What to Know About Seahawks 2025 Schedule Prior to NFL Reveal
Nobody knows how to dominant the calendar like the NFL does, to the point where the league has managed to create an unofficial holiday for football fans all over the world each May with the unveiling of the upcoming schedule.
While the Seattle Seahawks opponents for the 2025 season have been known since they came up just short of a playoff spot and NFC West title in January, fans hoping to book a flight to see the team this season will soon be able to start making those travel plans with the schedule set to be revealed on May 14 and a handful of games to be revealed on May 12 and May 13 as an appetizer.
Before the NFL - or leakers, of course - releases the Seahawks schedule in full on Wednesday, here’s what fans need to know and should expect:
Per usual, the Seahawks will still lead the NFL in travel miles, but hey, it could be worse…
Naturally, Seattle will be among the leaders in frequent flyer miles racked up due to geography, but if the team doesn’t have to trek to Dublin or London for one of its road games, the schedule actually seems quite favorable compared to most recent seasons. While Macdonald’s team could have as many as five early Eastern time zone starts, they won’t have to make the cross country trip down to Tampa Bay, which would have made for two long distance trips down to the state of Florida. Atlanta and Nashville also are relatively easy trips on the road slate.As mentioned in the aforementioned point, the Seahawks also have a decent-to-good chance of playing against the Commanders in prime time, which would wipe out one of those early Eastern time zone starts. Even if that isn’t the case, however, Macdonald maintained Pete Carroll’s unrivaled success mastering those early starts last year, as his team went a perfect 3-0 in games kicking off at 10 AM PT in 2024.
A minimum of four prime time games should be a solid bet based on the past decade and change.
Even with eight games coming against the AFC and NFC South, which were the two worst divisions in the league last season, history suggests Seattle should have at least a quartet of games under the lights in 2025. Dating back to 2013, the franchise has opened the season with at least four prime time contests every season except for 2022 and 2023, including four of them last season with a pair of Thursday night games.As for which games would most likely be selected for a prime time slot, the Seahawks typically play at least two of their NFC West rivals in front of a national audience, with one of their two matchups against the 49ers a near-guarantee to be pushed into an evening slot. Outside of the division, the road matchup in D.C. presents an intriguing possibility pitting Macdonald against Commanders coach Dan Quinn, who formerly served as Seattle’s defensive coordinator. Games against Tampa Bay and Houston, the reigning champs in their respective divisions, also have plenty of intrigue as possible prime time candidates, while Minnesota and Seattle could be jockeying for NFC playoff seeding if that contest falls late in the season and would warrant Sunday or Monday Night Football inclusion.
Two possibilities exist for the Seahawks to head across the Atlantic for an international game.
For fans outside of the United States hoping to see Seattle play overseas for the first time since playing Tampa Bay in Munich, Germany back in 2022, two opportunities remain on the board with Pittsburgh scheduled to play the first regular season game in Dublin, Ireland this fall and Jacksonville set to play what has become an annual home game in London. The best news is that the Seahawks would not lose one of their eight home games at Lumen Field in either scenario, traveling across the pond instead of Pittsburgh or Jacksonville.It should be known on Tuesday morning whether or not Seattle will be making the long trek to the United Kingdom this season or not, as the games are expected to be announced on Good Morning Football on NFL Network.Update: The Vikings will face the Steelers in Dublin and the Rams will face the Jaguars in London, so the Seahawks will not play in an international game during the 2025 season.
Seattle will have to deal with a difficult slate for its three other games, including a road match in Landover.
While the Seahawks have one of the weaker schedules - at least based on strength of schedule from last season’s final results - on paper due to facing both the AFC and NFC South, they didn’t receive any favors with their draws for the other three non-divisional games. With this year’s slate being tilted to the AFC as hosts for the 17th game, Macdonald’s squad will have to play two of those contests on the road, starting with a difficult matchup against Jayden Daniels and the NFC runner-up Commanders at FedEx Field.At home, Seattle will welcome Minnesota back to Lumen Field for a second straight season, setting up a compelling matchup pitting Sam Darnold against his former team and expected starter J.J. McCarthy, who will be taking over after sitting out his rookie year with a knee injury. The wild card of the three games will be a road trip to Pittsburgh, which may or may not still sign Aaron Rodgers to take over as their starting quarterback with veteran Mason Rudolph and rookie Will Howard as the two best in-house options for an otherwise talented team that now includes former Seahawk star DK Metcalf.All three of those teams won at least 10 games last season and though the Steelers have the major question mark at quarterback that may be a hard cap on their ceiling, the Commanders and Vikings both aggressively upgraded their teams in free agency looking to take the next step towards dethroning the Eagles atop the NFC, so those games will undoubtedly be among two of the most challenging on the Seahawks docket.
The Seahawks will battle both the AFC and NFC South divisions as part of their yearly rotation.
As dictated by the NFL schedule, every team rotates against the other three divisions within their conference on a three-year rotational cycle and faces off against all four divisions from the other conference on a four-year rotational cycle. For 2025, the Seahawks drew both of the south divisions in the same season, meaning road trips to Atlanta, Carolina, Jacksonville, and Tennessee will be on tap, while the Buccaneers, Colts, Saints, and Texans will make the trip up to Lumen Field.Based on how last season played out, this would seem to be an ideal scenario for Seattle, as only Houston and Tampa Bay finished win winning records among the eight teams in the AFC and NFC South divisions. But teams change a lot from year to year and there’s reasons to believe several of those squads will be improved from their predecessors, including the Jaguars with potential two-way superstar Travis Hunter joining the fold and the Falcons, Panthers, and Titans all featuring talented young quarterbacks with bolstered supporting casts around them.On the flip side, the Saints lost starting quarterback Derek Carr to retirement and don’t have a signal caller on their roster with a regular season win to his name, while the jury remains out whether the Colts have a starter-caliber quarterback on their roster
