It looks as if the wait for the Seattle Seahawks’ banner-raising night will happen a day sooner than usual for reigning Super Bowl champions.
Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Flint revealed that the traditional opening night game will be Wednesday, with the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams playing the NFL’s first game in Australia on a Thursday.
Over the past two seasons, the NFL has held Week 1 international games in Brazil on Friday night. That is not an option this season due to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which effectively forbids the NFL from scheduling games on Friday and Saturdays during high school and college football season.
We are assuming that the Seahawks would be the first game of the season, but keep in mind that the Seattle Mariners play next door to Lumen Field and currently have a 6:40 pm PT home game versus the Texas Rangers. There’s plenty of time to move that up to a day game. When the Mariners played in the American League Divisional Series against the Detroit Tigers on Oct. 5, they were a night game while the Seahawks faced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 1 pm PT.
The last NFL opening night game to happen on a Wednesday was the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys in 2012. NBC covered the Democratic National Convention the following night, so the Giants and Cowboys got a really early start to the year.
We most likely won’t know the Seahawks’ opening night opponent until May, when the schedule release comes out. Hey, the best way to spin this is that the next meaningful Seahawks game is now a full 24 hours sooner than expected!
