Get ready to mark your calendars for a completely wild kickoff, 12s! Our Seattle Seahawks, the *defending Super Bowl champions*, are set to open the NFL season against the Patriots on a Wednesday night, September 9, at 8:20 p.m. ET. Yeah, you read that right: Wednesday! This is only the second time in the league’s 107-year history that the season has started on a midweek hump day, and the NFL is doing everything it can to make sure nobody misses this super rare event.
Why Is the NFL Messing With Tradition for Our Champs?
So, what’s the deal with this historic schedule shake-up? Usually, the Super Bowl winner gets to host the big Thursday night opener in their stadium. And let’s be real, our Hawks earned that right after bringing home the Lombardi! But the league made an exception this year because of an international game in Australia. The Rams and 49ers are kicking off down under at 10:35 a.m. Australian time on a Friday. Due to that crazy time difference, that’s actually a Thursday night kickoff here in the United States. The NFL still wanted our defending champs to officially play the *very first game* of the season in the US, so they made the bold move to bump our game up a full day to Wednesday. It’s a bizarre situation created by global football, but it means our Hawks are making history right out of the gate!
A Wednesday Opener Is Rarer Than a Seattle Summer Day Without Rain
Seriously, a Wednesday opener is almost unheard of! Before this year, the NFL had only opened the season on a Wednesday one other time in 107 years. That happened back in 2012 when the Cowboys-Giants opener got shifted to avoid conflicting with Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. The Giants earned that opener after beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl that year, which is exactly what our Seahawks did to earn this year’s opener. Pro Football Reference also shows two other seasons with a Wednesday game in Week 1 (1933, 1948), but those weren’t the actual opening game of the season. To ensure everyone knows about this wild start, NBC, who’s televising our game, even threw their lead announcers Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth into a commercial with the Hump Day camel! You can catch our Hawks battling the Patriots on NBC and streaming on Peacock.
This Wednesday night spectacle means Sam Darnold, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Rashid Shaheed, and Cooper Kupp are getting an extra day’s jump on the rest of the league. Our new head coach Mike Macdonald and offensive coordinator Brian Fleury get to set the tone immediately. The league’s decision to play a game in Australia definitely won’t be a one-time thing, either. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has already hinted we could see more Wednesday openers in the future. So get ready, 12s, because this season is kicking off unlike any other, and our Seahawks are leading the way!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by CBS Sports.
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