When the 2026 regular season begins on the Thursday night after Labor Day (there’s a chance it’ll start a day or two earlier given the long trip the 49ers and Rams will make to Australia), the Seahawks will be hosting the game and hanging their newest banner.
The options include a potential Super Bowl rematch with the Patriots.
Other candidates are the Chiefs, Chargers, Bears, Cowboys, Giants, and Seattle’s NFC West rivals — the Rams, 49ers, and Cardinals. (Again, the 49ers and Rams could be meeting in Melbourne in Week 1.)
Ten years ago, the Broncos and Panthers had a Week 1 rematch following Super Bowl 50. So it’s not unprecedented.
Still, based on tonight’s outcome, there may not be much appetite for an immediate rematch.
Cardinals Clips
Kliff Kingsbury has found his next landing spot.
Kingsbury is joining the Rams’ offensive staff, according to a report from ESPN.
Kingsbury, 46, spent the last two seasons with the Commanders as the team’s offensive coordinator. While he received some interest for head coaching vacancies and other offensive coordinator vacancies, Kingsbury will instead be headed to Los Angeles for 2026.
ESPN’s Peter Schrager reports that head coach Sean McVay and Kingsbury have spent the last two weeks talking about a potential role. With the Giants going with Matt Nagy as offensive coordinator, the path was cleared for Kingsbury to join L.A.
While Kingsbury’s title has not yet been reported, the Rams do have a vacancy at offensive coordinator as Mike LaFleur departed the organization to become Cardinals head coach. However, the club’s passing game coordinator, Nate Scheelhaase, is widely expected to be promoted to that role.
Kingsbury amassed a 28-37-1 record as Cardinals head coach with a 0-1 postseason record from 2019-2022. He spent the 2023 season in Los Angeles as USC’s senior offensive assistant before being hired as Washington’s offensive coordinator in 2024.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame welcomed five new members on Thursday night at NFL Honors.
Quarterback Drew Brees, running back Roger Craig, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, linebacker Luke Kuechly and kicker Adam Vinatieri will have their busts in Canton.
Brees and Fitzgerald are first-ballot Hall of Famers, and Kuechly and Vinatieri were in their second year of eligibility.
Craig has waited 28 years for his knock on the door. He was one of three seniors candidates in a group that also included Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft as the coach and contributor candidates, respectively.
For the second consecutive year, only one of the five finalists in that group made it into the Hall of Fame. Sterling Sharpe was the only inductee of that group in the Class of 2025.
Seniors L.C. Greenwood and Ken Anderson, like Belichick and Kraft, did not receive the 80 percent required for induction in the Class of 2026.
After much criticism about the selectors’ failure to enshrine Belichick in his first year of eligibility, the elections of Brees, Craig, Fitzgerald, Vinatieri and Kuechly were met with a standing ovation when announced at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Brees learned of his election from Dan Fouts; Ronnie Lott and Charles Haley surprised Craig with the news; Morten Andersen had the honor of telling Vinatieri; Randy Moss informed Fitzgerald; and Julius Peppers was the Hall of Famer who welcomed Kuechly into the Hall.
The Hall of Fame’s membership now stands at 387.
The newest members’ enshrinement will take place Saturday, Aug. 8 in Canton.
Cardinals safety Budda Baker won the 2025 Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award, which was announced during NFL Honors on Thursday night.
The award is presented each year to an NFL player who best demonstrates the qualities of on-field sportsmanship, including fair play, respect for the game and opponents and integrity in competition.
This marked the third consecutive year Baker was a finalist for the award, which was created in honor of the late founding owner of the Steelers and Pro Football Hall of Famer Art Rooney, Sr.
The winner of the NFL Sportsmanship Award is determined by a vote of current NFL players. This marks the second time a Cardinals player was named the Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award winner after wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald took home the honor in the award’s inaugural season in 2014.
As the winner, Baker received a $25,000 donation from the NFL Foundation to a charity of his choice.
The other finalists were LB Lavonte David (Tampa Bay), LB Demario Davis (New Orleans) and OT Brian O’Neill (Minnesota) in the NFC, and DT DeForest Buckner (Indianapolis), DT Harrison Phillips (New York Jets), DT Zach Sieler (Miami) and LB Kyle Van Noy (Baltimore) in the AFC.
Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur has filled another spot on his coaching staff.
According to multiple reports, the Cardinals will hire Matt Merritt as their running backs coach.
Merritt spent the last two seasons as the running backs coach at the University of Miami. Hurricanes starter Mark Fletcher posted 1,192 yards and 12 touchdowns on 216 carries during the 2025 season.
