SEATTLE – Seven months ago, Kenneth Walker III dragged Seattle to its second Super Bowl title. Wednesday night, as the Seahawks unveil their championship banner against the same New England Patriots they beat 29-13 in Super Bowl LX, Walker won’t be anywhere near the sideline. He signed a three-year, $43.05 million deal with the Kansas City Chiefs in March, and the void he left is the story no pregame ceremony can paper over.
That tension, a title defense without its MVP, is the honest context for the 2026 NFL season opener at Lumen Field. The banner will go up, Mike Tirico will read the names, and Cris Collinsworth will say something generous about destiny. Then Sam Darnold will take a snap, and the question that has followed Seattle all offseason will become real: can this team defend its championship without the player who won it for them?
General manager John Schneider said publicly he would not engage in a bidding war for Walker. He meant it. With rookie Jadarian Price listed as the likely featured back once he clears a hamstring issue, and George Holani holding down the position in the meantime, the Seahawks are asking their offensive line and their quarterback to carry more weight than they did in February. Zach Charbonnet spent the preseason on the physically unable to perform list after a playoff ACL tear. The committee approach is a gamble that Seattle’s championship core is deeper than one player.
It might be. Darnold, who was every pundit’s preseason afterthought a year ago, is now a Super Bowl champion at 29. The same Seattle defense that forced Drake Maye into three turnovers and absorbed six sacks’ worth of punishment in Levi’s Stadium, the unit that calls itself the Dark Side, returns largely intact. They are, by most accounts, the most complete defense in the conference.
Maye is the more compelling story Wednesday night. The Patriots quarterback was the regular-season MVP runner-up in 2025, productive enough to put New England within reach of an unlikely Super Bowl appearance. Then the Seattle defense took him apart. Six sacks. Three giveaways. A 29-13 final that was not as close as the score suggested. Whatever Maye learned in the offseason, whatever adjustments Bill Belichick Jr. has installed, Wednesday will be the first public test of whether the lesson landed.
There is also the matter of history between these franchises that predates February. In Super Bowl XLIX, Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson on the goal line in the waning seconds to secure the championship for New England. That play calcified into one of the most debated calls in football history. Whether the Seattle locker room still carries it 12 years later is a question no one in the building will answer honestly on Wednesday night, but the rivalry has its own gravity now.
Walker will play Sunday at Denver. He will be fine. The Chiefs are the Chiefs, and a Super Bowl MVP running back is not diminished by a change of address. What remains to be seen is whether Seattle’s offense is diminished by losing him, whether the Seahawks, under new ownership, made the right calculation that the defense, the quarterback, and the line are good enough to cover the gap.
Price, the first-round rookie, has not yet played a regular-season snap. Holani, who carried the preseason workload while Price recovered, is a capable second option who has never been asked to be the lead back on a defending champion’s offense. The first real carry he takes Wednesday night will tell the story better than any depth chart.
According to CBS Sports, the Seahawks’ defense registered six sacks and three forced turnovers in the Super Bowl, performances that define the standard Drake Maye must now clear in the rematch. NBC’s broadcast begins at 7 p.m. ET. Kickoff at Lumen Field is 8:20 p.m. ET.
What happens after that is the one thing neither a banner nor an offseason storyline can predict.
