Seahawks on Hard Knocks in 2026
How a rule change finally put the Seahawks on HBO
The Seattle Seahawks have been selected as the next team on Hard Knocks. It finally happened and all it took was the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl after the league/HBO changed its ruled about teams eligible for Hard Knocks.
This now marks TWO strange twists by the NFL that directly impact the Seahawks’ offseason in the wake of the franchise’s second Super Bowl win, the first being the announcement that Seattle will open the 2026 season on a Wednesday.
There’s a term in football that players need to “put a hat on a hat”, but we also know that saying applies to life when someone tries to do too much; Wednesday + Hard Knocks feels so much like the NFL putting a hat on a hat that could over-twist Seattle’s repeat campaign.
Are Seahawks a ratings draw?
For anyone unaware, Hard Knocks is an HBO show that documents training camp for one team and prior to 2025 there were rules in place that disallowed the selection of teams that had made the playoffs, among other stipulations. This rule changed last summer, perhaps in the hopes to boost ratings with a new wrinkle but I’m not sure that non-Seahawks fans will necessarily care that much.
The “ratings choice” might have instead been the Cowboys or the 49ers or the Chiefs, although as a Seahawks fan I’m not complaining about the extra content and a sliver of new insights into Mike Macdonald’s process. Will fans of other teams care though? Some data shows that the Seahawks were one of the least-watched teams in 2024 (I couldn’t find 2025 data), although they must be garnering some more interest now after their playoff run.
Wednesday Opener
Seattle only had two non-Thursday, non-flexed primetime games last season (Week 7 vs Texans, Week 9 vs Moons), a total that is sure to be at least doubled in 2026. And we know for a fact that the Seahawks will open the season in primetime on a Wednesday at home, but we don’t know against whom they will play.
We only know that it won’t be the 49ers or Rams, but Seattle’s home schedule includes several ratings bonanzas: Cowboys, Giants, Chiefs, Bears, and Patriots are options. All five are among the most popular teams in the NFL and we know that at least 60% of those teams are considered Super Bowl contenders.
The Chargers are an interesting option, but if Seattle only gets 2-3 home games in primetime, would we expect that contest to be one of them when the NFL could select from Dallas, New York, Kansas City, or a Super Bowl rematch? That would be insane.
The Chiefs don’t expect to be selected for Week 1 because Patrick Mahomes may not be ready to return from his torn ACL by then, but Seattle-Kansas City must be one of the primetime games at some point.
Seahawks-Patriots, Seahawks-Chiefs, and Seahawks-Cowboys are such easy front-runners for primetime games, whereas Seahawks-Rams and Seahawks-49ers are sure to get a Thursday night call, at least. When you look at away games, not only are their division rivals but also the Eagles, Broncos, and a chance for Seattle to face off against Klint Kubiak’s Raiders.
If the Seahawks get six primetime games to start the season. the locks feel like:
Patriots at home
Chiefs at home
Rams somewhere
49ers somewhere
Eagles on the road
Cowboys might be your classic “Game of the Week” afternoon slate and then maybe there’s a random choice thrown in like Cardinals on a Thursday or Washington. That’s just my guess but what do you think?
Are you for or against Hard Knocks selection?
The Seahawks had never been selected by Hard Knocks before, often in part because Seattle is usually in the playoffs. I actually wrote a newsletter a year ago about why I felt the Seahawks would be the perfect team to select for 2025 Hard Knocks—which would have either given fans a preview of the next Super Bowl champions or (as many usually fear) derailed the season—and instead the NFL went with the Buffalo Bills.
I could not tell you anything that happened because I didn’t watch Hard Knocks last season, but the Bills lost the division to the Patriots and then lost in the second round of the playoffs to the Broncos.
The Patriots have been selected as the featured Hard Knocks team in 2027, the first time that a team has been chosen over a year in advanced.
Ever since the league softened the show by not showing players find out that they’ve been cut, which was essentially the entire crux of Hard Knocks in its heyday and the reason many fans followed these Cinderella player stories from the start of camp to finals cuts, it’s been difficult to maintain interest after the first couple of episodes of the season.
Maybe it’s the right thing to do to give those players privacy during their darkest moment, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s why many fans watched all five episodes of a season.
If the second episode is Oz the Mentalist stopping by and blowing Sam Darnold’s mind by revealing his ATM pin code, I’m gonna be pretty checked out already.
Whereas a Dolphins fan in Miami or a Steelers fan in Mexico City might be more interested in seeing segments on Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Devon Witherspoon, I’d be much more curious to get insights on a competition between George Holani and Emanuel Wilson or Aden Durde’s influence as a coach with Byron Murphy and the defensive line or what Anthony Bradford’s reaction is to watching lowlights of Anthony Bradford.
Are you excited for Hard Knocks or do you wish the league had gone in a different direction? What would you like to see?