Merritt has also worked for USF, Georgia Southern, Tennessee, James Madison, and Ohio State. He has done two NFL coaching fellowships, including one with the 49ers when LaFleur was on that team’s staff in 2019. The other one came with the Bengals in 2016.
Texans defensive backs coach Dino Vasso is a candidate to become the defensive coordinator in Arizona.
Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports that the Cardinals have requested an interview with Vasso. There was also word of interview requests on Wednesday for Giants outside linebackers coach Charlie Bullen and Rams assistant head coach/defensive pass game coordinator Aubrey Pleasant.
The Titans spoke to Vasso about their coordinator job after hiring Robert Saleh, but they opted to go with Gus Bradley for that role.
Vasso has been in his current job since the 2024 season and he was the cornerbacks coach in Houston for the previous three seasons. He has also worked for the Eagles and Chiefs.
The Cardinals hired Nathaniel Hackett as their new offensive coordinator. Their search for a defensive coordinator continues.
The team has requested to interview Giants outside linebackers coach Charlie Bullen and Aubrey Pleasant, the Rams assistant head coach and defensive pass game coordinator, NFL Media reports.
Pleasant was a candidate for the Chargers’ defensive coordinator job.
He has spent the past three seasons with the Rams, on the staff with new Cardinals’ head coach Mike LaFleur.
Pleasant has coached in the NFL for the past 13 seasons, also spending time in Washington, Cleveland, Detroit and Green Bay.
Bullen served as the Giants’ interim defensive coordinator last season after the team fired coordinator Shane Bowen. New coach John Harbaugh retained Bullen as the outside linebackers coach.
Bullen previously coached in Arizona from 2019-22. He was with the Dolphins from 2012-18.
There was word last week that Nathaniel Hackett would be joining the Dolphins’ staff as their quarterbacks coach, but Miami is going to have to look in a different direction.
According to multiple reports, Hackett will instead be the offensive coordinator for the Cardinals. Hackett has a number of connections to Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur.
Hackett worked as the Packers’ offensive coordinator under LaFleur’s brother Matt from 2019-2021. He moved on to a 15-game stint as the Broncos’ head coach in 2022 and then joined the Jets as their offensive coordinator for the next two seasons.
That job was available because Mike LaFleur was fired after two years running the offense on Robert Saleh’s staff. Hackett returned to Green Bay to serve as a defensive analyst for the 2025 season.
Hackett has also worked as an offensive coordinator for the Jaguars and Bills during his time in the NFL.
Mike LaFleur is the new head coach in Arizona, but he’s not new to life in the NFC West.
LaFleur spent the last three seasons as the offensive coordinator of the Rams, so he’s very familiar with what he’ll be up against as he takes over in Arizona. The Seahawks and Rams played in the NFC Championship Game while the 49ers got knocked out of the playoffs in the divisional round, which leaves the Cardinals as the division’s only team to fall short of the postseason.
Their 3-14 record left them well short of qualifying for the tournament and they’ve only qualified once in the last 10 seasons, but LaFleur said he is undaunted by the charge to turn things around in his first head coaching gig.
“If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth it . . . Every year is a blank slate,” LaFleur said at a Tuesday press conference, via the team’s website. “I’m not worried about what our record was. The record last year, all that means is we have a higher draft pick. That’s all that really matters at that point. We have to go to work to build this roster. Even if we were flipped and it was 14-3, guess what? You go right back to work. I’m just concerned about building this staff and getting to work with these guys so that when the time does come, we’re putting our best foot forward to go win football games and hopefully update that back wall.”
The Patriots are in the Super Bowl a year after going 4-13, so it’s not impossible to imagine an NFL team taking a massive leap from one season to another. There are significant differences between the Patriots and the Cardinals, but Arizona is betting that LaFleur can at least start moving them where they want to go.
Over the weekend, former Cardinals and Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians disclosed that he’s due to have open heart surgery on Friday, February 6.
On Tuesday, Arians posted an update on Twitter.
“Recently on The Today Show, I mentioned I would be having open heart surgery and I just wanted to clarify and let everyone know the procedure I am having is a common one and is something my doctors and I have been monitoring for a number of years and they recommend I correct the issue now so l can be as good as new back on the golf course ASAP,” Arians said on Twitter. “I want to thank everyone for all the prayers and well-wishes.”
Arians has overcome several health challenges over the years. He seems to be ready to take this one in stride, and he’s anxious to get back to working on his swing.
