There’s a strange kind of privilege that comes with entering a preseason as the reigning Super Bowl champion. The urgency that usually defines August football — prove yourself or pack your bags — gets layered with something else entirely: the quiet confidence of a locker room that already knows what winning feels like. That’s exactly where the Seattle Seahawks find themselves as their 2026 preseason slate kicks off, just months removed from a 29-13 dismantling of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
This year’s three-game exhibition slate isn’t just roster filler before September. It’s the first real test of whether Mike Macdonald’s team can carry its championship identity into a new season, and it comes wrapped in genuine storylines — quarterback competitions, a defense trying to prove its dominance wasn’t a one-year fluke, and a Dallas Cowboys team bringing a fresh coaching staff and a wave of rookies into Seattle’s building for the opener. Here’s everything fans need to know about where these games are being played, how to watch them, and why each one matters more than the typical preseason tilt.
The Weight of the Shield: Why This Preseason Carries Extra Meaning
Every so often, a preseason arrives with stakes that go beyond who makes the 53-man roster. This is one of those years for Seattle. The Seahawks closed out the 2025 season with a 14-3 record and the league’s top scoring defense along with the fewest yards allowed per game, a run that culminated in a title-clinching win that gave the franchise its second Lombardi Trophy. Running back Kenneth Walker III earned Super Bowl MVP honors as Seattle’s defense, nicknamed the “Dark Side,” harassed Patriots quarterback Drake Maye into three turnovers and six sacks.
The celebration didn’t end at the confetti. Players and staff gathered for a private ring ceremony in June, where the club unveiled a design featuring twin Lombardi Trophies and blue sapphires — a permanent marker of a season that many around the organization are already calling historic, given it doubled as the franchise’s 50th anniversary campaign. That context matters heading into August, because Macdonald and his staff now face the single hardest task in professional sports: defending a championship without becoming complacent. Preseason football, for all its imperfection, is where that fight for an edge quietly begins.
Preseason Week 1: Seahawks vs. Cowboys at Lumen Field
Date: Saturday, August 15, 2026 Kickoff: 5:00 p.m. PT Venue: Lumen Field, 800 Occidental Ave S, Seattle, WA 98134 Broadcast: KING 5 (local) and NFL Network (national) Radio: Seattle Sports 710AM and KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM
Seattle opens its title defense at home, which is fitting given how loud Lumen Field has become over the past decade. The Seahawks host a Dallas Cowboys team that enters the 2026 preseason under new head coach Brian Schottenheimer, making this matchup as much about scouting an unfamiliar opponent as it is about shaking off Seattle’s own rust.
Because the Seahawks were awarded an extra home game in the regular-season schedule this year, the NFL trimmed their home exhibition slate down to a single date — meaning this Cowboys game is Seattle’s only chance for fans to see preseason football at Lumen Field before September. That scarcity alone makes it a hot ticket, even for an exhibition.
On the field, the storylines split two ways. For Dallas, the spotlight lands on rookie safety Caleb Downs, a first-round pick who has drawn praise during camp from veteran safety Malik Hooker for his composure against established receivers like CeeDee Lamb, along with a backup quarterback battle where Sam Howell has been working behind starter Dak Prescott and flashing during joint practices.
For Seattle, the intrigue centers on the passing game beneath starter Sam Darnold. Darnold enters the season firmly entrenched as QB1 after throwing for 4,048 yards during Seattle’s championship run, with Jaxon Smith-Njigba emerging as a true number-one target after a 1,793-yard receiving season. But the reps that will actually decide roster spots belong to the quarterbacks fighting for QB2 and QB3. Drew Lock holds the backup job for now, while Jalen Milroe — working his way back from an ACL injury — currently sits third on the depth chart. Every preseason snap Milroe takes will be scrutinized as evidence of how far his rehab, and his development as a pocket passer, has come.
This will also be a familiar reunion of sorts. It marks the ninth all-time preseason meeting between these franchises, with Seattle holding a 5-3 edge in the series, including a 22-14 win the last time these two exhibition squads met in 2023. Fittingly, these teams won’t just see each other in August — they’re also scheduled to meet again in Week 13 of the regular season on Monday Night Football, December 7, giving Saturday’s tune-up a bit of forward-looking relevance for both coaching staffs.
