Seahawks' receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba had three touchdowns in Seattle's 31-7 rout of the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Ariz. (Dean Rutz/ / Seattle Times)
Seahawks' receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba had three touchdowns in Seattle's 31-7 rout of the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at State Farm Stadium, in Glendale, Ariz. (Dean Rutz/ / Seattle Times)
The Seattle Seahawks, you may have heard, won their 12th consecutive game Sunday at Arizona, 31-7.
The 12-game streak is the longest in team history, though it comes with the caveat that it includes the playoffs. NFL records are separated by postseason and regular season.
All this talk of streaks may have you thinking — where do the Seahawks rank among the best NFL streaks of all time? And how do they compare with other notable streaks in Seattle sports history?
The record the NFL would view as the Seahawks’ official longest winning streak in history is 11 by the 2005 team, which was accomplished solely in the regular season.
That team, the first in Seahawks history to get to the Super Bowl, started 2-2 before winning 11 in a row to clinch the top seed in the NFC playoffs, then mostly rested starters in losing the season finale at Green Bay, 23-17.
The current team has won nine straight regular season games dating to a 21-19 defeat to the Los Angeles Rams on Nov. 16, with the 12-game overall streak including three postseason games to capture the second Super Bowl title in franchise history.
The current team’s nine-game regular-season winning streak is tied for second-best in franchise history with a stretch by the 2012-13 teams — the last five of 2012 and first four of 2013.
The Seahawks will look to extend each streak Sunday when they play at Washington.
Let’s take a look other win streaks in NFL and Seattle history:
Seahawks aren’t yet close to NFL regular-season history
As noted, you can split the NFL’s historical winning streaks into those that include only the regular season — which is how the league lists them in its record book — and including the postseason.
By either measure, the Seahawks are still a bit shy of the top marks.
The longest regular-season winning streak in league history is 23 by the 2008-09 Indianapolis Colts. Indy won its final nine games of the 2008 season and first 14 of the 2009 season. But the Colts did not win the Super Bowl either year, losing in the divisional round in 2008 to the Chargers and the Super Bowl the following year to the Saints.
Next on the list are the 2006-08 New England Patriots with 21 and 2003-04 New England Patriots and 2014-15 Carolina Panthers with 18.
Of those teams, only the 2003-04 Patriots won a Super Bowl. The Pats won it at the end of each of those seasons.
That means that of the top four regular-season winning streaks in league history, only one involved a team that won the Lombardi during their run.
Seahawks aren’t close to overall NFL record
The top winning streaks including playoffs all include a Super Bowl title, and as such feel more meaningful.
The Seahawks have some work to do to match any of those streaks.
The top winning streak including playoffs is 21 by the 2003-04 Patriots, which includes the 2004 Super Bowl win over Carolina.
The next is 19 by the 2010-11 Green Bay Packers, who won the Super Bowl following the 2010 season. Seven teams have won 18 in a row, including the postseason, three of which were in the pre-Super Bowl era.
The most recent is the 2007 New England Patriots, who famously are the only team in NFL history to go 16-0 in the regular season and won two playoff games before losing in the Super Bowl to the New York Giants.
The most recent winning streak of 15 or more games is the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2023-24 seasons, including winning the Super Bowl following the 2023 season then starting 9-0 the following year.
Where do Seahawks fit with other local teams?
Comparing winning streaks of teams in different sports is obviously apples to oranges. Football teams play one game a week, MLB teams play one almost every day for six months.
Still, the Seahawks’ streaks raises the question of what are the longest streaks for other major Seattle sports teams?
The one that is the most statistically impressive is the University of Washington football team winning 40 in a row from 1908-14 under legendary coach Gil Dobie.
The winning streak ended with a 0-0 tie against Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University). The Seattle Times account of the game the next day noted that the contest was played in a “lake of water which meant that “good football was out of the question.”
That streak is recognized as the second-longest in college football history behind the 47 of Oklahoma from 1953-57.
UW’s longest winning streak in the post-World War II era is 22 from 1990-92, which includes the 12-0 national title season of 1991.
The Mariners’ longest winning streak, as might be expected, occurred during the 116-win season of 2001 — a 15-gamer from May 23 to June 8, 2001.
That streak is not close to the longest in MLB history, which is 26 by the 1916 Giants (that squad oddly began the season 2-13 and had a record of 59-62 before ripping off 26 straight wins, finishing 86-66-3 and in fourth place in the National League).
The Sonics’ longest winning streak also occurred during a season you might expect — 1996, when the team finished with the best record in the 41-year history of the Seattle Sonics at 64-18.
En route to that mark, the Sonics won 14 in a row during a stretch of winning 20 out of 21. The only loss in that stretch was, oddly, a 103-100 defeat on the road to a Dallas team that went 26-56 that season.
That streak pales compared to the NBA-record 33-gamer by the 1971-72 Lakers, a record that may never be topped (the longest streak for the 2016 Golden State team that went an NBA-record 73-9 was 24).
If you’re wondering the longest winning streak for the 78-79 Sonics team that captured the NBA title was seven, done twice during that season, including the first seven games of the season.
The Storm’s longest win streak nearly matches the Sonics. They won 13 in a row during their championship 2010 season in which they went 28-6 and didn’t lose in the playoffs. The WNBA record is 18 in a row by the 2001 Los Angeles Sparks.
The Kraken’s longest winning streak is nine during the 2023-24 season, not close to the NHL record of 17 by the 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins.
Streak not a priority for Macdonald
The 12-game winning streak is fun for fans (a fitting number, as well) and good fodder for the media.
While Seahawks coaches and players undoubtedly know about the record streak — this is a team that has “stacking wins” as one of its prime sayings — coach Mike Macdonald said it’s not something that is talked about.
“It’s a great stat, because we haven’t lost, which is nice,” he said Monday. “One of the reasons we’re able to do it is because we don’t think about it.”
Macdonald says the team tries to stay in the moment.
“We’re determined to see where this team goes and how far we can take it and that’s the extent of our focus he said. “Let’s go try to get another win this week, that’s our focus at this point. At some point, we’re not going to win a game, and the streak will stop and we’ll try to start another one.”