Why Your Team Sucks 2026: Seattle Seahawks

Some people are fans of the Seattle Seahawks. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Seattle Seahawks. This 2026 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: Seattle Seahawks.

Your 2025 record: 14-3. Super Bowl champions. One of the best teams in modern history if you go by DVOA, which I don’t because Aaron Schatz has never revealed the formula behind his hallowed metric. He could calculate it by mashing on an old Casio, for all I know. But here’s what I do know: These Seahawks won a title last year thanks to a playoff schedule that may as well have been drawn up by a kindergarten teacher:

Divisional round: A San Francisco 49ers team that was missing half its roster.

NFC title game: An L.A. Rams team featuring Josh Gad and a Cabbage Patch Kid at cornerback.

Super Bowl: The New England Patriots, who played a butter-soft regular season schedule and won the AFC thanks to a surprise blizzard and the existence of Jarrett Stidham.

I’ve seen fewer cupcakes at a Hostess factory. Did I mention that these clowns got to play BOTH South divisions during the regular season? No wonder that Super Bowl win of theirs will be forgotten faster than Quibi was. They probably would have lost that Super Bowl anyway if the Pats had employed a left tackle who had arms of a normal length.

Because here’s what happened the scant number of times Seattle had to play even mildly competent teams. There was a Week 1 loss at home to a healthy (relative term) Niners squad, in which Brock Purdy made like Lamar Jackson and threw this miracle game-winning TD to Jake Tonges with less than two minutes to go. Then the Seahawks lost at home to Tampa when QB Sam Darnold threw one of his signature panicking-while-under-pressure interceptions at the very end. Darnold also threw four picks in a Week 11 loss to the Rams, although everyone counted that as a win for Seattle because Seattle only lost that game by two points.

Will any of this stop the 12s—named as such because these are people whose personalities are actually enhanced if they go by a number—from crowing about their hollow triumph? It will not … until five months from now, when this same roster gets run out of the playoffs by L.A. I know Seahawks fans. If these jackasses love anything more than a championship, it’s immediately discounting that championship because they blew their shot at one the following year. So when Myles Garrett swallows Darnold whole in the waning minutes of this season’s NFC title game, you and I will have to endure these mopes going on about it like it’s Malcolm Butler 2.0. No wonder Kurt Cobain did what he did.

Your coach: World’s most nondescript mad genius Mike Macdonald. This man’s visage is so blank he makes Zac Taylor look like Chappell Roan. The only thing that would really make Macdonald noticeable in a crowd is if he ever started firing off political takes, which I can tell he’s just DYING to do:

Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, but you know what can? THE FIRES OF HELL WHEN TWO MEN HAVE SEX WITH ONE ANOTHER.

Former offensive coordinator Klint KKKKKubiak left the team this offseason to coach the Raiders. His replacement is Brian Fleury, who looks like the leader of some sort of bizarre yoga cult. Fleury has never called plays before but is—sigh—from the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree. That means every color guy will give this pretend Moses credit for inventing the play-action pass whenever he happens to call one. Can’t wait. Get me the fuck away from these people.

Your quarterback: Sam Darnold, who salvaged his reputation by winning it all last season but still loves the occasional turnover and has all the personality of an ant. You better hope that the injury fairy doesn’t come for this man and give him mono again, because all Seattle has behind Sam The Ghost Noticer are perennial disappointment Drew Lock, and Jalen Milroe, who couldn’t read a defense if it was a board book.

What’s new that sucks: Meet your new owner, Vinod Khosla!

He says food slows him down, so most days he fasts till dinner.

Uh oh. You 12s thought this guy might one of the “good” tech bros because he dresses like the head of a galactic space federation and isn’t Jeff Bezos. But Khosla got some Bezos-like qualities if you go by The New York Times profile I linked up above, including this quote from the man himself.

“A billionaire is a bad word in this country now,” he says, as his tea cools. “And that pains me.”

