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Football Is Back! The NFL Season Kicks Off Tonight With a Super Bowl Rematch
Quick Summary
American football returns tonight! The Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots face off to start the 2026 NFL season. These same two teams met just seven months ago in the Super Bowl.
What Happened?
After a long summer break, the NFL regular season begins today, September 9. The first game of every new NFL season is called the Kickoff Game. It’s always a special event, with concerts and ceremonies before the big game.
This year’s Kickoff Game is extra special. The Seattle Seahawks are hosting the New England Patriots at their home stadium. These two teams played the last game of the 2025 season — the Super Bowl — and Seattle won 29 to 13.
That makes tonight a rematch. New England wants to show everyone they can beat the champions. Seattle wants to prove they deserve to stay on top.
The game starts at 8:20 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC and Peacock.
There’s also a storyline that fans are watching closely. The Patriots made a big move this offseason. They signed wide receiver A.J. Brown, one of the best pass-catchers in the sport. That could make the Patriots offense much harder to stop.
For Seattle, their star wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba won the Offensive Player of the Year award last season. He’ll be one of the most exciting players to watch tonight.
This is the 107th NFL season in history. It ends next February with Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California.
Why Does It Matter?
For millions of football fans across the country, tonight feels like a holiday. The NFL is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world. Opening night brings huge excitement — including new storylines, new players, and the chance for last year’s underdog to get revenge!
Watching a Super Bowl rematch in Game 1 is very rare and very cool. It’s like a season finale playing before the season even really begins.
Big Words
- NFL — The National Football League, the top professional American football league with 32 teams.
- Kickoff Game — The very first regular-season game of the NFL year, always held in early September.
- Rematch — When two teams or players who already faced each other compete again.
- Wide receiver — A football player whose job is to run fast and catch passes thrown by the quarterback.
- Offensive Player of the Year — An award given at the end of the season to the best attacking player in the NFL.
Fun Fact
The NFL Kickoff Game tradition started in 2002. Before that, all NFL teams started playing on the same weekend — there was no special opening-night game!
Think About It
If you were the coach of the New England Patriots tonight, what’s one thing you would do differently compared to the Super Bowl loss?
Sources
- NFL.com — Patriots vs. Seahawks: Five must-know storylines for Wednesday’s 2026 NFL Kickoff Game
- Wikipedia — 2026 NFL season
- Wikipedia — 2025 NFL season (Super Bowl LX results)
- CBS Sports — 2026 NFL Kickoff Game prediction, odds, time: Seahawks vs. Patriots