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.
Chargers Clips
Marcus Brady is following Jesse Minter from the Chargers to the Ravens.
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports that the Ravens are hiring Brady as their passing game coordinator.
Brady, 46, spent the past two seasons with Minter as the Chargers’ passing game coordinator. The Chargers interviewed him for the offensive coordinator job that went to Mike McDaniel.
Brady has worked with Philip Rivers, Jalen Hurts and Justin Herbert, among others, in his career. He now gets to work with Lamar Jackson under new offensive coordinator Declan Doyle.
Brady spent five seasons with the Colts (2018-22) and was elevated to offensive coordinator in his final two seasons in Indianapolis. The Colts fired him during the 2022 season, and he joined the Eagles as an offensive consultant (2022) and then as a senior offensive assistant (2023) before joining the Chargers.
Brady coached in the Canadian Football League from 2009-17. He was part of three Grey Cup championship teams, winning back-to-back titles as a wide receivers coach with the Montreal Alouettes (2009-10) and another with the Toronto Argonauts (2017) as their offensive coordinator.
The Chargers could hire Adam Gase in an offensive assistant coach role, Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports reports.
Gase has not coached since 2020 when he was in his final season as head coach of the Jets. He spent two seasons as the Jets’ head coach after three seasons (2016-18) as the Dolphins’ head coach.
Gase is 32-48 as a head coach.
He was an assistant coach for the Lions (2005-07), 49ers (2008), Broncos (2009-14) and Bears (2015).
Gase was the offensive coordinator of the Broncos for two seasons there and in the same role for the Bears in his one season there.
The Associated Press informed the 50 voters for the various NFL awards that, after the announcement of the winners, the ballots would be disclosed. The AP ultimately chose not to do it.
We asked the AP about the decision to refrain from revealing the ballots.
“We’ve given out the AP NFL Awards for many years, and sometimes we try new approaches,” AP director of media and corporate communications Patrick Maks said via email to PFT. “For example, last year for the first time we released individual voter ballots. This year for the first time we worked with a third party to tabulate votes. As ever, there are no restrictions on voters revealing their individual ballots after the awards are announced, if they choose to do so.”
Last year, the ballots were disclosed even though the voters were not informed in advance that it would happen.
The AP also did not release the full tabulation of points for the awards, opting to list the top five and, where applicable, any others who received first-place votes.
For 2025, the MVP vote was the closest it had been since Peyton Manning and Steve McNair shared the award in 2023. Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford finished with 24 first-place votes and 366 points. Patriots quarterback Drake Maye secured 23 first-place votes and 361 points.
A first-place vote counts as 10 points, a second-place vote is worth five, a third-place vote equates to three points, a fourth-place vote is worth two points, and a fifth-place vote counts for one.
Two first-place votes went to Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who finished third. One first-place vote went to Chargers quarterback Justin Hebert, who did not finish in the top five.
Sam Monson disclosed (possibly while under the impression that all votes would be revealed by the AP) that he gave Herbert the first-place vote.
Without full disclosure of all ballots, it’s impossible to pinpoint the specific decision(s) that may have swung the final MVP outcome away from Maye and toward Stafford.
Regardless, transparency is good. Last year, the AP applied full transparency. This year, the AP did not. Next year, who knows?
The Scouting Combine is still three weeks away, but #ConfrontationSeason has already begun.
From the folks at Kaplan & Crew, via Brandon Contes of AwfulAnnouncing.com, comes a report that former Chargers quarterback Ryan Leaf verbally accosted former Chargers physician David Chao at Radio Row, the center of the NFL media universe in the days preceding Super Bowl LX.
“Ryan Leaf has got a bone to pick with everybody,” Scott Kaplan said. “He goes on Twitter and he just tries to rattle cages. He comes over and before you know it, he is in Dr. David Chao’s face. In his face!”
Chao, as Kaplan describes it, was non-confrontational during the exchange. Chao invited Leaf to join him during Chao’s imminent appearance on Ross Tucker’s podcast, so that they could discuss the situation.
“Ryan Leaf goes, ‘Fuck you and fuck Ross Tucker,’” Kaplan said, adding that the situation became “very aggressive.”
“I’m not making a big deal out of it,” Chao said in a subsequent visit with Kaplan & Crew. “I wish the best for Ryan. I’m not sure why over the ten years here at Radio Row, I’ve seen him dozens of times, this is the first time he’s ever said anything to me.”