There’s also the fact that Khosla purchased an entire village on the California seashore just so that he could have that village’s public beach all to himself. For the past 16 years and counting, Khosla has been endeavoring to keep Martins Beach private, even though all California beaches are public by state law. Khosla never hangs out at the property he bought, and he told the Times he didn’t even want to win his case against the state, but that he felt obligated to pursue it on principle anyway. The REAL reason that Khosla won’t back down, though, is so that he can put fear into anyone else who dares attempt to get the better of him at the bargaining table. In other words, he’s a fucking asshole.

Khosla was originally a minority investor in the rival 49ers, just like Jimmy Haslam was a minority Steelers owner before purchasing the Cleveland Browns. And the elder Khosla probably won’t even run his new football team anyway, because according to ESPN:

Neeru Khosla will serve as the controlling owner, and their son, Neal, "is expected to have a significant leadership role in the ownership group,"

Is Neal Khosla the Brick Johnson of Silicon Valley? Let’s check out his LinkedIn profile to see!

We started Curai Health with the mission of proving AI could outperform humans at the core cognitive work of medicine. Today in JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, Zeke Emanuel, Abe Baker-Butler, Vinod Khosla, and I are publishing a comprehensive argument this is already true… once AI is better than physicians at a task, adding a human back in doesn't add a safety net. It degrades performance.

This is the turtleneck that will be running your franchise for decades to come. A whole new batch of memes awaits Darnold whenever he tweaks his knee and Neal forces him to visit Dr. Claude for the reconstructive surgery.

To the field. Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker took a bag from Kansas City this offseason and his batterymate, RB Zach Charbonnet, will begin the season on the PUP list. That means that Seattle’s formerly devastating rushing attack will be entrusted almost entirely to rookie back Jadarian Price, the modern equivalent of Sony Michel. The rest of the offense remains largely intact (and generously compensated) from last year. The defense bled talent with the free agent departures of EDGE Boye Mafe, S Coby Bryant, and CB Riq Woolen. But hey, look who the team signed to mitigate those losses, provided he isn’t sentenced to prison for the next 20 years!

Oh really, John Schneider? Are you still hunting for Nicole Brown Simpson’s real killer, too? Sure, Terrion Arnold is accused of luring some unsuspecting victims into being kidnapped at gunpoint, but I had the loveliest dinner with him last week and can’t imagine he’d do something like that.

What has always sucked: Seattle is for people who aren’t quite rich enough to live in San Francisco. I’ll never get sick of hearing, "Why didn't they hand the ball off to Marshawn Lynch?" Last season's Super Bowl win is even less impressive in hindsight now that we know that the opposing head coach in that game was spending 60 percent of his workday composing sexts in his head. "The 12s" are an embarrassment and a perpetual reminder that this multibillion-dollar outfit got outwitted and out-lawyered by a college in the epicenter of stupid. The Mariners will never win anything. If the Sonics come back to Seattle, they’ll be exactly as successful as the resurrected Browns have been. Mudhoney wasn’t a good band, and Melvins are even worse. I’m not even trolling you when I say that. There’s a reason those two bands never broke big.

What might not suck: You remain the DVOA favorites to repeat, although I bet that was true in 2015 too.

HEAR IT FROM SEAHAWKS FANS!

Matt Ufford:

If this defense-first championship team is anything like the last one, we're cruising for an emotionally traumatic historic embarrassment that will forever overshadow the previous Super Bowl win. 

Derek:

My first trip to Seattle in 2019, I was at the team store and someone else who was shopping for a jersey asked the clerk who No.12 was. I wish you could see the look on her face when he told her it was for the fans.

Braden:

New ownership is already bitching about wanting a new stadium and they just got here five minutes ago. They’re gonna move this team up to Everett or some bullshit like that and want a dome to go with it. Fuck Dan Wilson with Jerry DiPoto's 54% analytics.

Joey:

This team won the fucking Super Bowl and our fans still manage to have a chip on their shoulders bigger than I do (baby brother of four boys who is seven years younger than his other brothers, is the only one under six feet tall, and had the lowest SATs score of them all).

Mike:

If I never see John Schneider's pit sweat on a high-definition TV ever again it'll be too soon.

George:

Just by looking at Brian Fleury, we can confidently deduce that our new offensive coordinator owns at least four guns and a spotless King Ranch F150 with those plastic license plate covers to defeat traffic cameras.