Preseason Week 2: Seahawks at Tennessee Titans
Date: Sunday, August 23, 2026 Kickoff: 5:00 p.m. PT Venue: Nissan Stadium, 1 Titans Way, Nashville, TN 37213 Broadcast: FOX (national) Radio: Seattle Sports 710AM and KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM
Seattle’s road swing begins in Nashville, where the Seahawks travel to face the Tennessee Titans for the second time in three preseasons. Nissan Stadium sits along the Cumberland River on Nashville’s East Bank, a location that puts visiting fans within walking distance of downtown’s honky-tonk strip — a fact that has turned this particular road trip into something of an unofficial fan pilgrimage over the years.
This game carries a notable broadcast distinction: it’s the only one of Seattle’s three preseason contests set to air nationally on FOX rather than being confined to local affiliates and NFL Network. For a team coming off a championship, that kind of visibility means a broader national audience gets an early look at how the Dark Side defense is shaping up heading into the regular season.
Strategically, this is typically the game teams treat as their “dress rehearsal.” Traditionally, starters see only token action in a Week 1 preseason opener, sit for most of the finale to avoid injury, but log meaningful snaps in the middle exhibition — meaning fans in Nashville may get the fullest look yet at how Darnold, Smith-Njigba, and the Dark Side defense look running Macdonald’s full game plan, rather than a stripped-down script. Expect offensive and defensive coordinators on both sides to lean into more complex packages here than in either of the other two games.
Preseason Week 3: Seahawks at Kansas City Chiefs
Date: Friday, August 28, 2026 Kickoff: 5:00 p.m. PT Venue: GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, 1 Arrowhead Drive, Kansas City, MO 64129 Broadcast: KING 5
Seattle closes out its exhibition slate against the Kansas City Chiefs, a franchise that missed the postseason entirely in 2025 for the first time since 2014 and enters this preseason looking to reset after a disappointing year. Arrowhead is one of the loudest venues in football even in a meaningless August game, and it gives Seattle’s roster bubble players — the guys fighting for the back end of the 53-man roster — a true road environment to be tested in before final cuts.
This finale is where head coach Mike Macdonald typically pulls back on his top-tier starters almost entirely, letting the third and fourth string take the bulk of the snaps. It’s the game where careers get made or quietly ended: undrafted rookies, camp-body linemen, and special teams hopefuls all know that a strong showing here, on the road, against a divisional-caliber opponent’s roster, is often what separates a spot on the 53 from a trip to the practice squad — or home.
Fittingly, Kansas City is also one of Seattle’s marquee opponents on the regular-season calendar, so whatever the coaching staff learns from this exhibition trip to Arrowhead will feed directly into offseason evaluations and, potentially, into how Seattle approaches that future primetime matchup.
The Quarterback Room: Darnold’s Grip, and the Milroe Watch
If there’s one storyline that threads through all three preseason games, it’s what happens behind Sam Darnold. His QB1 status isn’t in question — not after a 4,048-yard, championship-clinching season that reestablished him as one of the league’s more reliable starters. The real drama sits in the QB2 and QB3 battle.
Drew Lock, a name Seahawks fans will remember from Seattle’s side of the Russell Wilson trade years ago, currently holds the backup role. But Jalen Milroe’s return from a torn ACL is the subplot every scout and beat writer will be watching most closely across these three games. Milroe’s athletic upside was never in question coming out of college; what preseason snaps against Dallas, Tennessee, and Kansas City will reveal is how much of his mobility has returned, and more importantly, how much progress he’s made reading NFL-level coverages from the pocket. A strong August for Milroe doesn’t just shape this year’s roster — it shapes how the front office thinks about Seattle’s quarterback room beyond 2026.
The Dark Side Defense: Proving It Wasn’t a One-Year Wonder
Every championship defense faces the same question in the following training camp: was that dominance real, or was it circumstance? Seattle’s group, which finished with the NFL’s top scoring defense and fewest yards allowed per game in 2025, enters preseason with something to prove even though the ring is already on their fingers.
Names like linebacker Derick Hall, whose strip-sack forced the first turnover of Super Bowl LX, and tight end AJ Barner, who caught the game’s opening touchdown on the offensive side, represent a young core that head coach Mike Macdonald — himself a defensive mastermind before taking over as Seattle’s play-caller — has built his scheme around. Preseason games rarely reveal much about a defense’s true identity, since starters see minimal snaps and game plans stay vanilla. But watch how quickly Seattle’s front seven gets off the ball in short bursts against Dallas, Tennessee, and Kansas City. Even limited preseason reps can hint at whether that pass-rush ferocity carries over, or whether opposing offensive coordinators have already started finding wrinkles to counter it.
