The Seahawks enter Patriots Vs Seahawks with something NFL champions rarely enjoy: continuity. After beating the Patriots 29-13 in the Super Bowl in February, Seattle return 20 of 22 starters and all three specialists, giving Mike Macdonald’s team an unusually stable base for the season-opening Kickoff Game.
That matters because the rematch is not just a reprise of the title game. It is a test of whether the Seahawks can defend their crown while resisting the temptation to stand still. Macdonald has made it clear the message inside the building is not about “running it back”, but about moving the team forward.
“I kept hearing people say, ‘Let’s run it back. Let’s run it back.’ It’s like, that’s not really the spirit about how we want to operate,” Macdonald said on Monday in Renton, Wash.
“The message was, it was cool that we did what we did last year — there’s banners and trophies and stuff, and we should be proud of that,” he said. “But we want to leave room to grow and evolve and become a different, better version of what we were.”
Run it forward, not backwards
Macdonald’s wording is important. Seattle are not treating last season’s second Lombardi Trophy as a reason to pause. They re-signed several top players this summer, were featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks during training camp, and arrive with a roster that has been touched far less than most defending champions.
There were 24 new players on the 53-man roster, but only six new starters. Ten starters remain on each side of the ball, and the Seahawks also bring back Kenneth Walker, Coby Bryant, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Leonard Williams, Devon Witherspoon, Charles Cross, Rashid Shaheed and Derick Hall among the key names in that core.
For a team that has already lifted the Lombardi Trophy, that level of retention gives Seattle a significant advantage in Week 1. Familiarity reduces the guesswork. It also means the Seahawks can spend less time building chemistry and more time refining details.
Devon Witherspoon put it simply: “It meant a lot to keep a lot of the core guys intact,” he said. “It’s easy to keep everything going when a majority of the guys you had before are still here.”
Why the Patriots test matters
If Seattle’s storyline is continuity, the Patriots are the opposite. The matchup is a rematch in name, but not necessarily in feel. The Seahawks beat New England 29-13 in February, and now the teams meet again with the defending champions trying to show that their success was built to last.
That contrast is exactly why this game is so interesting. Seattle have an established core, while the Patriots are trying to close the gap against a team that has barely changed in the places that matter most. In early September, that can be decisive.
There is also a bigger picture around the franchise itself. Last month, the family of former owner Paul Allen sold the team for $9.6 billion to Vinod Khosla, adding another major backdrop to a summer already shaped by stability on the field and change off it.
The Seahawks do not need to prove they are champions anymore. What they do need to prove is that they can keep evolving while staying elite. That is the point of Macdonald’s “Run it forward” message, and it is why Patriots Vs Seahawks feels less like a victory lap and more like an early measure of whether this team can stay ahead of the league’s natural cycle of change.
On Wednesday, against the same opponent they beat on the biggest stage, the Seahawks will get the first answer.