Will:

It doesn't matter how many Super Bowls this team wins, I can bring up any argument, and a friend will counter with the Malcom Butler interception and my argument is ruined. That play will haunt me for the rest of my life.

James:

No one from Seattle attends Seahawks games; it is all black-out drunk people from Auburn with thin-blue line stickers on their vanity F-150s.

Russell:

After having the ignominy of the Malcom Butler interception washed away in the most satisfying way possible, I’ve turned into an enormous prick. I’m going to pay for it when Sam Darnold reverts back to his good ole interception tossing self.

I have a co-worker who is from Massachusetts and is a big Boston sports fan. I’ve reminded him every day since the Super Bowl of how shitty the Patriots were in that game; just rub it in his face in the douchiest way possible. You’d expect a man from Massachusetts to insult me back or even react violently, but this man is genuinely one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Every comment I throw his way, he just laughs it off like Ned Flanders getting insulted by Homer Simpson. It’s irritating.

J:

I still can't explain how or why they won the championship last year. My running assumption is that we're in a Monkey Paw type situation, and I won't leave the house until someone can convince me otherwise.

Jack:

When the Seahawks won the Super Bowl in 2014 many people, including a college friend who was a Packers fan, constantly talked about how Seahawks fans were bandwagon fans. I vehemently denied this, despite not watching the Seahawks from after their Super Bowl loss to the Steelers through the middle of the 2013/2014 season. 

I actively think about self-harm whenever I remember that JJ McCarthy won a title over my beloved Huskies, who blew their last shot to ever win a title in my lifetime. 

Alex:

We reached on an injury-prone running back in the first round, I guess 2026 is 2018 all over again and we never actually fired Pete Carroll. 

Stan:

At the Super Bowl parade (something you'll never sniff, Drew), John Schneider threw what I thought was saltwater taffy. They were weird Jesus figurines.

Kelly:

We won the Super Bowl (again) and I am still idiotically attached to the idea that we are being discriminated against by an East Coast Media Bias.

Leo:

After we won the first Super Bowl with that fucking weirdo Russell Wilson, there was Seahawks/12th man gear on every other person and car here in Southeast Alaska. By the time we signed Darnold, I knew maybe three other people here who still wore any. Now that they're good again, it's back to 12 stickers on every car.

The 12th man is fucking stupid, and not even original. We barely snuck by a 60-year-old Marmalard. Our Thursday night alternate jerseys are the worst unis in all of sports and make the players look like giant highlighter markers. Darnold is terrifying to watch. 

Steve:

Sam Darnold looks terrified all the time, like he’s in constant psychic warfare with the intrusive thoughts telling him to pass the ball directly to the other team. He is my spirit animal.

Eric:

Seahawk fans are now cicadas on a 12-year cycle. The cycle begins like this: The Seahawks hire a defensive minded coach with impeccable vibes. John Schneider inexplicably starts rolling sevens at the NFL draft craps table and amasses a collection of cheap talent. He also lucks into quality veterans. A decent season ensues.

Year 2: Another amazing draft. The Seahawks re-invent defense and we win a Super Bowl.

Years 3-11: John Schneider starts rolling snake eyes in the draft. All the once cheap talent starts demanding to be paid. Every drafted player will have an IQ of 7 and drive an ATV straight into a wall before the season starts. We will relive the trades for Jimmy Graham and trading two firsts for Jamal Adams. Every competent skill player will be ground to dust behind our O-Line and our once genius coach will tread water until being fired.

Time to hibernate until a new Pope is chosen. See you in 2037!

Aaron:

Whenever I see someone wearing Seahawks gear in public I never say anything because there's about a 75% chance it will lead to a meth induced racist rant. Fuck Bill Leavy with Malcolm Butler's goatee.

Patrick:

Fuck George Springer with the bat he used to hit that home run.

Max:

Drew, if you’re reading this, thanks for Sam Darnold. We owe you one. Have a blessed day. 

Special thanks to all of the writers who participated in this year’s series, all of the fans who wrote in, and to all the readers. Enjoy football the season, everyone!