Seahawks rumors: Why insiders’ tea leaves are reading a Week 1 showdown vs. Bears

The Seattle Seahawks will march into Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season as defending Super Bowl champions. As is often the case, the NFL plans to put the Seahawks in the league’s season opener to add a little more spice. One opponent has emerged as the assumed matchup for Seattle just ahead of the NFL’s annual schedule release.

NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo added one more datapoint to the theory that Seattle will open the regular season against Chicago.

Garafolo noted that only five of the Seahawks’ home opponents do not already have their Week 1 assignment before the schedule release. Those opponents include the Cardinals, Chiefs, Chargers, Patriots, and Bears.

Garafolo explained why he thinks Chicago could be the choice.

“Not feeling a SB rematch so early and Mahomes uncertainly,” Garafolo wrote. “Has long felt like Chicago to me. We’ll find out soon.”

Garafolo’s comments come after Mike Wilbon, a noted Chicago sports personality, stated his belief about Chicago’s potential season opener against Seattle. Some even speculated that Wilbon was leaking Chicago’s Week 1 matchup. However, based on his wording, Wilbon may have just been giving his opinion.

“They could be a better team and still not win 11 games,” Wilbon said via Get Up on April 29th. “That’s very possible given the schedule, which I believe starts in Seattle on a Wednesday night.”

There’s no question that Seahawks vs. Bears would be an excellent game to kick off the new season. Chicago is one of the NFC’s up and coming teams with Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams leading the way. Seattle is still a contender too despite losing talent during the offseason.

It will be exciting to see if these rumors are true or not later this week.

The NFL’s official schedule release will take place on Thursday May 14th at 8PM ET.

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