How to Watch, Listen, and Attend
For fans planning to catch these games in person or from home, here’s the complete rundown:
Preseason Week 1 — vs. Dallas Cowboys Lumen Field, 800 Occidental Ave S, Seattle, WA 98134 Saturday, August 15, 2026, 5:00 p.m. PT TV: KING 5 (local), NFL Network (national)
Preseason Week 2 — at Tennessee Titans Nissan Stadium, 1 Titans Way, Nashville, TN 37213 Sunday, August 23, 2026, 5:00 p.m. PT TV: FOX (national)
Preseason Week 3 — at Kansas City Chiefs GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, 1 Arrowhead Drive, Kansas City, MO 64129 Friday, August 28, 2026, 5:00 p.m. PT TV: KING 5 (local)
Single-game tickets for Seattle’s lone home preseason date are available directly through Seahawks.com/Tickets, which also lists suite and premium hospitality options for fans looking for a more elevated experience at Lumen Field. Fans hunting for resale tickets or seeking to travel for the road games in Nashville or Kansas City can check secondary markets like StubHub for real-time pricing and seat availability. For those tracking live scores, stats, or injury reports as the games unfold, ESPN and FOX Sports both maintain live in-game trackers for every preseason matchup on the schedule.
Out-of-market fans who can’t access local broadcasts have a couple of reliable fallbacks. NFL Network typically simulcasts several preseason games nationally, and Seahawks.com itself streams every one of the team’s exhibition contests live for fans who prefer to follow along digitally rather than through a cable package.
For those who want the deepest institutional detail on any of these three stadiums — seating charts, parking directions, accessibility information — each venue maintains its own dedicated site: LumenField.com for Seattle’s home venue, NashvilleStadium.com for Nissan Stadium, and the Chiefs’ official Arrowhead Stadium page for the Kansas City finale.
Beyond August: What These Games Are Really Setting Up
It’s tempting to write off preseason football as noise before the real season starts, and in a results-neutral sense, that’s fair — nothing that happens in these three games affects Seattle’s win-loss column. But context changes the stakes. This isn’t just any team playing exhibition football; it’s a defending champion trying to figure out its identity for a title defense, all while opening the regular season on a Wednesday night against the very team it just dethroned.
Seattle’s 2026 regular season opens with a rematch of Super Bowl LX, hosting the New England Patriots at Lumen Field on a Wednesday night to unfurl the franchise’s championship banner — a scheduling decision that turns the Seahawks’ preseason into something closer to a three-week countdown clock than a routine training exercise. Every roster decision made across these three exhibition games — who wins the backup quarterback battle, which undrafted rookie earns a practice squad look, how the offensive line shakes out around Darnold — directly shapes who’s standing on that field when the banner drops in September.
There’s also the matter of the franchise’s 50th season, a milestone the organization has leaned into throughout 2026, from the championship ring’s design tributes to the schedule itself, which features a franchise-record six primetime games including a Christmas date at Lumen Field. Preseason, in that light, becomes less a formality and more the opening chapter of a season the franchise clearly intends to treat as special from the jump.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does Seattle’s 2026 preseason start? The Seahawks open their preseason on Saturday, August 15, 2026, at home against the Dallas Cowboys, with kickoff at 5:00 p.m. PT at Lumen Field.
How many preseason games do the Seahawks play in 2026? Three. Seattle plays one home game (vs. Dallas) and two road games (at Tennessee and at Kansas City), a reduced home slate tied to the team receiving an extra regular-season home date.
Where is Seattle’s only home preseason game being played? Lumen Field, located at 800 Occidental Ave S, Seattle, WA 98134, hosts the Cowboys matchup on August 15.
Which Seahawks preseason game airs nationally? The Week 2 road game against the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium is the only one of Seattle’s three preseason contests broadcast nationally, on FOX.
Are the Seahawks the defending Super Bowl champions heading into this preseason? Yes. Seattle defeated the New England Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX on February 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium, capturing the second championship in franchise history.
Who is expected to start at quarterback for Seattle in preseason? Sam Darnold remains the established starter, but backups Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe — the latter working back from an ACL injury — are the ones with the most to prove across these three games.
The Bottom Line
Preseason football rarely gets treated as must-see television, and for most teams, that’s a fair assessment. But this year, Seattle’s exhibition slate carries a different kind of weight. A defending champion is trying to answer whether last season’s dominance was sustainable, a rehabbing quarterback is auditioning for a bigger future role, and a defense that terrorized the league’s best offense in February now has to prove it can do it again. Three games, three stadiums, three chances for the Seahawks to show that the “Dark Side” wasn’t a one-season phenomenon — and for fans in Seattle, Nashville, and Kansas City, three opportunities to get an early look at the team that will try to defend a championship starting this September.
