Seattle open the NFL season at home. Champions mostly won this game.
The Seahawks play New England at home at Lumen Field on Wednesday 9 September, the first Super Bowl rematch to open a season since 2016.
What happened
The Patriots visit the Seahawks at Lumen Field on Wednesday at 8.20pm ET in a rematch of Super Bowl LX, which New England lost 29-13 on in Santa Clara; it is the first Week 1 Super Bowl rematch since 2016 and the Patriots’ first game on a Wednesday.
The game repeats the Super Bowl, the NFL’s final, which Seattle won in February. It is the first season-opening Super Bowl rematch since Denver hosted Carolina in 2016. It is also only the second time the league has opened on a Wednesday, after the Giants and Cowboys game of 2012.
New England have lost their last four games against Seattle, and Seattle lead the series 12-9.
Seattle won the Super Bowl with their defence and their running game. Kenneth Walker III was named most valuable player after running for 135 yards on 27 carries. The Patriots had to kick the ball away (punt) eight times, and Drake Maye gave the ball away three times. The last was an interception that Uchenna Nwosu returned 45 yards for a touchdown.
Since 2004 the first game of the season has belonged to the defending champion, with two exceptions. The Ravens opened away in Denver in 2013 because of a clash with a baseball game, and the 2019 opener was Packers against Bears for the league’s hundredth season. The league sometimes picks the team the champion beat in the Super Bowl as the first opponent.
Sources: New England Patriots, Guardian, NFL.com
The Pattern
We looked at every NFL season opener since 2004 in which the defending champion played, using the league’s own records. The champion won 16 of the 21 games. The last eight are shown below, newest first.
Show the other 6 cases
The Read
History favours Seattle. Champions have won 16 of the 21 openers they played since 2004. Seattle are at home, have beaten New England four times in a row, and their defence took the ball away three times and forced eight punts in February. The market sits at 60% rather than higher because the Rams in 2022 and the Chiefs in 2023, the two most recent champions to lose, show that the opener is where a champion’s edge is smallest.
The case against is that a Super Bowl is one game, and the Patriots have had seven months to answer it. Openers tell us little. Seattle lose if Drake Maye gets time to throw and their defence cannot reach him as it did in February. The four-game market depends on a run of away games that the opener says nothing about.
Disclaimer
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