The 2026 NFL regular season begins per usual with the reigning Super Bowl champion hosting the Kickoff Game, but what’s different this year is it is played on a Wednesday (Sept. 9). New England visits Seattle in a rematch of last season’s Super Bowl with the Seahawks at -3.5 on the NFL odds with a total of 44.5. 

NFL Week 1 Betting Odds, Point Spread, Trends

Because the NFL scheduled a Week 1 game in Australia between the Rams and 49ers, that will be played on the Thursday night, Sept. 10, of the opening week because of all the travel involved. That led the league to push the annual Kickoff Game to Wednesday, Sept. 9. It will be only the fifth NFL game played on that day since 1950 and second Kickoff Game. The 2012 version was moved up a day from Thursday to avoid conflicts with Barack Obama’s acceptance speech of the Democratic National Convention. This will make Seattle the ninth current NFL franchise to have played a game on every day of the week. 

In Super Bowl 60 back on Feb. 8 outside San Francisco, the NFC champion Seahawks were 5.5-point favourites over the AFC champion Patriots, and Seattle rolled to a 29-13 victory for its second Super Bowl title (also after 2013 campaign). Seahawks tailback Kenneth Walker III rushed for 135 yards and caught two passes to win game MVP honours, but Seattle’s stellar defence was the real story.  

This will mark only the third Super Bowl rematch in Week 1 after Chiefs-Vikings in 1970 and Broncos-Panthers in 2016. Defending SB champions are 16-5 SU all-time in the Kickoff Game. 

New England Patriots

The Patriots made a historic jump from four wins under then-coach Jerod Mayo and inconsistent rookie quarterback Drake Maye in 2024 to 13 wins and the AFC title last year under new coach Mike Vrabel. The team finished with 17 overall wins including playoffs, and that 13-victory jump when including the postseason was the biggest year-over-year in league history. Vrabel was the easy choice as NFL Coach of the Year and Maye was second in NFL regular-season MVP voting. He became the first quarterback since Tom Brady with the 2007 Patriots to lead the league in wins, completion percentage and yards per attempt. 

The future looks very bright with the Patriots, although we should note they had by far the NFL’s easiest regular-season slate in 2025. This year, it’s one of the toughest. New England will try to become the fourth team to win the Super Bowl the season after losing the game, and Maye will try to join former Seahawks star Russell Wilson as the only quarterbacks to start a Super Bowl twice in his first three NFL seasons. The Pats got Maye a major weapon this offseason in trading for ex-Pro Bowl receiver AJ Brown from Philadelphia. If there’s one concern, it’s an offensive line that led to 21 total playoff sacks of Maye. No QB had ever gone down that much in a single postseason.   

Seattle Seahawks

It’s so hard to repeat as Super Bowl champions these days because that roster gets too expensive and teams start signing your players to rich free-agent deals. For example, the Seahawks lost their top tailback and Super Bowl MVP in Kenneth Walker III in free agency to the Chiefs and also lost offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak to the top job with the Raiders. But QB Sam Darnold, who became the first starting QB to win a Super Bowl after playing for at least five teams, and superstar wideout Jaxon Smith-Njigba are back.

Besides, the Seahawks largely won on the back of the NFL’s No. 1 scoring defence – that unit also has gone 29 straight games not allowing a 100-yard rusher. The 2025 Seahawks set an NFL record with seven wins vs. teams that finished with at least 12 victories (including playoffs). Seattle has won 10 games in a row overall including postseason. That’s one shy of the team record set in 2005.  

Patriots vs. Seahawks Week 1 Score Prediction:

h