Kirk Minihane reports Seahawks will host Patriots in NFL season opener

We also know that the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants will open the Sunday Night Football season , the Detroit Lions and Buffalo Bills will open the Thursday Night Football season in Week 2 for the first-ever game at Highmark Stadium, the Dallas Cowboys and Baltimore Ravens will play the first-ever NFL game in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil , and the Cowboys will host the Philadelphia Eagles on Thanksgiving Day . But the NFL season opener, which will be televised by NBC on Wednesday, Sept. 9, has remained a mystery, aside from the knowledge that the defending champion Seattle Seahawks will host the game.

Kirk Minihane , a Barstool Sports podcaster and former radio host in Boston for WEEI, says that the Seahawks will be playing the New England Patriots in a Super Bowl LX rematch to open the 2026 NFL season. “Patriots will open the season in Seattle on 9/9, per sources,” Minihane posted to X. Patriots will open the season in Seattle on 9/9, per sources.

— Kirk Minihane (@kirkmin) May 11, 2026 The Seahawks’ 2026 home opponents are the Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, New England Patriots, New York Giants, and San Francisco 49ers. Seattle can’t play the Rams, 49ers, Cowboys, and Giants in the opener, because those teams already have Week 1 games. That leaves the Bears, Cardinals, Chargers, Chiefs, and Patriots as possibilities.

The Cardinals look like possibly the worst team in the league, so it’s been easy to assume it won’t be them. Patrick Mahomes is recovering from a torn ACL that has his Week 1 status in question, so it’s unlikely the league would want to chance it with the Chiefs. The Chargers are a good team, but without the ratings appeal that the NFL and NBC would prefer to kick off the season.