CBS Sports selected the ten games they think will define the NFL season, and the Seattle Seahawks will play in four of them. Despite being underrated as a defending Super Bowl champion, Mike Macdonald’s team plays a brand of football that’s as exciting to watch as any.
While the Seahawks play in four of these ten games, their division rival Los Angeles Rams only play in two. Does that signify an easier schedule for them than Seattle, despite similar common opponents? Or do they just have it spread out a different way? Those are the first two questions this raises.
Strength of schedule conversations are better looked back on in hindsight. We don’t know who will be healthy on each team when they face certain others. There are too many variables
within players, who are also human beings, to put too much stock into predictions, even with modern analytics and supercomputers. With that being said, the systems and the fits certain teams are developing at this time of year end up being rock-solid foundations. When CBS lists the Seahawks in these games, the main thing they’re admitting is how highly they think of the team on tape.
Film is essential to football, and it outweighs stats in the coaching world when the two disagree. The Seahawks are better at producing clean film than any other team, which resulted in two dominant playoff victories and several game of the year contenders in 2025. Viewers who trust their eyes are particularly fond of swiss-army knife style players like Nick Emmanwori, Byron Murphy II, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba—the ones who dominate by threatening to cover any role in a position group on any given play. On the contrary, other players like DK Metcalf or Riq Woolen fit one very particular role with prototype athletic tools, and it looks great when it works, but it’s far less consistent. The Seahawks have consistently favored the former under Macdonald, and the versatility of their personnel gave them the most cohesive performances in the NFL last season. The 38-37 comeback win over the Rams was the definition of complementary football.
As CBS says the Seahawks will play in nearly half of the NFL’s defining games this season, consider how their brand of football looks before diving deep into the numbers. There was a visible quality that defined last year’s team which the Seahawks prioritized over measurables and statistics this offseason. That’s why their games will look different than other contenders.
This article originally appeared on Seahawks Wire: Why CBS Sports has Seahawks in four of ten defining 2026 NFL games