Chao explained that he doesn’t plan to do anything about it.
“Snitches get stitches,” Chao said. “I am not gonna report Ryan to anyone. It didn’t get physical, it was words. Was it inappropriate? You be the judge.”
As noted by Contes, Leaf once sued Chao, alleging negligence in Chao’s treatment of Leaf’s injuries during Chao’s time with the Chargers.
The Chargers and coach Jim Harbaugh have found their replacement for Jesse Minter.
The team has announced that Western Michigan defensive coordinator Chris O’Leary will become the new defensive coordinator.
O’Leary had served as the Chargers’ safeties coach in 2024. He spent six seasons before that at Notre Dame.
Before that, O’Leary was a graduate assistant at Georgia State for in 2015 and 2016. He was hired to be the safeties coach at Florida Tech in 2017.
The return to the NFL in the position of defensive coordinator counts as O’Leary’s biggest break yet. And it puts him him position, like Minter, to eventually become a head coach at the pro or college level.
The Chargers hired Mike McDaniel as their new offensive coordinator and they’re adding a coach from his Miami staff to Jim Harbaugh’s staff as well.
Cameron Wolfe of NFL Media reports that Butch Barry will join the Chargers as their offensive line coach. Mike Devlin had that job in 2025, but was let go along with offensive coordinator Greg Roman this month.
Barry spent the last three seasons in the same job for the Dolphins. The Dolphins led the league in yards and finished second in points scored in Barry’s first season, but the Dolphins slipped to the back-half of the rankings while missing the playoffs the last two seasons.
Barry worked for the Broncos, 49ers, Packers and Buccaneers before joining McDaniel in Miami.
Jim Leonhard was already a popular defensive coordinator candidate and now another team would like to speak with him.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, the Chargers have put in a request to interview Leonard for their defensive coordinator vacancy.
Lenohard, 43, has been with the Broncos since 2024. He was the club’s defensive backs coach and pass game coordinator in his first year before being promoted to assistant head coach/defensive pass game coordinator for 2025.
The Bills have strong interest in bringing in Leonhard as their defensive coordinator under new head coach Joe Brady. The Jets also have interviewed Leonhard for their vacancy.
Mike McDaniel held his first press conference since being hired as the Chargers’ offensive coordinator on Tuesday and quarterback Justin Herbert was a major topic of conversation.
McDaniel was effusive in his praise of Herbert’s talents and said the “short answer” is that he hasn’t worked with a quarterback who has the same capabilities as his current one. He’s not the first to wax on Herbert’s skills, but the Chargers have not been able to translate that into playoff success to this point in Herbert’s career. McDaniel said one of the things he hopes to do is create an offense that’s less reliant on Herbert’s individual talents.
“I think not relying too heavily on Justin’s ability to do above and beyond I think is critical to maximize those types of opportunities,” McDaniel said. “That’ll be one of the first things that we’ll try to do is take a little off his plate so that he is free to do that when his greatness is required.”
McDaniel did not share all the ways he plans to do that, but he did emphasize that offenses need to “take advantage of that space” provided by defenses before snaps in order to both protect the quarterback and build momentum as a unit.
“There’s a lot of incredible plays that Justin has made,” McDaniel said. “He’s firmly capable, and sometimes as a coach you can rely upon that a little too much. There’s schematic ways to get completions that maybe all three quarterbacks on your roster would be capable of doing. Easier completions, not putting so much — It can be taxing over time for a player to necessitate an incredible play too often to be able to score points and win football games. So you try to take it off of him by creating some low-cost, high-reward offense that he’s firmly capable of doing but maybe a player of lesser talent would be capable of doing as well.”
McDaniel said that Herbert has not “neared the ceiling” of what he can do in the NFL and the Chargers are banking on their new coordinator helping him get closer to that level in 2026.
The Chargers have interviewed a third member of their coaching staff for their defensive coordinator vacancy.
The team announced that they completed an interview with defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale. Outside linebackers coach Dylan Roney and safeties coach Adam Fuller have also interviewed for the vacancy created by Jesse Minter’s departure to become the Ravens’ head coach.
Clinkscale has been with the Chargers since Jim Harbaugh was hired in 2024 and he spent the previous three seasons on Harbaugh’s Michigan staff. He coached at several other colleges before being hired at Michigan.
Rams assistant head coach/defensive passing game coordinator Aubrey Pleasant and former Ravens defensive coordinator Zach Orr have also interviewed for the position.
