announced later this spring.
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The reigning Super Bowl champs typically kick off the NFL season on the Thursday night of Week 1, but this year’s opening game was moved to Wednesday due to the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers playing Thursday, Sept. 10, in Melbourne, Australia, in the league’s first-ever game Down Under.
The NFL reportedly scheduled the Rams-49ers game for the opening Thursday – instead of in the middle of the season – to give both teams extra time to recover from the 16-hour flight and the 19-hour time difference of playing in Australia.
The Seahawks’ 2026 opener will be just the fifth NFL game since 1950 to be played on a Wednesday. Also, the Seahawks will become the ninth current NFL team to have played a game on every day of the week.
With the Rams and 49ers off the table for Week 1, the Seahawks’ potential season-opening opponents are the Chicago Bears, New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Chargers, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and Arizona Cardinals.
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