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The NFL Sent 18 Teams Overseas. The Seahawks Stayed Home.
The NFL announced its full international slate this morning on Good Morning Football, and the defending Super Bowl champions are nowhere on it. Nine games across four continents, seven countries, and 18 teams. Seattle will play all 17 of its games on American soil.
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International games in 2026, a record. Zero involve the Seahawks.
The two doors that were still open slammed shut simultaneously. The Vikings drew the 49ers’ Mexico City game. The Colts drew Washington’s London game. Both were on Seattle’s road schedule. Both went elsewhere.
This is good news wearing sensible shoes. International games are great for brand-building and terrible for body clocks. The Seahawks already travel farther than almost every team in the league just to play a normal road schedule. Adding a 17-hour flight to Melbourne or a midseason trip to London would have been the scheduling equivalent of asking a marathon runner to do hurdles.
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The NFL is playing football on four continents next season. The Seahawks will be watching from nine time zones away, fully rested, with a trophy in the lobby.
The full 272-game schedule drops tomorrow at 5 p.m. PT. That’s when Seattle finds out whether the Bears, Patriots, or Chargers walk through the tunnel at Lumen Field on September 9. The international slate was the appetizer. The main course arrives in 24 hours.
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League
The NFL Just Invented Thanksgiving Eve Football, and the Rams Got It
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For the Seahawks, this is mostly background noise with one useful detail: the Rams now have another standalone window locked in. Combined with their Melbourne opener and the near-certainty of at least one primetime divisional game, McVay’s team will spend a lot of 2026 on national television. Whether that’s a competitive advantage or just more opportunities for America to watch Ty Simpson hold a clipboard is an open question.
The full schedule drops tomorrow. After that, we can stop guessing and start complaining about bye week placement like adults.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Field Gulls predicts six primetime games for the Seahawks, including the opener, both Rams games, the Cowboys, the Eagles, and the Broncos. That’s the maximum allowed before Week 18. The only question is which one gets flexed out when we’re 14-1. Field Gulls
FanDuel has Seattle’s win total at 10.5 heading into the schedule release, which feels low for a team that won 17 games and a Super Bowl last year. Put the over on your vision board. Field Gulls
The Seahawks’ opponents combined for a .514 win percentage in 2025, ranking 14th in the NFL. Middle of the pack. The schedule gods neither blessed nor cursed us. They just shrugged. SI on Seahawks
Single-game tickets go on sale immediately after the schedule drops Thursday. Budget-friendly tickets (at or below the league average) drop June 2 at 10 a.m. PT with a four-per-game limit. Set your alarms and your expectations accordingly. Seahawks.com
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Rams just got the inaugural Thanksgiving Eve game: Packers at SoFi, November 25, on Netflix. That’s their third standalone broadcast window alongside the Melbourne opener and whatever primetime game the league throws them in October. Stafford’s extension, which was reportedly ‘close’ a month ago, is still not done. Drafting Ty Simpson at 13 apparently did not accelerate negotiations. Andrew Whitworth went on the Rich Eisen Show and compared it to his own experience getting replaced in Cincinnati, saying he was ‘pissed off’ when the Bengals drafted his successors. He expects Stafford to feel the same way, even while mentoring the kid.
NINERS
The 49ers are playing international games on two different continents in 2026. They open in Melbourne against the Rams on September 10, then fly to Mexico City to host the Vikings in Week 11. That’s a 17-hour flight to Australia, a return trip, a normal NFL schedule for two months, then Mexico City. The new defensive coordinator is Raheem Morris, who is trying to install an entirely new scheme while the team racks up more frequent flyer miles than a tech executive. Niners Nation projects them as NFC West contenders. Geography projects them as exhausted by December.
CARDINALS
Arizona has the hardest schedule in the NFL according to Sharp Football Analysis, with projected opponents combining for 156.5 wins. They went 3-14 last year. Their first-round pick, Jeremiyah Love, signed a $53.9 million rookie contract with the most guaranteed money ever given to a running back, which is a fun way to spend money when your starting quarterback won’t show up for voluntary workouts because he wants a raise from $4.88 million. The NFC West sends its regards.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
Grant Wistrom signed a six-year, $33 million free-agent contract with the Seahawks in 2004 after six seasons with the St. Louis Rams. How many career sacks did Wistrom record across his nine NFL seasons with the Rams and Seahawks?
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53 career sacks. Wistrom played 132 games, made three Super Bowl appearances (winning one with the Rams), and helped the Seahawks reach Super Bowl XL in his second season in Seattle.
Got a question? Got a grudge? Got a schedule complaint?
Send your burning Seahawks questions to the mailbag. The schedule drops tomorrow, which means by Friday I’ll be drowning in complaints about bye week placement. Get ahead of the curve.
The schedule drops tomorrow. The opener is September 9. The trophy is still in the building. Everything else is just filling time. Go Hawks. — The Rooster