playBrady HendersonSep 9, 2026, 06:00 AM ETCloseBrady Henderson is a reporter for NFL Nation and covers the Seattle Seahawks for ESPN. He joined ESPN in 2017 after covering the team for Seattle Sports 710-AM.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsRENTON, Wash. — Six months after the Seattle Seahawks hoisted the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the second time in franchise history, Richard Sherman was struck by the team’s post-Super Bowl vibe. As he chopped it up with Mike Macdonald at the start of an Aug. 10 training camp practice, the retired cornerback wanted to know how the third-year head coach got his players to lock back in.”How did you get these guys so — this is such a hungry-ass team,” asked Sherman, who starred for the Super Bowl XLVIII-champion Seahawks and still lives in the Seattle area. “We were still hungry after the first one, but you still felt like this dude got paid, this dude’s starting to feel himself, this dude’s pissed off he’s not getting enough money.”You don’t feel none of that here.
You don’t feel nothing here but f—ing grind, work.”Macdonald answered in typical self-effacing fashion, complete with a contemplative pause.”Umm, I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just what we do, you know?””But that’s easier said than done,” Sherman said.Captured by HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” the 40-second exchange illustrated one of the challenges Super Bowl winners face, and why the Seahawks are equipped to handle it as they try to become only the 10th repeat champions in NFL history and only the third this century. That quest begins Wednesday (8:20 p.m., NBC), when they open their 2026 season against the New England Patriots at Lumen Field.But other roadblocks await. The Seahawks lost four key players in free agency from the team that beat New England in Super Bowl LX, including the game’s MVP in running back Kenneth Walker III and cornerback Riq Woolen, whose departure looks more significant now than it did in March.
With Klint Kubiak getting poached as well, quarterback Sam Darnold and the offense will be relying on a first-time coordinator in Brian Fleury. Meanwhile, the division-rival Los Angeles Rams loaded up this offseason on their way to becoming betting favorites to win the NFC West and Super Bowl LXI.Those are more than just champagne problems that the champs will have to navigate. But the feeling inside team headquarters is that, as Macdonald has put it, not “an ounce of complacency” has been evident.”We’re more focused than ever,” veteran defensive tackle Jarran Reed said. “A lot of people always try to bring up the Super Bowl and all that, but literally nobody talks about it.
We don’t bring it up. We just worry about the day that we’re in, the present that we’re in, and we just attack the day.”I think we’re more hungry this year, too, which is surprising. We know what we have to do.”‘This league is about making hard decisions’When the dust settled on the Seahawks’ 29-13 win over the Patriots at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, general manager John Schneider commemorated the title by adding to his collection of arm tattoos. The new ink on the crease of his right elbow includes the letters LX underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.In the same spot on his left elbow are the letters XLVIII underneath the New York City skyline, which is near where the Seahawks claimed their first Lombardi Trophy at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 12 years earlier.Schneider is the only GM in NFL history to win two Super Bowls with different head coaches and none of the same players.
His 2014 Seahawks came within a yard of repeating as champions after an offseason in which their roster took significantly more hits than the current one just did.Schneider has been here before. But he still needed to hear something that his close friend and Tampa Bay Buccaneers counterpart Jason Licht told him over a late-night dinner at this year’s NFL combine in Indianapolis. Schneider said Licht reminded him that you can’t make emotional decisions while trying to keep a Super Bowl-winning team intact.A few days later, Seattle said goodbye to Walker as he agreed to a three-year, $43.05 million deal with the Kansas City Chiefs at the start of the free agency negotiating window. Three other key players would follow: outside linebacker Boye Mafe (three years, $60 million with the Cincinnati Bengals), safety Coby Bryant (three years, $40 million with the Chicago Bears) and Woolen (one year, $12 million with the Philadelphia Eagles).Taking Licht’s reminder to heart wasn’t easy.
But it was necessary, especially with megadeals coming down the pike for wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba ($42.15 million per season in new money), cornerback Devon Witherspoon ($33 million) and defensive tackle Leonard Williams ($30 million), who all signed extensions this offseason.”Obviously we’re going to miss those guys, but you’ve got to keep moving forward,” Schneider said on Seattle Sports 710 AM before the Seahawks’ first preseason game. “To get all those [other] guys back was a big deal for us. This league is about making hard decisions after every season, and this is no different whether you win a world championship or don’t.”The Seahawks re-signed a pair of starters in wide receiver Rashid Shaheed and cornerback Josh Jobe, as well as every notable backup save for special-teamer Dareke Young. With no salary cap casualties — Seattle has a league-low $2.33 million in dead money charges for 2026, per OverTheCap — Schneider and vice president of football administration Joey Laine brought back all but six of their 52 players who played at least 100 combined snaps (including special teams) during the regular season and playoffs.
By comparison, the 2014 Seahawks lost 13 of the 48 players who met that playing-time threshold the year before.”It was more than I anticipated looking back,” Schneider said. “That’s a credit to the coaches and Joey Laine and our personnel staff in terms of guys wanting to be here and just keeping as many guys as we possibly can.”Having seen the Seahawks’ locker room gradually lose its edge in the later years of the Legion of Boom era, Schneider approached April’s draft with an eye for competitors.Seattle’s eight-man class was headlined by first-rounder Jadarian Price, who the Seahawks hope can replicate some of Walker’s explosiveness. He’ll lead their backfield while Zach Charbonnet spends at least the first four games on the physically unable to perform list following ACL surgery.Second-round safety Bud Clark was supposed to push Ty Okada for Bryant’s old starting job, but he’s out for the season with a broken ankle. Third-round cornerback Julian Neal missed much of camp with a quad injury that has kept him from being a factor in the battle to replace Woolen as CB3, which had looked like perhaps the only potential weak point of a defense that allowed the fewest points in the NFL last season.Safety, however, has become another early-season concern, with Okada sidelined with a hamstring injury and Nick Emmanwori taking longer than expected to return from right ankle surgery in July.play0:50Two signs Nick Emmanwori could miss Seahawks’ season openerBetween their injury issues and free agent departures, the Seahawks could have their work cut out for them as they try to recapture their defensive dominance of 2025.
But with much of the unit entering Year 3 in Macdonald’s scheme, familiarity will be an asset.”There’s a lot of continuity in the players that we have, so it allows a kind of unspoken, at times, understanding of what we’re doing and why we’re trying to do something,” defensive coordinator Aden Durde said.While the Seahawks lost established talent on defense, the rival Rams added it in a big way. Bringing future Hall of Fame defensive tackle Aaron Donald out of retirement capped an offseason in which Los Angeles also acquired All-Pro defensive end Myles Garrett as well as cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson.The two teams played three nail-biters
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