Seattle Seahawks Open Camp as Champions, With a Backfield to Rebuild

The Seattle Seahawks began defending a Super Bowl title this week, which is a sentence that still feels new in the Pacific Northwest. Rookies reported to the Virginia Mason Athletic Center on Friday, July 17, the team rolled out its full training camp schedule, and by Monday the first round of roster housekeeping had arrived: four players placed on the physically-unable-to-perform list before the veterans even show up on July 24. The banner from February's 29-13 win over New England is hanging at Lumen Field. Now comes the harder part — proving that a 14-3 juggernaut can absorb the departure of its Super Bowl MVP and run it back. That question hangs over every bit of Seattle Seahawks news this month.

This Week in Seattle Seahawks News: PUP Moves and a Packed Camp Schedule

The first transactions of camp season landed Monday, when Seattle placed safety Nick Emmanwori, running back Kenny McIntosh, and Tyrone Broden on the PUP list, joining rookie defensive tackle Deven Eastern, who was placed Friday. McIntosh and Broden are still working back from injuries that ended their 2025 seasons on injured reserve; Emmanwori's designation is milder, given he was on the field for offseason workouts this spring. PUP players can be activated at any point in camp, so none of this is alarming yet — but if any of them are still on the list at final cutdowns, a four-game absence kicks in automatically.

The team also finalized its camp calendar: veterans report Friday, July 24, with open practices beginning July 25-26, a Back Together Weekend celebration August 1, and Football Fest at Lumen Field on August 8. Per Sports Illustrated's camp preview, the champs will also be this summer's Hard Knocks subject, with episodes beginning August 11 — so the whole league gets a weekly look inside Mike Macdonald's operation whether Seattle likes it or not.

The Season That Ended in Confetti

A quick recap for anyone who spent the winter under a rock: the 2025 Seahawks went 14-3, a franchise-best regular season, and claimed their first NFC West title since 2020 along with the conference's No. 1 seed. Then they got ruthless. They demolished the 49ers 41-6 in the divisional round, outlasted the Rams 31-27 in the NFC Championship Game, and beat the Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX at Levi's Stadium — becoming the first champion ever to play an entire postseason without committing a turnover. Kenneth Walker III ran for 135 yards and took home Super Bowl MVP. Jaxon Smith-Njigba set a franchise record with 1,793 receiving yards and was named AP Offensive Player of the Year. Macdonald, at 38, became the third-youngest head coach to win it all, and Sam Darnold — after years as a punchline — quarterbacked a champion. The defense that carried it all is largely intact, too: Leonard Williams, Devon Witherspoon, and Ernest Jones each earned second-team All-Pro honors, as did punter Michael Dickson. It was Seattle's second Lombardi, and the first since the 2013 season.

The Champs Didn't Keep Everybody

Championship rosters get expensive, and general manager John Schneider spent March making cold-blooded choices. The headline loss stings the most: Walker, the Super Bowl MVP, signed a three-year, $43.05 million deal with Kansas City. Cornerback Riq Woolen and edge rusher Boye Mafe also moved on, and safety Coby Bryant signed with Chicago. In their place, Seattle prioritized its own: Rashid Shaheed, one of the heroes of the title run, returned on a three-year, $51 million deal; cornerback Josh Jobe, who overtook Woolen on the depth chart last season, re-signed for three years and $24 million; and edge rusher Derick Hall — who had two sacks in the Super Bowl — signed a three-year, $42 million extension in early June, saying afterward, "This place is really special to me." Depth moves brought in safeties Rodney Thomas II and D'Anthony Bell and corner Noah Igbinoghene, while Jake Bobo was tendered as a restricted free agent.

The Running Back Reboot Is the Camp Battle to Watch

Here's where the roster math gets genuinely interesting. Walker is in Kansas City. Zach Charbonnet, who scored 12 regular-season touchdowns in a breakout 2025, tore his ACL during the postseason and is working his way back. McIntosh just landed on PUP. That's why Schneider — holding only four picks in April's draft — spent his first-rounder on Notre Dame running back Jadarian Price, who signed his rookie deal in May and reported Friday with the rest of the class. Between Price, veteran addition Emanuel Wilson, and whatever Charbonnet can give once healthy, the backfield that powered a championship is being rebuilt on the fly. How Macdonald and offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak divide those carries in August will tell us plenty about the September plan.

The secondary has its own sorting to do. Jobe and Igbinoghene give the corner room new shape post-Woolen, Emmanwori's health bears watching at safety, and former undrafted find Ty Okada — who stepped in as a trusted starter after Bryant's departure — is playing for a real payday.

Contract Watch: Witherspoon and the Year-Two Darnold Question

The front office isn't done writing checks. Devon Witherspoon, the fifth overall pick in 2023 and now arguably the league's best cornerback after earning Pro Football Focus's top corner grade last season, is negotiating an extension — though the two sides reportedly remain apart on terms. Darnold, entering the second season of his three-year, $100.5 million deal, has a Lombardi on his resume and every incentive to force the market's hand with another big year. Charbonnet and Okada round out the group of Seahawks with money on their minds. For a defending champion, keeping the locker room focused while half of it is playing for contracts is its own kind of coaching test — and it will play out on national television, courtesy of Hard Knocks.

What's Next on the Seattle Seahawks Calendar

The next seven weeks are fully scripted, and they end somewhere no Seahawks team has ever started a season.

• July 24: Veterans report to the VMAC in Renton
• July 25-26: First open practices of camp
• August 1: Back Together Weekend
• August 8: Football Fest at Lumen Field
• August 11: Hard Knocks premiere, per SI
• August 15: Preseason opener vs. Dallas at Lumen Field
• August 23: At Tennessee, preceded by a joint practice in Nashville
• August 28: Preseason finale at Kansas City — hello, Kenneth Walker
• September 9: NFL Kickoff opener vs. New England at Lumen Field — a Wednesday night, and a Super Bowl LX rematch

Yes, a Wednesday. The league handed the champs an unusual midweek slot to raise the curtain on 2026, and the opponent is the same Patriots team — with Drake Maye a year older and angrier — that Seattle beat in February. The full slate includes six primetime games and a Christmas date at Lumen.

So that's the state of Seattle Seahawks news as camp begins: a champion with its quarterback, its coach, its best receiver, and most of its defense intact, retooling the backfield and paying its young stars in real time. Repeating is brutally hard — no team has done it since the 2004 Patriots — but this week, with rookies in the building and the schedule on the wall, Seattle starts finding out whether last season was a peak or a beginning.