Seattle Seahawks schedule 2025: Takeaways, predictions

SEATTLE -- The Seattle Seahawks' 2025 schedule was released along with the rest of the NFL slate Wednesday.

Year 2 of the Mike Macdonald era, and Seattle's first season with Sam Darnold at quarterback, will be bookended with matchups against the division-rival San Francisco 49ers. In between, the Seahawks will play four games in prime time and at least four in the 10 a.m. Pacific time slot, with a bye in Week 8.

The opener versus San Francisco, a team whose fans tend to travel well to Lumen Field, will be an early test of whether the Seahawks can start to re-establish what used to be one of the NFL's best home-field advantages. It will also be the debut of Seattle's rebuilt offense, as well as Darnold's first chance to wash from his mouth the bad taste left by the awful finish he had to his Pro Bowl season with the Minnesota Vikings.

Here's what's in store for the Seahawks:

Seahawks 2025 regular-season schedule

Week 1: Sept. 7 vs. San Francisco 49ers

Week 2: Sept. 14 at Pittsburgh Steelers

Week 3: Sept. 21 vs. New Orleans Saints

Week 4: Sept. 25 at Arizona Cardinals (TNF)

Week 5: Oct. 5 vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Week 6: Oct. 12 at Jacksonville Jaguars

Week 7: Oct. 20 vs. Houston Texans (MNF)

Week 8: Bye 

Week 9: Nov. 2 at Washington Commanders (SNF)

Week 10: Nov. 9 vs. Arizona Cardinals

Week 11: Nov. 16 at Los Angeles Rams

Week 12: Nov. 23 at Tennessee Titans

Week 13: Nov. 30 vs Minnesota Vikings

Week 14: Dec. 7 at Atlanta Falcons

Week 15: Dec. 14 vs. Indianapolis Colts

Week 16: Dec. 18 vs Los Angeles Rams (TNF)

Week 17: TBD at Carolina Panthers*

Week 18: TBD at San Francisco 49ers*

*Dates for Weeks 17 and 18 are to be determined

Strength of schedule: The Seahawks have the 12th-easiest schedule in the league (opponents had a 0.474 winning percentage in 2024).

Over/Under: 8.5 wins

Biggest takeaway

Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll and the Legion of Boom stars are all long gone. DK Metcalf and Geno Smith are out of the picture, too. But the Seahawks still have plenty of national relevance, and getting four prime-time games -- which matches their total from Macdonald's first season -- speaks to that. That list is highlighted by a Monday night game against the Commanders, one of six cross-country trips Seattle will have to make. The Seahawks are regularly at or near the top of the league in miles flown. With no international game this season, they're "only" third in total miles they'll have to travel.

Circle this date: Sept. 14 at Steelers

The term "revenge game" is overplayed and often used in jest, but this might actually be one. Metcalf may not have as many hard feelings over his exit from the Seahawks as, say, Bobby Wagner did in 2022, but the star receiver was unhappy enough in Seattle to request trades multiple times in recent years before the Seahawks finally granted his wish and dealt him to the Steelers. That's one of four 10 a.m. PT games on Seattle's schedule (Jacksonville, Tennessee and Atlanta are also early kickoffs, and Carolina could be). Speaking of Wagner, the Seahawks will see arguably the best defensive player in franchise history when they face the Commanders in Week 9.

Key stretch

Two of the final three games are against Seattle's biggest challengers in the NFC West. It was the league's most tightly contested division last year. The Seahawks and Rams finished tied atop the standings with 10 wins. Arizona was only two victories behind. The 49ers won just six games but are currently the slight betting favorites to win the division in 2025. In what figures to again be a close race, those two division games will probably determine whether Seattle wins the West, earns a wild-card berth or misses out on the playoffs for a third straight season.

Bold prediction

The Seahawks will go 4-1 during their tough November stretch. Three of those games are on the road, with two requiring cross-country flights, and three are against 2024 playoff teams. Winning four out of five would be an impressive feat, but consider that the stretch begins right after Seattle's bye. Macdonald drew praise within Seahawks headquarters last year for the way he attacked the bye week, leading a turnaround that saw Seattle win four straight after the break. Their defense allowed the fewest points per game (13.8) in the NFL in that span.

Can Darnold and the new-look offense start fast?

Including Darnold, the Seahawks will have at least four -- and as many as seven -- new starters on offense. They have a new coordinator in Klint Kubiak who hired a mostly new staff to help install a much different scheme than the one Seattle ran last season. An offense that's been rebuilt to that degree could take some time to gel. The first seven games before the bye include two against defenses that finished in the top seven last season in EPA: Houston (fifth) and Pittsburgh (seventh). Two of those first seven games were against bottom-seven defenses by that same metric: San Francisco (26th) and Jacksonville (31st).